Offer rescinded what can I do now?

..... Set an alarm and wake up, you think that would be a priority??

for this summer? try to get a tech internship...anything really. if you can't get that...go teach english abroad for the summer somewhere exotic...better to have a good story for fall recruiting.

lol, if I were a CEO and an intern missed a call with me because he was passed out, I'd rescind it too. don't get me wrong, I've done stupid things - these are life lessons. best thing you can do going forward is to keep hustling and try not to let these few chances slip away.

Dude, really bad look. What if you did this and missed a client call?

As an intern you were insanely lucky to even have the opportunity to talk to the founder. The fact that you didn't think to charge your phone or have more than one alarm set was a massive misstep on your part and I would take this as a big lesson on how important timing is.

At this point it's pretty difficult since I believe most bank's hiring cycles for interns is over. If I were you I would reach out to anyone and everyone in your network and talk to them about getting an internship. There are a lot of smaller groups that would be happy to have an intern come in and help work, especially if it's free. It may not be your first choice of places to work, but it is better than nothing and as a Junior you definitely need to get something on your resume this summer.

Appreciate the comments guys. Definitely, a lesson learned the hard way. The grind will continue and I hope to post good news in the near future.

Kind of relevant I guess, but I’ve been using an app called Sleep Cycle for over a year. You set the alarm and it wakes you up within a time range (that you set), e.g 8-8:30am, but picks the best moment to wake you up so you’re not groggy. It tracks your sleeping throughout the night and shows stats over weeks/months (if you care about that). Regardless, it also has a feature where if your alarm is set, but your phone isn’t charging for some reason and hits 10% battery, the alarm will go off so you can wake up and realize it’s not charging.

Downlod Sleep Cycle and you’ll never miss a call from a CEO :)

Dude, get a real alarm clock. Takes a few AA batteries. Enough with all this high tech gizmo gadgetry that's not needed. Use your phone as a backup so you have two sources (disaster recovery if you will)

I've been using the same one for over 15 yrs and it's never not worked. Cost $15 at Walgreens. It doesn't have to be sexy. It's an alarm clock for god's sake!

Oh and BTW, these four rules will serve you well going forward:

1. Say Please and Thank you
2. Be on time (early)
3. Finish what you start
4. Do what you say you are going to do

People who don't do these four things can't be (and aren't) taken seriously.

Maybe i’m old fashioned, but you’re ‘losing out’ on an unpaid internship? If they aren’t paying you, why wouldn’t they just take you anyway? Also, how is that even legal? Minimum wage is a federal mandate, as far as I know.

I don't know man...

If you can't remember to make a scheduled call with the CEO maybe you don't deserve this one

Where is this?

Why would the founder call an intern? Also, why would you be so important to him that he would fight the HR risk associated with screwing up a 20 year olds life...

Something doesn’t add up in this story

It's an unpaid internship in IB so it probs wasn't that great of a gig anyways.

Go find a real internship that actually pays real money. Why even bother wasting time on an unpaid internship in this day and age when every semi-reputable company pays their interns?

Be strong and keep your head up. Better opportunities will come up for you. If you need a paid internship than don't be ashamed to ask for it. By being honest, you will gain more respect and trust. Yes, you will get negative responses, but you will also get positive results.

Keep on grinding, and things will turn around. You got this! You are young and will make mistakes which you will learn from them.

Also, f*ck that founder. I am sure he had done the same thing when he was young. NO ONE IS PERFECT.

You dodged a bullet.

You should have woken up, but the founder sounds like a fucking dick and you dont want to subject yourself to that bullshit, even for the summer. Somehow its always the unpaid internship CEOs that are the biggest assholes and expect the most for fucking slave labor.

The bar is low for unpaid internships, dime a dozen. Keep up the hustle.

And fuck all these guys on WSO saying I would have fired you too, bunch of keyboard warrior princess bitches.

Live and learn.

EDIT: heres some life knowledge - the mistake was saying you overslept.

next time make up a lie: family emergency, emergency room visit, etc. meetings get canceled all the time, dont raise your hand and expose a dumb ass mistake. Lie, lie, lie.

