What freshman internship would you choose?
Trying to think as to what internship is best for a freshman with an end goal in investment banking, and which internship carries the most prestige/experience. Which one would you rate highest?
I have three main options,
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A local investment boutique. Pretty chill environment but not some brand name place
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A shit ton of search funds. Some more well known search funds locally or amongst university students but by no means a name brand place.
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A venture capital firm in LA (I study in Canada btw). It’s a nepo hire but it’s a firm that has had some crazy deals. They invested in Epic Games, Reddit, Manscaped, DuckDuckGo, RecRoom and even DraftKings. I don’t know how well heard it is in Canada but it seems like a good opportunity too. Scared it’s all sourcing though. If I can source a deal, would be likely to follow it. Has a fund size of 500m.
Outside of these three. How would you rank realistic freshman internships. Like would the best be a hedge fund internship, then private equity, etc. I wanna see what the best freshman internships would be in terms of prestige and experience gained.
First off, obvious choice would be the venture capital internship. Tons of first year internships for anything will be sourcing but at least you’re surrounded by brighter minds and can hopefully follow some deals. In terms of ranking freshman internships and excluding the bullshit unrealistic ones like Goldman Sachs SA role.
1. Quant Internships: Highly prestigious and relevant due to the rigorous analytical skills developed.
2. Private Equity (PE) Internships: Working at a well-known PE firm can be highly prestigious and valuable.
3. Hedge Fund (HF) Internships: Competitive and prestigious, offering exposure to high-level financial strategies.
4. Venture Capital (VC) Internships: Prestigious and offers exposure to startup investments and financial analysis.
5. Boutique Investment Banks: A solid, mid-sized boutique can provide relevant experience and networking opportunities.
6. Sales & Trading (S&T), Equity Research (ER), Private Wealth Management (PWM): Relevant to finance and can provide good foundational skills.
7. Search Fund Internships: Useful for understanding the buy-side of transactions, though less prestigious than established PE firms.
8. Random Summer Jobs or Unrelated Internships: Least relevant but can still provide soft skills and work experience.
You can throw other things in between that aren’t conventional internships but may be better prestige wise. I’m not gonna add things like Big4 audit and tax roles, corpfin, consulting, etc cause I’m not familiar w it. Join good school clubs too.
In terms of recruiting for banking, wouldn't the middle-market IB role be more relevant? Assuming you're not talking about MFs and large PM HFs in your ranking, I'd think the MM IB would outrank a PE firm of similar size. Also, where would a L/O equities fund fit into your ranking? What about REPE?
Also to OP, 100% do the VC fund. This is a no brainer. The local investment boutique, while definitely a good opportunity, doesn't beat a brand-name VC firm especially if you're doing impactful work. And no recruiter wants a bunch of search funds on a resume – it might even be detrimental so definitely would rule out this option.
This list seems to have been made by a student lol. MM IB is by far the best because it’s giving you direct exposure into IB and what you are directly trying to recruit for. These “PE” internships as freshmen aren’t gonna let you do much other than industry research, which you can do during the year in a search fund internship. I don’t see why “prestige” would matter if you can’t prove your skills.
Went through his history and he's a high school student LMFAO
I did consulting my freshman summer, doing a PE SA gig at a small firm right now, and heading to an EB next summer. Optimizing your resume is important but at the same time focus on exploring your interests — I did consulting my freshman year because I was still on the fence about IB v. consulting and wanted to explore the space. When I networked and interviewed for IB this past semester, not a single bank cared what I’d done my freshman summer. Choosing one internship over the other for your freshman summer won’t make you any more or less likely to get an interview when you eventually recruit for IB.
So don’t worry about “prestige” or “what would look best” — it might matter to an extent — but focus more on what experience you think you’d be able to gain the most out of, especially in terms of soft skills development and getting an overall understanding of how to communicate and function in a corporate setting. This will be most helpful during IB recruiting, and help you come off as polished and well spoken. Good luck.
I am going to UMM PE for my SA role. It doesn’t matter what you do to be honest, but it ideally should be to be related to finance and tangible enough to speak to. I have friends going to EBs (Moelis, Lazard, CVP, Evercore) that did corporate finance, library volunteering, and McKinsey (diversity internship) freshman year. Know your technicals and build a network.
If it were me, I'd go for the VC firm in LA. The experience and network you'll build there, especially with those big names, are invaluable. Plus, sourcing can be a great learning opportunity!
If you do the VC internship you’d learn a lot about sourcing and be an extremely competitive candidate for any VC/GE roles post grad
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