Sophomore with No Interview From Prop Trading Firms
I'm a sophomore from a target school with a 3.5 GPA. I applied to three top prop trading firms and didn't get interview from anyone. At the moment, I'm very stressed out thinking that I won't be able to land any S&T internship this summer. At this late of the game, should I kept on applying to other less known prop trading firms or should I just give up on S&T for this summer? Anything that I can do to maximize my chance of landing an internship?
Prop shops take like 10-12 interns with the intention of converting them all to FT, they generally don't want sophomores, although I guess it is possible
Does anybody have thoughts on potential sophomore summer positions for those looking to land a summer internship at a legit prop shop in junior summer? Apart from S&T (and considering prop shops heavily prefer juniors), I'm not sure what to target for sophomore summer.
Anything in finance. AM and PWM tend to take a good amount of sophomore interns. Obviously getting something more trading related would be ideal, but you're just a sophomore and firms understand this. In my opinion and from my own experience, getting an internship sophomore year is harder than getting one junior year or getting a full-time offer due to the fact that, as mentioned above, most places don't want sophomores but you need something to be competitive come junior year recruiting. Also, start-ups and consulting jobs (even if they're not directly related to finance) tend to be good as well. I personally worked at a start-up(nothing fancy) my soph summer and was able to land an S&T internship my junior summer and full time offer as well as another S&T full-time offer from a BB. So don't freak out if you can't find anything too good, as long as you do something you'll be fine.
I also know fellow interns who worked in government jobs their soph summer so you can also go that route as well. Again, finance and specifically something trading related would be ideal and help your resume to stand out more come junior year, but you will by no means be disadvantaged if you don't get one. The one caveat being if you go to a non-target/semi-target, then doing something trading related or any front-office work will greatly help you increase you odds of getting an interview.
There are not many top prop shops that take sophomore interns. In fact, a few of the best prop shops don't take interns at all.
First of all, 3 applications is nothing. Use the law of large numbers to your advantage, always.
Prop shops don't have large intern classes, and consequently you have little chance of getting in as a sophomore. Your best bet for trading as a sophomore (although in my personal opinion you should be a little bit more humble and also apply for PWM/MO such as market risk roles) is S&T at a non-BB such as BNP Paribas, PNC, etc.
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