Ever since freshman year of college, the priority for any student is to not only succeed in school academically but also to obtain that coveted summer internship to start developing my own work experience. I have worked for Emory’s Goizueta Business School’s career center for a year, landed an internship at JP Morgan, after graduation, I worked full time in FP&A (financial planning and analysis) for a mid-sized tech company, Agilysys. Currently, I work for Bloomberg LP as a data analyst where I specialize in equity fundamentals. Here are some key tips I would give to anyone who wants to land an internship or job in finance based on the year you are in school.
Freshman/Sophomore Years: Gaining Experience
As a freshman/sophomore, you have just gotten into your school and are still trying to figure out what you want to major or do. Summer internships or work can be a great time to explore your career options and companies. What I would say is as an underclassman there’s very little pressure on you to get a very top brand named internship at a JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, etc. Your priority is to utilize your network, your school’s network, or just online applications through Indeed or LinkedIn to get experience. Any experience is good in reality. I personally worked for a start-up health tech company and got a $500 stipend for the 3 months doing research and web development.
My freshman year internship actually led me to gain connections to my sophomore year internship at a company in the same building which was a non-profit real estate business. As for salaries, I made something like $2/hour pro rata freshman year and $15/hour my sophomore year. What I would recommend is not focusing on pay but about gaining experience!
Junior Year: Connections and Name Brand
Junior year is the big one, and arguably the most important summer because it’s your foundation to which you build on for your post graduate job. Here is where I would recommend you apply everywhere. Don’t limit yourself because of your major or what you think you should do/apply to. Here is where I would say that name brand can be useful and something you may want to strive for because the reputation they provide can give you validation or an upper hand when looking for full time employment. This is because many of these larger firms offer extensive training programs and networks which can open doors for you which you probably wouldn’t have exposure to otherwise.
My junior year, I interned at JP Morgan’s Private Bank. I applied through their online application around September and received a call about one month later. After the initial phone screening, I was invited to the Super day (in-person interview) in November and ultimately received the offer in December. The Super day comprised of two back-to-back interviews with two senior level managers. If you’d like me to go into more detail about the interview process feel free to reach out!
Ultimately, your junior year internship is a vital stepping stone to establishing your credentials and arguably the most important thing recruiters look for your senior year! Finance recruiting in particular has been starting earlier and earlier with many postings starting during the summer a full year prior! This means you have to be on top of your stuff with a polished resume and cover letter, both of which should be one page maximum. If you would like specific resume help or cover letter help, (active voice, word choice, networking, etc) again feel free to reach out!
Senior Year
Senior year is the culmination of all the work and experience you’ve accumulated the past three years. Again, we want to utilize our own social networks as well as alumni and past internship networks to get our foot in the door. Ultimately the difference between full time recruitment and an internship is the commitment which the firm undertakes. If they hire the wrong intern, they only have to live with that bad decision for three months but with a full time employee, it’s a much longer time period since analyst positions are typically three years long. This means that full time recruiting has its own unique challenges compared to internship recruiting. When thinking about full time recruiting, you have to leverage all the experience you have. Additionally, being flexible on pay, location and job function can drastically impact your hire-ability. Think about it this way, would you as an employer rather hire the local candidate who you don’t need to spend money on to fly in and interview and can start asap, or the candidate 500 miles away which you need to fly in and then potentially deal with moving and travel issues? Finally, once you get your offer letter, make sure you negotiate your salary and benefits!
Finally, if you found any of this information useful please leave a like or comment! Additionally, feel free to contact me if you need clarification or additional help!