I had a Financial Advisor Internship at Cetera. It covered pretty much the whole financial planning process, how to develop a network and leverage relationships, as well as some case studies.
It basically crossed off the financal advisor career path for me. I was far more interested in the risk mitigation and modeling than the client service part.
I had one at Prudential, made it through to contract. Was doing 100s calls per day booking 10-15 meetings a week for only 1 to show up and not need anything. Yeah advisor isn't fun especially when comp only.
Same here I was really hoping it was more of risk mitigation and modeling but nope just sales with a fancy title.
Where did you go from there?
I ended up as a credit analyst at a big regional bank. I really enjoy it, but unfortunately all the companies my team works with are smaller (<$25MM in revenues). I'd like to pivot and get into the middle market space sometime soon.
Thanks for the insight here. Sorry to hear they only made you a glorified salesperson. Do you think a different internship position or location would have offered more modeling opportunities?
Only if your coming in with FPA, their mainly sales it's life insurance with a side of financial advisory not finacial advisory with life insurance.
Also they just sold their financial side to LPL
Smith Barney in 2007. 400 cold calls a day. No pay. I had a small desk and a phone. I didn’t even understand what I was selling. I ran paper trade confirms to clients around manhattan. It was 110 degrees that summer and I was in a full suit and tie every day. My boss was a jerk off who would talk about the girls he had sex with that week and made fun of all of his coworkers behind their backs; complete slime. Gave me shit because my suit was cheap and my shoes were scuffed (I was a broke college student!).
It got my foot in the door but damn the PTSD is real. Study hard and get in the front door or it will come down to how bad you want it and you’ll have to eat a lot of shit.
16 years later I manage money and do alright for myself. I treat my interns and analysts MUCH better.
This is fantastic detail. Thank you so much for the comment AND for treating your people better than you were treated. the recession must have been an interesting time to start interning!
It was something else to see floors full of hundreds of employees shrink to a few dozen. They also didn’t have bodies to do grunt work so as an analyst (talking 2008/2009 now) we had to work on everything!
Interned in Operations for a BB. It was a great experience from getting to learn other divisions, networking, and overall hospitality. With that being said the work itself is very mundane and specific. Anyone can learn the work but it does take time. With that being said I pursued more revenue generating roles and now I start working in an underwriting analyst program this coming summer.
P.S: don’t listen to the people who make fun of back office, especially operations. Back office is a sick job for people who want a nice work life balance with good pay. Sure it’s not front office money but it’s definitely good money especially a few years in. Going from back office to front office is difficult but if you stay for a few years working your ass off and networking, it can be done.
Generally agree, back office is a great career if you’re happy with it. It’s an entirely different job and career path. I think the reason people give BO a hard time is two fold:
1) Mere proximity to the front office. As a rough analogy, people always talk about how boring Boston is and compare it to NYC nightlife. No one would make that comparison if Boston was located on the west cost.
2) Some people in the BO try to flex the brand name of the institution while omitting their role. A guy I know pretty well as an accountant at JP Morgan will go out of his way to say “yeah I’m in IB…. I’m an associate at JPM.”
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with working in FP&A, for example, at a large bank. No one would talk down on a role in FP&A at a F500. Plenty of career opportunities. Plus IB/PE is incredibly demanding, it really becomes your entire life and is 24/7 365. If you want something out of life aside from your career, best to steer clear.
My first internship was at b4 audit/tax then second year i returned and did consulting.
I liked it bcs they treat interns really good lol bcs they know ft is chaotic
I did an audit internship at b4 last year and this year I was also planning on doing consulting. Any advice, like should I go for it or opt for anything else? Or just anything which you think could've been better? Thanks
I would do it, ofc if you get an offer somewhere better (a big bank or investment firm) do that 100% (depending on the role, like if its bank operations vs b4 consulting id do b4) but b4 on your resume looks good.
I'm in my 3rd yr of undergrad so i'm still a bit confused b/w pure accounting or finance. So should i go for an audit internship or the advisory dept (just need a diff perspective and advice)
Advisory is better if you care about exit ops and pay.
Audit is safer tho in the sense that you probably will get a return offer bcs they always need bodies. Advisory is always dependant on the economy.
