Summer Internships

The best opportunity students have to get a full-time job in banking is to get a summer internship! These positions can be extremely difficult to come by, even more so than full-time jobs. This is because they hire less interns than they do full-time analysts while extending summer offers to specific students, which they feel are exceptional candidates that would make it as full-time analysts. From this pool of summer interns, many of the banks are extending their full-time offers. The positions that are not filled by the summer interns are then taken and filled by the students the banks recruit on and off campus each Fall.

Landing a summer internship will be a much different process for each student, depending on if they are coming from a target vs. non-target or non-core school. Look for a future blog coming soon, which lays out the time line for recruiting. I will discuss the time line for internships and full-time positions, both analysts and associates, for core and non-core schools. I will give a quick overview here of both processes.

For the student coming from a target school, the banks will be on-campus sometime during the end of the year, late October to December. Make sure to check with your career services to find out the exact dates each bank will be visiting campus. Attend these informational sessions, submit your resumes on time, and wait to hear back when you will be interviewing with them when they are back on campus.

As for the non-target or non-core schools, the banks will generally not be coming to campus. Although, you too should make sure to check with you career services department to find out if any banks (boutique, regional offices, or back office - operations & IT) will be on-campus. Most likely, your best and only option will be via networking, networking, networking, and networking!! You need to build your network of business professionals via local internships, school clubs, faculty, alumni, friends, neighbors, relatives, and anyone else you can speak with. I will go into more detail in future blog posts dedicated to specifically to networking and the non-target student approach (my personal experience). In my personal experience, I built my network by flying out to NYC six times on my own dime to meet and interview with different investment banks. Most likely, you too will have to do the same!

Other options include using services such as University of Dreams, Swiss Finance Academy, and the Tuck Business Bridge Program. University of Dreams is a great way to get an internship in another city if you don't have a lot of connections, a strong network, and/or are late deciding what you want to do. They most likely cannot get you a internship in investment banking or sales and trading, although I have a friend who did get an i-banking internship w/a boutique through them. The finance internships at the big banks they are most likely to get you are in private wealth management and a few in asset management.

As for Swiss Finance Academy, from what I have heard, don't pay the initial application fee unless you are willing to guarantee and commit to going. This means you have to pay the full price up front, which is a lot of cash.

The Tuck Business Bridge Program looks interesting, but appears to be very difficult to get into. I don't know much about it other than that. I am telling you about all of these programs, not to promote them, but rather to make you aware of other alternatives and programs that are out there. The decision is yours to make. If you think you can get an internship on your own, then go for it. If you do not think you can then these are some other options. My advice is to keep networking and practicing your interviewing so you can get a job on your own.

For now, check out these videos below on what a summer internship is like for students at Citigroup and Deutsche Bank. These will hopefully give you a better idea of what they are like and what you have to look forward to!

About This Video:
Hear from a first year associate in the investment banking division what you can expect to learn from your internship at Citi. Citi's internship program offers a dozen different career opportunities to choose from.



About This Video:
The people and experiences you will find at Deutsche Bank during your internship



Intern Memo

Here is a blog specifically for interns: The Intern Memo. The Intern Memo is a free email newsletter with a mix of event listings, intern stories and career advice specifically for interns--basically all you need to land the perfect internship and then to get you through it.