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Calling all future masters of the universe!
If you're a college sophomore interested in working on Wall Street after graduation, it's go time. The process for landing a 2025 summer internship starts now.
Snagging a summer internship at a leading investment bank is often the starting point for a career on Wall Street, whether in private-equity dealmaking or hedge-fund trading. These summer gigs pay well, too — Morgan Stanley's application portal says its base rate is nearly $53 per hour, more than double the national average, which according to Indeed, is less than $20 per hour.
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Of course, getting an internship is notoriously competitive and can require months of preparation and persistence. The biggest US banks receive hundreds of thousands of applications for a small number of roles each summer — meaning the acceptance rate can be stiffer than an Ivy League university's.
AdvertisementTake Goldman Sachs, for instance. It accepted just 1.5% of candidates into its 2022 summer internship class out of more than 236,000 applications worldwide, as BI previously reported.
So how do you become one of the lucky few to receive an offer? Experts say that a sense of ambition, the willingness to hustle, and investing plenty of time in preparation are all crucial.
Business Insider's comprehensive coverage includes more than a dozen stories fleshing out the inside track on everything from how interns spend their days, to the recruiting process, to the types of interview questions one might be asked. Execs from firms like Goldman Sachs and Lazard are spilling strategies and hacks to help you feel equipped and ready.
Advertisement"When you think about the recruiting timeline and the matriculation to full-time analyst program, that journey really starts two years earlier," Andrea O'Neal, a senior coach with Management Leadership for Tomorrow, an organization that helps prepare diverse students for finance industry careers, told BI in an interview in 2021.
Indeed, applications for 2025 internships are already opening at places like JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Lazard, Moelis, and RBC. In fact, recruiters started visiting some college campuses as early as fall 2023 for these roles, one business school professor told BI.
During such visits, bank employees give presentations about their firms to students. It's at these events that students can rub elbows and snag "coffee chats" with bankers, which can bolster their chances of getting a recommendation to be hired later.
If you don't go to a "target school" that gets visits from big banks, you'll have to do some extra hustling to network. It's not impossible, according to a private-equity exec who breaks down here how he managed to get an internship at Goldman despite coming from a little-known state school.
There are also recruiting programs designed to help Wall Street firms diversify their internship classes. One example is Goldman's HBCU Possibilities program, which can lead to an internship and, eventually, a full-time investment-banking job. The firm's chief diversity officer, Megan Hogan, spoke to BI in 2023 about what the program entails benefits and how to apply.
Application deadlines vary. Students looking to work as a 2025 summer analyst at JPMorgan have until the end of June 2024, for example, while RBC's window closes in March. Beware that due dates listed online can be misleading. The reality is that some banks fill their classes for competitive summer analyst roles long before the application deadline listed. In fact, Super Days (more on this term later) happen in the spring semester, as early as February. So, if you don't get your foot in the door ASAP, you could miss out.
Of course, some banks have yet to launch their calls for applications. So interested students should regularly check the websites of firms they want to work for. It's also smart to keep a running tally of the firms you have applied to and where you still need to apply.
AdvertisementApplying for the job is just stage one. You will also need to go through a series of interviews and meet-and-greets to demonstrate your knowledge of finance and tout your accomplishments.
Danielle Dodgen, head of US campus recruiting at Lazard, shared her pro tips for candidates in an interview with BI last year. They include knowing exactly why you want the job, maintaining authenticity, and coming prepared to talk about industry news.
BI has also spoken to high-powered executives from Barclays, RBC Capital Markets, and Lazard on their advice for those looking to nail their interviews and stand out. They suggest demonstrating entrepreneurialism — and cold outreach.
Of course, you can only wow your potential employers if you get an interview in the first place. This can be a feat of its own and often requires going beyond the basic application process.
Experts agree that cold outreach is an effective tool to secure a summer internship, and research backs that up. The National Association of Colleges and Employers in 2020 found that 70% of the more than 540 interns surveyed said they'd landed an internship through cold outreach.
But how do you break the ice and make cold outreach feel less cold? BI asked a top venture capitalist who got her start as an intern at JPMorgan Chase — and used effective email networking with people she didn't already know to help her get the gig in the first place.
It took about 150 emails in all, according to Amy Cheetham, a partner at Costanoa Ventures, an early-stage investment firm based in Palo Alto, California. Along the way, she learned important lessons about how to get a foot in the door on Wall Street if you don't already have a Rolodex of industry contacts.