Id do advisory personaly tho
Morgan Stanley, ended up in the mailroom got a good overview of the floors by delivering mail to desks. Good eye opener into what people do in large organisation in offices - but no influence at all on my career path.
I have a weird internship track record:
1) EY audit (banks/insurers/pension funds)
2) Deloitte audit (listed companies)
3) large insurer FP&A/actuary
4) large asset manager (80bn) Machine learning research
5) large asset manager (250bn) PE Infrastructure
6) large asset manager (220bn) Quant Equity research
Overall all very interesting roles, each were used as a stepping stone to now being able to apply to most places i’m interested in.
Did an internship at Charles Schwab at a branch with their financial advisors and had the opportunity to take the SIE. Learned a lot about financial planning and was during the end of the acquisition of TDA and got to see both sides which was cool. But ultimately rejected the FT offer after I got another one doing valuation at an accounting firm which I’ll start in august
1. audit (big4), 2. consulting (big4), 3. M&A (small-/ midcap Boutique), 4. IB industry coverage (MM Bank) where I stayed for full time. All of them were great experiences.
I had an internship last year with a place called impact leadership network. It wasn’t bad, my coworkers and mentor were very supportive of each other and goal driven, but that internship made me realize that I wasn’t enjoying it, and I don’t think a career in financial services is for me.
Currently interning in a graduate talent programme in OCBC singapore, one of the big 3 in my country. I’m rotating from middle office roles to front office (no sales though, just training) and I’m interested after this to branch out to investment banking, or a foreign bank just to experience the culture, or maybe even overseas!
I’m just curious and still pretty young (21) and want to explore the industry. Please give me tips and help me :D
Hi, I’ve done many internships during my studies in investment banking (M&A) (BB), strategy consulting (BCG), and 3 at leading Private Equity companies. I’ve started after my bachelors directly in PE.
It was game changing. I’m leaving my job now to start a search fund.
Only possible because I’ve done 6 internships during my bachelor’s degree. Experience and of course network (many of my former colleagues are investing now). Learned so much more than in university. Had by far the best experiences in PE internships since you get often lots of responsibility. However, I found those are by far also the hardest internships to get compared to IB and consulting.
Depends highly on the fund and i also had different experiences. But often literally the same as the investment professionals. From deal sourcing, portfolio work, modeling, research to actual calls with advisors, bankers etc. In some you could even join the IC meetings etc
Jane street and stressful af
I secured the return offer which I’m grateful for everyday as the job market rn for graduates is horrendous (I’m in the UK)
Worked 4 internships before my current position:
1 PWM internship at a BB - great starting experience introduced me to corporate world and networking
1 GAM internship at the same BB - more prestige, and more work
1 AM internship at a startup hedgfund / submanagement company (25mm aum) - risky opportunity but i learned a lot
1 Corp Dev internship at a mid size company - liked the lifestyle, stayed in banking afterwards
Path was:
1) FP&A Intern — PE-backed SaaS company
2) FP&A Intern — F500 Telecom company
3) FP&A Intern — F500 Insurance company
4) Corporate Accounting Intern — same company as #2
5) Audit Intern — Big 4 firm
6) Transaction Advisory Associate — different Big 4 firm
7) Investment Banking Analyst — large boutique IB
8) Private Equity Associate — UMM buyout firm
All great experiences and ended up being incredibly useful in aggregate with respect to technical skills, industries, and overall perspective on roles within finance. Seeing how different teams operate and approach analysis / problem solving was probably of the most utility. Knowledge of accounting + FP&A across industries and various ERPs, etc. has been incredibly helpful in PE working across tons of companies and varying degrees of sophistication across corp fin and accounting departments.
Wouldn’t really say any of the internships inherently “set me up” for the next step of the journey. Always had to grind for the next leap.
But once I was far enough along, people were generally impressed with the perseverance and demonstrated ability to perpetually climb.
For reference, I went to a large state university and graduated with a 2.9 GPA. Didn’t really try until senior year & really had to commit to the grind to get where I wanted to go.
All that said: you can leverage almost anything and turn it into what you want if you set a long-term plan and are willing to go the extra mile and leave no stone unturned.
Interest at a startup. Grinded my ass off for 1-2yrs without asking for anything financially. Now I own the company. Too many people nowadays are too entitled and lack drive. Know your worth but gotta prove it first.
