Internships

With pay rates of between AU$800 and AU$1,200 and a fair chance of a 'proper' job at the end, little wonder that competition for internship places is so stiff...

Most banks offer internships over the summer in the second-last year of a student's degree. It gives the banks a chance to pick the best students and gives the students exposure to that bank and to real work in the sector. Internships expose students to real projects and networking and social events. The recruitment procedure is similar to that for full-time employment.

Macquarie Bank has a large intake each year across most of its 50 divisions. Deutsche Bank has internships for global banking and markets, global technology and operations and controlling, asset management and HR. UBS runs an eight to nine-week structured programme in areas like equity research and sales and trading, financial control and fixed income, says Emilie Everett, head of graduate recruiting at UBS. Credit Suisse offers equity research, equities sales and trading, asset management, and operations in Australia, and investment banking internships in Australia and Singapore.

Citigroup, meanwhile encourages applications for internships from students of accounting, commerce, finance, economics, business, combined law, mathematics, physics or engineering.

But what's in it for you?

First, the pay. Going rates for summer internships in 2007 are between AU$800 and AU$1,200 a week - only slightly less that the pro rata amount for a graduate employee. Second, the training. Interns do many of the things graduate trainees do on a daily basis and there's the potential of a full-time job offer.

"We take internships as seriously as our graduate training programmes,'' says Deutsche Bank's head of recruiting, Elizabeth Ong. "We take students in for eight weeks over the summer with the idea of offering them work. If they do well during the internship, we straight away offer them a position. We can fill all our recruitment needs for the year they graduate," she says.

Morgan Stanley's Le Lievre explains the strategy: "The number of interns we take on is determined by our mortality rates after we have made a job offer. If we made 10 offers and only seven accepted, then we have a 30% mortality rate, so the following year we would bring 13 onto the programme. This is standard practice for banks that use internships.

"Morgan Stanley has a big recruitment drive to get interns: globally we just can't get enough. Often we fill all our hires for the year after from our interns," Le Lievre says.

UBS's Everett says: "We source about 50% of our graduate intake from our interns. We have seen their ability, assessed them and watched them respond to training. By the end of the summer, the interns also have a very good knowledge of the bank, and of their performance and how to benchmark themselves against their peers."

But not all banks offer internships. HSBC only hires graduates with two or three years' experience, so does not offer summer internships at all.

Few are called

Competition is fierce. For the 2007 internships at UBS there were 1,200 applications for 42 places. Internships begin with a classroom-based introduction to the industry, after which interns are unleashed on their chosen division, where they do real (hard) work. "Interns do regular day-to-day work - getting market updates, doing research and generating profit and loss (P&L) statements - but they might also get involved in a project. They are assigned to a particular division, so the internship is a targeted position," Ong explains.

"Internships give banks first bids on the candidates. For interns, it confronts them with the reality of banking, but also gives them a chance to shine," says Victoria Biggs at recruiter Jon Michel.

Even fewer are called back

Converting an internship into a full-time job offer is about being proactive.

"We are looking for six key things: people with an ability to survive in the workplace; to learn quickly; excellent team players who can perform individually; people who are proactive; attention to detail; and last but by no means least, passion," says le Lievre.

"Show your mettle," says John Noonan, Sydney bureau chief at Thomson Financial. "We want people with confidence in their own ability and who can present that quickly. Push your strengths. We will not hire people who are wishy-washy or too ready to compromise their own opinion," he says.

Most banks assess interns' performance twice during their stay: once in the middle and once at the end, but some, like UBS, also establish objectives at the outset and review them at the mid-point and at the end to maximise the benefit to the interns, Everett explains.

And for the many who miss the internship boat...

It need not be the end of the road: remember, on average only half of all graduate hires did internships.

But Deutsche's Ong says: "If you're not offered a job at the end of the internship, you probably needn't bother applying again."