Let this be your first experience with a company that treats you like dirt. If they treat you this way for being 15 minutes late, could you imagine what kind of on-the-job pressure you would be facing? If they the lack of honor to rescind an outstanding internship offer, then they wouldn't hesitate to fire you over a trivial matter once you are in the job, which would be much worse because by then you would have made sacrifices to structure your life and schedule around that company.

Life happens, and in most other places rescheduling a phone call isn't such a big deal. The only reason someone would act in the matter this CEO did is because he get a high off of the power of treating some college kid like crap. Part of what enables folks like this is that the universities train their students to grovel in front of egomaniac executives like this who don't know the basics of treating other people with respect.

That said, keep looking for opportunities and seek out a place that will treat you better. Forget about that jerk. You will be better off in the long run.

One tip - you don't have to explain yourself for why you are late. Just say you had a personal problem or something came up. Keep it ambiguous. You sound like a conscientious person so unless you make a habit of being late for things, just brush it off and move on. Learn the art of setting boundaries - that will make your life much less stressful.

Live and learn is best advice. The lesson though is in this industry you need to be a lion and fierce. The passion needs to shine through. There are so many people who have a connection, a better GPA, a better resume, that the only thing that separates you from someone else is not your industriousness but your passion for the gig in question. Be passionate. Pick your head up and move on and learn the lesson. Your going to fail in so many other ways, but learn to pick back up or you'll never survive in finance

You're better off without the internship. Anyone who works a finance internship for no pay is a loser. Anybody who offers a finance internship for no pay is breaking the law.

I agree with other posters; going "sudden death" on anyone for missing a call is a major dick move. My standard for getting pissed off at someone is three missed calls.

I love all the advice about setting another alarm. No shit - pretty sure that’s obvious now. It is a life lesson, one that I’ve unfortunately had to learn several times and had multiple meetings with senior folks that I’d rather not have. I go to sleep late and getting up is hard, that’s not going to change so you just have to do whatever you need to correct for yourself. You’ll figure that out on your own.

1) don’t dwell. It’s over and unpaid internships are bullshit anyway. I’ve never taken one. That shouldn’t be a thing and you’re no worse off for it. Who the hell can afford to live in NY with no cash coming in.

2) LinkedIn is a magical place. Get on. Leverage any network you have and apply like crazy. Any (paid) internship is better than none at all. Don’t let people make you think they aren’t available. Perhaps not as prestigious but I guarantee places are still looking.

3) If you don’t get an internship for some reason, get a professional summer job - bank teller, corporate assistant, etc.. and use your final year of school to get involved to beef up the resume. Everyone has a story and if you can tell yours in the right way it won’t matter.

4) DONT DWELL AGAIN. You have no idea how many opportunities will come and go between today and when you turn 25. If you are good, and intelligent, and can convey that in a meaningful way it will all work out in the end.

I think the key problem here is the banking industry. I once had my phone go off during an in-person interview with a senior manager at a hedge fund, and I still got the offer. There's a couple possibilities here

1) I was interviewing for a quantitative developer position, and I was especially qualified for the role. Technical talent is hard to find nowadays, with tech companies and trading firms competing for the same talent, so I had more leverage than someone interviewing for a banking position, which is a job that can be done by a wider pool of people so each individual candidate is more replaceable.

2) The senior manager was just a nicer person. This could also be correlated with the types of people you'll typically find in the quant buy-side versus banking industries.

3) I apologized immediately and dealt with the issue swiftly.

These are some possible explanations for why a similar screw-up in a different context can lead to different results.

At the end of the day I don't think they would have given you a housing stipend, in which case you may have had to back out anyway. Although this isn't a great look, this isn't even close to the myriad of moronic emails interns have sent to bankers which subsequently were sent to everyone else on Wall Street. You don't know who this CEO knows but I doubt he'll go out of his way to screw you out of other offers.

If you're set on banking I would compile two lists: one for every person in your college's alumni database who works at a bank, and another for banks / small buy-side shops that are either near your college or hometown (even if they are small shops). I'd email as many people as you can and offer to work for free over the Summer. The reality is that most people won't respond but some definitely will and they may be looking for help.