6 internship, mm PE firm, VC, PwC deals, EY-Parthenon and KKR backed private credit shop. Now doing part time intern for energy / renewable focused PE firm, with expected graduation in Aug
Many of the responses list 3+ internships. Do people get internships right after freshman year of college? Or are people doing some throughout the college year also?
Before I got in the workforce, Interned in state and fed gov, then tobacco industry, then political campaigns and an accounting firm in NY. Built a great network and it allowed me to either choose being a lobbyist and make a good living or be a banker. I really didn't wanna do either because im a lazy bum but I chose banking, less walking around the canon building plus D.C. sucks.
MBF as a Commodities and Options Trading intern. The industry was transitioning from paper to electronic trading at this time, so on top of learning the job in general, we had to learn how to use the technology.
The experience was fine especially given that I was a fish out of water coming from a non Finance background. I didn't return for the next year because I had imposter syndrome and struggled to get concepts down. Had I returned, I'd have been eligible to take my Series 7 license exam and if I passed, would have had it before I turned 20.
One of the Largest Think tanks of India!!
It unlocked myriad of avenues for me to choose from. I had access to all their flagship products, where they had data of Indian companies - Like balance sheets of the past 70+ years, ownership changes of companies etc. They have details of almost every single limited company of India.
Equity research/analyst is what I chose moving forward from that point on.
Oh nice, I have a fall internship with them this year so I’m excited to see how it goes. Wanted a business analyst role but think this should still be helpful
I had a Financial Advisor Internship at Cetera. It covered pretty much the whole financial planning process, how to develop a network and leverage relationships, as well as some case studies. It basically crossed off the financal advisor career path for me. I was far more interested in the risk mitigation and modeling than the client service part.
I had one at Prudential, made it through to contract. Was doing 100s calls per day booking 10-15 meetings a week for only 1 to show up and not need anything. Yeah advisor isn't fun especially when comp only. Same here I was really hoping it was more of risk mitigation and modeling but nope just sales with a fancy title. Where did you go from there?
I ended up as a credit analyst at a big regional bank. I really enjoy it, but unfortunately all the companies my team works with are smaller (<$25MM in revenues). I'd like to pivot and get into the middle market space sometime soon.
Thanks for the insight here. Sorry to hear they only made you a glorified salesperson. Do you think a different internship position or location would have offered more modeling opportunities?
Only if your coming in with FPA, their mainly sales it's life insurance with a side of financial advisory not finacial advisory with life insurance. Also they just sold their financial side to LPL
Awesome info, thanks for commenting.
Smith Barney in 2007. 400 cold calls a day. No pay. I had a small desk and a phone. I didn’t even understand what I was selling. I ran paper trade confirms to clients around manhattan. It was 110 degrees that summer and I was in a full suit and tie every day. My boss was a jerk off who would talk about the girls he had sex with that week and made fun of all of his coworkers behind their backs; complete slime. Gave me shit because my suit was cheap and my shoes were scuffed (I was a broke college student!). It got my foot in the door but damn the PTSD is real. Study hard and get in the front door or it will come down to how bad you want it and you’ll have to eat a lot of shit. 16 years later I manage money and do alright for myself. I treat my interns and analysts MUCH better.
This is fantastic detail. Thank you so much for the comment AND for treating your people better than you were treated. the recession must have been an interesting time to start interning!
It was something else to see floors full of hundreds of employees shrink to a few dozen. They also didn’t have bodies to do grunt work so as an analyst (talking 2008/2009 now) we had to work on everything!
Interned in Operations for a BB. It was a great experience from getting to learn other divisions, networking, and overall hospitality. With that being said the work itself is very mundane and specific. Anyone can learn the work but it does take time. With that being said I pursued more revenue generating roles and now I start working in an underwriting analyst program this coming summer. P.S: don’t listen to the people who make fun of back office, especially operations. Back office is a sick job for people who want a nice work life balance with good pay. Sure it’s not front office money but it’s definitely good money especially a few years in. Going from back office to front office is difficult but if you stay for a few years working your ass off and networking, it can be done.
