Hello, my Name is Amgad, I am a first year Economics & Management student at Exeter College, Oxford. I have received internships from the Bank of England, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan. I will be going over my top tips to gaining internships.
Application processes for internship usually involve (in no particular order) CV, Cover letter, exams, interviews and assessment centres. Application processes vary with the firms, so it’s important to research what is the general process for each specific firm. For CVs, it’s important to avoid mistakes and unnecessary information; templates for industry specific CVs can be found online, e.g. Wall Street Oasis template for Investment Banking. Cover letters do follow a basic structure, but should be very personalised for each firm. Many people, in first year, struggle to find things to add on their CV, so doing a lot of extra-circular things can be helpful. Throughout the cover letter you must answer why the firm, why the division and why you (highlight your skills and things that make you suitable for the internship). Exams are very important as they can often determine if you gain an interview. Generally, for these exams you can improve rapidly by just practicing them beforehand. Firms will differ in which type of exams they will offer you, like Pymetric and Psychometric exams. With these exam styles comes a range of different exams like Situational Judgement, Verbal Reasoning, Numerical Reasoning and many more. There are many free tests online and platforms for specific tests like Job Test Prep. Interviews are also about practicing, so mock interviews, but also understanding the role well and brushing up on commercial knowledge and general knowledge on the firm. Firms can do normal interviews, but also pre-recorded interviews (like Hirevue) which differ in that questions pop up on the screen and you usually have a couple of minutes to answer and a couple of times to try recording yourself answering the question.
Timing can be very important for internships, generally applying earlier can give you an advantage, if that firm recruits on a rolling basis and a lot of firms do recruit on a rolling basis. This means that firms accept and respond applications as they come. Furthermore, firms usually have internal/external deadlines to do exams and interviews; some firms do not explicitly tell you when to do the exam/interview by, and they set their internal deadline, if you do not meet their internal deadline they will auto reject your application. Thus, if this is case, I advise doing it as soon as possible. Organisation is also a big factor, keeping track of all applications can be difficult, especially with Banking/Consulting/Law where you may be applying to maybe firms, so a tracker spreadsheet can be very helpful.
My final point is the importance of networking. Networking can be very important in helping you avoid common pitfalls, and elevate your application. Just by approaching employees and people with experience on LinkedIn or email. This can have many benefits, for example asking employees to review your CV (nicely of course) or arranging a call with them to talk about some commercial news. For me, this was great help in expanding my commercial awareness, but also I avoided some very common mistakes, for example I didn’t know that having a page CV was an Investment Banking industry standard. Furthermore, building relations can be vital in the long-term, for me I worked on this until I could get to the point that my mentors would put in a good word for me when I had applied. I think that networking, when done right can be a significant boost in your application.
These were my tips and tricks for applying to internships; do consider that my knowledge is focused around banking, although consulting and law can be similar in applications, each industry will differ in this. I hope you found value in this article, thanks!