Six words to ensure that you convert your banking internship
Intern season is upon us. If you’re in the US, summer internships in banks begin this week. Elsewhere, they start the week after next. As deals come back, it’s possible that this year will be better than last for converting internships in M&A and capital markets. But it’s never easy.
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In a good year, 75% or more of summer analysts in investment banks will receive job offers. In a bad year, that will fall to 50% or less. Last year, there were complaints that some teams at some banks got no offers at all.
If you want to get a job from your internship, Omar Sadraoui, a former Deutsche Bank associate who now runs Invest & You, a company that helps young people get into banking, says there is one thing you must say. Every day. Before you leave the office.
“Is there anything I can do?”
If you ask this question, you’ll stop the analysts you’re working with from complaining about you, says Sadraoui. Ever since the death a decade ago of Moritz Erhardt, an intern at Bank of America who was said to have worked 72 hours straight, banks have treated their interns gently. Weekend work is often banned. So is working past midnight. But the analysts (junior bankers) you’re working with, don’t usually benefit from these kindnesses. If you saunter out the door as an intern while they still have a weight of work to do, resentment will fester.
“Yes, you are protected as a summer intern, but you need to show that you’re super-committed,” says Sadraoui. “The analysts are a bit jealous of you for leaving early. Asking if there’s anything you can do is important – if you leave before the analysts, associates and VPs they will complain. You have to play politics.”
Because interns work shorter hours, Omar says teams can be wary of giving them any real work to do. This makes it harder to prove yourself and harder to get the offer to come back. Even if you offer to work later, skirting the working restrictions can be hard (your door pass often won’t work after a certain time, for example) – but at least you’re showing willing.
If you’re interning in an investment banking division, Omar says the other imperative is to go into the internship with an understanding of the actual job you’ll be doing. “More and more, you need to be able to master the job before you get in,” he says. “If you have advanced Excel skills, if you understand how to do financial modelling and if you have an awareness of the M&A process, the analysts will feel they are able to offload some work onto you.”
Impressing the full-time analysts and associates is imperative. “As an intern, you don’t work with many people and one or two positive comments about you from an analyst or associate can make all the difference,” says Omar. “As an intern, you’re seen as a resource, and this means taking work off the analyst’s plate. If you want to join the team, you need to show that you’re willing to work hard and that you’re very, very good. To be very good, you need to know the job in advance.”
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