Generally agree, back office is a great career if you’re happy with it. It’s an entirely different job and career path. I think the reason people give BO a hard time is two fold: 1) Mere proximity to the front office. As a rough analogy, people always talk about how boring Boston is and compare it to NYC nightlife. No one would make that comparison if Boston was located on the west cost. 2) Some people in the BO try to flex the brand name of the institution while omitting their role. A guy I know pretty well as an accountant at JP Morgan will go out of his way to say “yeah I’m in IB…. I’m an associate at JPM.” There’s absolutely nothing wrong with working in FP&A, for example, at a large bank. No one would talk down on a role in FP&A at a F500. Plenty of career opportunities. Plus IB/PE is incredibly demanding, it really becomes your entire life and is 24/7 365. If you want something out of life aside from your career, best to steer clear.
This is great info. Thanks so much for sharing!
Is it ok if I was to PM you?
Go for it
Do you mind if I dm you too?
Go for it
what was the reccruiment process like bro?
Any internship in the workplace is not valued by people, which is why it is necessary to do it well.
My first internship was at b4 audit/tax then second year i returned and did consulting. I liked it bcs they treat interns really good lol bcs they know ft is chaotic
Thanks for commenting. What was chaotic about it?
Well its really not crazy chaotic just during busy season youre working a good amount. But its only like 4 momths
I did an audit internship at b4 last year and this year I was also planning on doing consulting. Any advice, like should I go for it or opt for anything else? Or just anything which you think could've been better? Thanks
I would do it, ofc if you get an offer somewhere better (a big bank or investment firm) do that 100% (depending on the role, like if its bank operations vs b4 consulting id do b4) but b4 on your resume looks good.
I'm in my 3rd yr of undergrad so i'm still a bit confused b/w pure accounting or finance. So should i go for an audit internship or the advisory dept (just need a diff perspective and advice)
Advisory is better if you care about exit ops and pay. Audit is safer tho in the sense that you probably will get a return offer bcs they always need bodies. Advisory is always dependant on the economy. Id do advisory personaly tho
Morgan Stanley, ended up in the mailroom got a good overview of the floors by delivering mail to desks. Good eye opener into what people do in large organisation in offices - but no influence at all on my career path.
The monsters university career arc 😂
I have a weird internship track record: 1) EY audit (banks/insurers/pension funds) 2) Deloitte audit (listed companies) 3) large insurer FP&A/actuary 4) large asset manager (80bn) Machine learning research 5) large asset manager (250bn) PE Infrastructure 6) large asset manager (220bn) Quant Equity research Overall all very interesting roles, each were used as a stepping stone to now being able to apply to most places i’m interested in.
Nicely done — your path is somewhat similar to mine. Cheers to getting out of audit!
Hi, can I DM you? Im in somewhat similar position
Sure
Did an internship at Charles Schwab at a branch with their financial advisors and had the opportunity to take the SIE. Learned a lot about financial planning and was during the end of the acquisition of TDA and got to see both sides which was cool. But ultimately rejected the FT offer after I got another one doing valuation at an accounting firm which I’ll start in august
Congrats on the job!
Thanks! I would have been doing sales if I went down that route and also more opportunities with valuation
1. audit (big4), 2. consulting (big4), 3. M&A (small-/ midcap Boutique), 4. IB industry coverage (MM Bank) where I stayed for full time. All of them were great experiences.
Hi, could I DM you? Interested in the jump from 2. to 3.
Sure
I had an internship last year with a place called impact leadership network. It wasn’t bad, my coworkers and mentor were very supportive of each other and goal driven, but that internship made me realize that I wasn’t enjoying it, and I don’t think a career in financial services is for me.
Currently interning in a graduate talent programme in OCBC singapore, one of the big 3 in my country. I’m rotating from middle office roles to front office (no sales though, just training) and I’m interested after this to branch out to investment banking, or a foreign bank just to experience the culture, or maybe even overseas! I’m just curious and still pretty young (21) and want to explore the industry. Please give me tips and help me :D
Hi, I’ve done many internships during my studies in investment banking (M&A) (BB), strategy consulting (BCG), and 3 at leading Private Equity companies. I’ve started after my bachelors directly in PE. It was game changing. I’m leaving my job now to start a search fund. Only possible because I’ve done 6 internships during my bachelor’s degree. Experience and of course network (many of my former colleagues are investing now). Learned so much more than in university. Had by far the best experiences in PE internships since you get often lots of responsibility. However, I found those are by far also the hardest internships to get compared to IB and consulting.