I actually did this my senior year of college and ended up doing two unpaid internships for very small banking groups in between classes. The larger banks I interviewed with in the Fall liked the story and the proactive mentality and I got two offers.

If this doesn't work you have a few backup plans. You could ask some professors if there is any way you could score some Summer work helping in the endowment office. It's not I-Banking, but it's still valuable work and you'll learn how money managers think about and approach investment opportunities and risks, much like how bankers approach sell-side and buy-side engagements.

If that doesn't work ask professors if they need help doing research. It'll be boring and not directly translatable to banking, but it's better than going home and working at a restaurant or retail. Lastly, if none of that works you could always take some classes and try and get ahead so that you can concentrate more on recruiting in the Fall.

lot of douchey responses in this thread - no shit he meant to wake up. he is already kicking himself

At this point what's done is done, I'd learn from it and move on. My thoughts on your situation and the general commentary are below.

For all those people bashing you, telling you you're an idiot etc, I wouldn't take those too seriously. You know you messed up, I'm sure you're upset and frustrated, and hopefully you learn your lesson. Life is about the little things, sometimes a few min can make a huge difference the same way a few words can make a huge difference the same way a few small actions can make a huge difference. It's a good lesson to be careful and mindful of your actions.

I also wouldn't be quick to blame the CEO of the business for being ruthless nor would I go back and try to beg for a job from him. Could he have overlooked you missing the meeting as a silly rookie mistake and still hired you? Sure. At the same time, needing to train and hire an intern, even an unpaid one, is a drain on the company, and after he gave you a chance to learn(at the expense of his time and effort) you first ask for a housing stipend and then have the gall to blow off a call with him because you aren't able to wake up in time?

I'm not sure what your money situation is, but if the opportunity was really that great, I would have fought to find a way to fund the ~$1500/month for 3 months. Could you have asked family/friends? Gotten a job on the side? Seems like that was the first mistake, but obviously hindsight is 20-20.

Anyways, learn from the mistake, it could have been worse, and hopefully it'll be the last time you ever oversleep for something important.

Plot twist: The job was at Tobin Co. in which case OP just dodged a bullet.

That stinks, kind of a perfect storm of mis-cues and missed connections. Honestly, as much as it sucks to miss out on your SA opportunity, they kind of sound like a bucket shop and there's better seats out there. Personally, I think that's BS they 86'd you for asking for some housing assistance and missing a call. Any shop with any legitimacy would kick you some compensation for a summer of hard work (especially for a broke college kid). Even the small 10 person shops I talked to when I was in school about an internship where offering pro-rated summer pay.

You're certainly behind the 8-ball for this summer, but maybe not all is lost. I'd recommend kicking your search for a replacement internship into high gear. Scour your job board and google searches for any last minute openings. Reach out to alum or anyone that you may have 1st/2nd degree connection with on linkedin and see what shakes loose. If you hustle your butt off, something may still happen for you. Good luck.

This may sound harsh, but if they're not paying you -- it's probably not a legit internship. There are so many court cases on unpaid internships. You're better off without this job.

Why is your housing their problem?

When you called them to say you would "like some help" you effectively rejected their offer. You applied and interviewed for an unpaid internship, they gave it to you, and you called back asking for pay. Kind of an amazing story really.

For everyone bashing unpaid internships: they're probably the most upwardly mobile thing around. Vast majority of those getting paid internships are the target school kids who were going to break in one way or another. It's the unpaid roles at the less well-known shops that give the non-target kid a chance to build credibility and differentiate.

Life's all about experience and perspective - you can't learn unless you experience and you won't be successful unless you are able to look at situations from different perspectives. When something shitty like this happens be able to step back and analyze what went wrong, what you can do differently next time, and what next steps you can take to move forward.

Be thankful something like this happened so early in your career that the only consequence is you are out an unpaid internship - don't forget the feeling it's given you and don't let it happen again. I hate to break it to you but set backs are going to continue to happen, that's life; it's a matter of how you handle them and what you're able to take away from each one. Don't take the guys bashing you on here too seriously. We're all human - we make mistakes and learn.

So since it's now end of July, I'm curious - how did the summer end up going for you? Were you able to find a replacement opportunity?