Indefinite internships come to investment banking

Times are changing. As some banks rethink their strategy, graduate programmes are anecdotally being cut quite heavily. The same does not, apparently, apply to internships.

“Most firms are still offering a similar number of internships because they involve less commitment than making a full time graduate hire,” says Nadia Osgood at Graduate Solutions, a recruitment company which works with numerous financial services firms to help them hire graduates.  “Internships are great for students because they allow them to get experience. Plenty of companies will offer long term internships to students even after they’ve graduated.”

Rothschild is among the banks opening its long term, ‘off-season’ internships to students post-graduation. The bank has around 20 places and has just started interviewing for them. It’s still possible to apply.

Nomura also offers offseason internships to students who want to go into its IT and infrastructure divisions.

Whereas in the past it might have been possible to do a summer internship and then move into a full time graduate position, students are increasingly finding it necessary to do a long term internship after graduating in the hope of gaining a permanent role.

“You have to be really, really flexible and hungry if you want to get a first job now,” says Osgood. “In many cases, firms are not going to hire you immediately, but they want to keep a dialogue open.”

One graduate recruiter said they’ve found that students coming on off-season internships are lower calibre than those coming on summer internships. “They’re not the pick of the crop. We tend to see the people who come in the summer as being the better potential candidates,” she says.

Malcolm Horton, head of recruitment at Nomura, says students coming on offseason internships after graduation also need to be mindful of the fact that the internship may not start immediately.  "The offseason internship is a good option for both parties as you could be well placed for positions that open up immediately at the end of your internships, but you do have the risk that the internship may not start until the following year."

In France, banks and other companies have been vilified for keeping interns for years on little or no pay. All the banks we spoke to said they pay their offseason interns the same as their summer interns – a sum typically around £45-50k pro rata.