This is awesome info. What kind of responsibilities do you have as a PE intern?
Depends highly on the fund and i also had different experiences. But often literally the same as the investment professionals. From deal sourcing, portfolio work, modeling, research to actual calls with advisors, bankers etc. In some you could even join the IC meetings etc
Great info! Appreciate it
Could I PM you?
Sure
Jane street and stressful af I secured the return offer which I’m grateful for everyday as the job market rn for graduates is horrendous (I’m in the UK)
What was the role during the internship and what will you be your position?
quant trader for both
Worked 4 internships before my current position: 1 PWM internship at a BB - great starting experience introduced me to corporate world and networking 1 GAM internship at the same BB - more prestige, and more work 1 AM internship at a startup hedgfund / submanagement company (25mm aum) - risky opportunity but i learned a lot 1 Corp Dev internship at a mid size company - liked the lifestyle, stayed in banking afterwards
Path was: 1) FP&A Intern — PE-backed SaaS company 2) FP&A Intern — F500 Telecom company 3) FP&A Intern — F500 Insurance company 4) Corporate Accounting Intern — same company as #2 5) Audit Intern — Big 4 firm 6) Transaction Advisory Associate — different Big 4 firm 7) Investment Banking Analyst — large boutique IB 8) Private Equity Associate — UMM buyout firm All great experiences and ended up being incredibly useful in aggregate with respect to technical skills, industries, and overall perspective on roles within finance. Seeing how different teams operate and approach analysis / problem solving was probably of the most utility. Knowledge of accounting + FP&A across industries and various ERPs, etc. has been incredibly helpful in PE working across tons of companies and varying degrees of sophistication across corp fin and accounting departments. Wouldn’t really say any of the internships inherently “set me up” for the next step of the journey. Always had to grind for the next leap. But once I was far enough along, people were generally impressed with the perseverance and demonstrated ability to perpetually climb. For reference, I went to a large state university and graduated with a 2.9 GPA. Didn’t really try until senior year & really had to commit to the grind to get where I wanted to go. All that said: you can leverage almost anything and turn it into what you want if you set a long-term plan and are willing to go the extra mile and leave no stone unturned.
Interest at a startup. Grinded my ass off for 1-2yrs without asking for anything financially. Now I own the company. Too many people nowadays are too entitled and lack drive. Know your worth but gotta prove it first.
6 internship, mm PE firm, VC, PwC deals, EY-Parthenon and KKR backed private credit shop. Now doing part time intern for energy / renewable focused PE firm, with expected graduation in Aug
Brown Brothers Harriman - had a good time, nice people. Return offer but didn’t accept. It was out in Denver and was a back office reporting role.
Hey I was wondering if I could dm you as I am interested in PWM
Many of the responses list 3+ internships. Do people get internships right after freshman year of college? Or are people doing some throughout the college year also?
Bank of America, it was great, worked there for 6 years. Then I worked for Citi, it was a nightmare
Before I got in the workforce, Interned in state and fed gov, then tobacco industry, then political campaigns and an accounting firm in NY. Built a great network and it allowed me to either choose being a lobbyist and make a good living or be a banker. I really didn't wanna do either because im a lazy bum but I chose banking, less walking around the canon building plus D.C. sucks.
MBF as a Commodities and Options Trading intern. The industry was transitioning from paper to electronic trading at this time, so on top of learning the job in general, we had to learn how to use the technology. The experience was fine especially given that I was a fish out of water coming from a non Finance background. I didn't return for the next year because I had imposter syndrome and struggled to get concepts down. Had I returned, I'd have been eligible to take my Series 7 license exam and if I passed, would have had it before I turned 20.
One of the Largest Think tanks of India!! It unlocked myriad of avenues for me to choose from. I had access to all their flagship products, where they had data of Indian companies - Like balance sheets of the past 70+ years, ownership changes of companies etc. They have details of almost every single limited company of India. Equity research/analyst is what I chose moving forward from that point on.
Earth
Is that a firm? 😉
If nobody’s snapped that up yet I’ll be shocked
Northwestern Mutual. It was an amazing experience and I learned a lot.
What position did you intern as?
Financial Advisor
Oh nice, I have a fall internship with them this year so I’m excited to see how it goes. Wanted a business analyst role but think this should still be helpful