Too late for an internship???

I am a Junior in college going to be a senior next year. Is it too late to get an internship?? I know majority of the recruiting is all done, but does anyone have any advice or ideas? I just returned from studying abroad and am behind in getting an internship for the summer.

 
noway:
What city?
I don't mean to be a 2nd hijacker of the OP's thread but this topic can certainly relate to many relevant people who frequently visit this forum. Would you happen to know of any shops hiring in Atlanta, Georgia, noway? I need an internship desperately as being in my senior year and graduating in May already.
 
Best Response
IneedAdollar:
I am located in Seattle... not much of a finance scene... I am not sure what steps I should take to land an internship in a trading position

I don't know any shops in Seattle, but let me tell you what you should do to find out.

  1. Do a Google search for trading shops in Seattle. Go about 40 pages deep. Seriously. I would log each company in a spreadsheet so it's easy to refer back to later.

  2. Go through each company's site and find an MD or VP or someone high up who is an alumni from your school. If they don't have an alumni, just pick whoever. If they don't have people listed, then go look for the career section or the contact section, although your chances will be pretty low.

  3. Email that said contact with your resume, cover letter, and a short concise letter introducing yourself, highlighting your connection with them (ie. alumni status), and what you're looking for. Do not settle for emailing HR unless there is no other option.

To be honest, the entire process sucks. If there's a lot of alumni, you'll hear back from 1/3, if you're lucky, and of that, 1/4 may be looking for or considering interns. But think of it this way: all you need is one offer. Be proactive, and you'll probably end up with something.

 

Get anything as relevant as possible, even if you have to work for free. Just make sure to do something you can talk about and learn from, and then hopefully you can leverage that into the position you want next year.

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Ok, I don't mean to hijack your thread but I'm a sophmore seeking similar advice who's goal is to get into trading. I go to a non-target with about a 3.2 (but its rising every semester), and so-so extracirriculars but no meaningful related experience. I feel like its mandatory that i get some kind of fin. experience this summer to have a chance of a decent junior year internship. I will be living in Chattanooga, Tennessee and I go to school in Knoxville, TN. There are no real trading firms in cities like these are there? I figure my best chance is to look for a part-time unpaid internship at a small, local PWM firm but I was also going to cold-email/call some of the BB's that have tiny PWM branches in my city (BOA, UBS, MS each occupy a couple floors of a skyscraper). Would an unpaid, part-time position at a 2 person, no-name PWM firm fetching coffee and printing copies be significant/sufficient resume experience to help me land a legit junior year S&T internship. What about an unpaid internship with a tiny branch of a big name BB. What are the options for a sophmore with pretty uncompetitive credentials this late in the season, living in a city like Chattanooga, TN.

 

I have no idea what the scene is like in Chattanooga, but since you're not going to get substantial technical experience regardless of what you'd do this summer, I'd reach out to people in the PWM guys in the BB office. That way, you could at least have an eye catching brand name on your resume. A lot of people do this. They get an unrelated brand-name internship on their resume sophomore summer and leverage it into something more relevant the year after.

 

Yeah, honestly I would strongly prefer a name like BOA or UBS or even Morgan Keegan on my resume. But being realistic, is sending email's to random branch managers I find on company websites really going to give me a hope of landing an imaginary internship? Do these guys even care enough to read a cover letter/resume attached through an email, considering they probably dont even deal with recruiting/interns? Even if they do read it, these companies have a formal recruiting process/season. Can a branch manager simply invent a unpaid position that doesnt formally exist just because I sent an email asking for one.

How do I go about obtaining a position like this?

Furthermore, how do I make a connect my experience/skills with the company in my cover letter, I have NO past experience to relate to the position. (If i even knew what the position was). How do you even write a cover letter in a situation this vague.

 

I was just saying that the BB would be of course much preferable when compared to a small no-brand name shop that does the same thing. It's definitely possible to go from a small PWM internship to an S&T one a year later, and it's been done plenty of times.

If MDs don't want to hire, they won't hire. Just contact alumni and people you may know and something may work out for you at a smaller place.

For cover letters, you don't have to have relevant experience. Just figure out what skill you think that position will be looking for, and highlight how you may have those skills through other things like student groups or what not. You don't have to work in finance to write a finance-targeted cover letter.

 

Be willing to take a job anywhere you can get one. If you get the chance to work in a place like NYC for the summer you'd have a lot more fun than you would in Chattanooga.

 

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