How many internships are too many?

Hi All!

I'm a rising junior and have currently held 4 internships (2 were concurrent). Their length ranged from 10 weeks (a semester) to 18 months. I'm very interested in finance (PE/IB). My two most recent internships have built towards this path. My question is this--how many internships are too many before it looks bad? My summer internship will end mid-August. If I get an internship for the fall semester, will it appear that I'm jumping around too much?

Thoughts and feedback are appreciated. Thank you in advance.

 
Most Helpful

Unless you're tight for money, you don't need more than 3/4 internships imho. In fact, even two are good enough. And 3 things matter. In descending order:

  1. Your title/what your title said you did. Notice that this is not necessarily what you actually did. Some people have "junior analyst" and didn't open excel once in their internships. While someone who actually did the work will be significantly more prepared for both the interview and the job, resume screeners, recruiters will (mostly) just look at the title.
  2. Company. Big name = better. Some astute screeners/recruiters may realize that an intern probably gets more significant exposure at a smaller firm, but most will not. They'll just be attracted to names they recognize.
  3. A good recommendation. They'll background check. Make sure you weren't fired.

If you're a finance/econ student aiming to work in finance, stick to finance internships. If you were engineering, highlight the "soft" skills your internships (if they were engineering internships) required. If you were liberal arts, highlight the "hard/quant/finance" skills your internships required.

 

Many thanks to you, and all above. I've done a few internships, one because I genuinely enjoy them, and two, because I'm putting myself through college and the pay is often 2-3x any on-campus job I could get. My two most recent were in finance (I'm a finance/econ/accounting major) I'm working to do as Blockhead said and cycle internships with relevant experiences/most impressive internships.

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