If Wall Street’s summer interns trickling back to campus for their final year of college, some are restarting a recruiting process they had hoped to leave behind.
For those who completed their internships without the coveted return offer, career coaches and recruiters say it’s best to act quickly and be realistic about where they’re willing to work.
“The most important thing is to get a place in the game, wherever it is,” said David Haeberle, a professor at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. “Once you sit in that seat, over time you can navigate your career or take your career in the direction you want to go.”
Don’t get a return offer doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t get a full-time offer at a major company. Roy Cohen, a career coach on Wall Street, said it’s “quite possible” to land an analyst position if you put some thought into the off-cycle recruiting process. Circumstances matter, though, and he said it’s harder to explain your situation if you do worked at a major bank which tends to hand out a lot of offers.
The return percentage varies per year, per bank and per group. Those not invited back can sometimes land a job that an intern turned down at another company, but the window typically closes by the time school starts again.
That makes speed extra important. Both Haeberle and Meridith Dennes, managing partner at recruiting firm Prospect Rock Partners, said quickly applying for a wide range of banking industry jobs is the most important thing former interns can do when they go back to school. Often, they said, that means applying for jobs companies and locations that are not that popular, and are realistic about the options. However, Cohen suggested they only apply for positions they find truly exciting.
Networks are important – somewhat
Today’s junior hiring market on Wall Street is shaped by potentially paradoxical forces: an active deal pipeline that requires more employees AI technology that some fear will take away the work from juniors. So far, entry-level programs haven’t fallen off a cliff, as some companies have roughly the the same number of interns at the beginning of this summer, just like last year.
David Haeberle, a professor at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business who built the school’s Investment Banking Workshop, said about 95% of his students were offered full-time jobs, up slightly from last year. He suspects that his students have a higher full-time conversion rate than average.
Defines networking the recruitment cycle for internships later in the fall, but Dennes and Haeberle say it doesn’t play the same role for unemployed former interns, who should prioritize submitting applications over coffee chats. Bankers, Haeberle says, are not used to networking with students this time of year.
However, he said students should still pass along their CVs to all their existing contacts during the application process, as HR teams will sometimes ask young bankers for potential names to fill open positions. Dennes suggested asking classmates if there are any open positions at their company and, for those who networked well the first time, returning to old connections.
Be honest in job interviews
Interns may not have gotten a job for any number of reasons, and it’s usually not just raw information; maybe they made a mistake early on, or didn’t communicate effectively with their managers, or had a tendency to be late. It is crucial to tell an honest and convincing story in interviews about what went wrong.
“IQ gets you in, but it’s your EQ that keeps you in there,” Haeberle said. “You don’t necessarily have to be brilliant in most roles. This is a client relationship business, a customer relationship business. It’s much more about apprenticeship. It’s much more about working in teams, getting along and being able to communicate.”
In addition to reflecting on the summer, Dennes said it’s helpful to ask employees or other former colleagues for specific feedback, and then come up with actionable ways to address any mistakes.
“If you just say, ‘I didn’t get an offer because of the culture,’ or some mushy chatter, it’s not going to work well,” she said. “It’s always better to be candid.”
While some of those who don’t get a return offer may feel humiliated or defeated, especially if classmates are invited back to the same company, Cohen said the situation isn’t all bad.
“It makes them much more resilient when it comes to knowing that when we’re out in the world, we’re going to experience rejection,” he said.
