Finance hiring is not over!
I have been meeting with many students over the past couple of weeks who come into the office and say “I know finance recruiting is over so I am not expecting to find a finance internship at this point”. My first response to these students is that it’s not over! Certainly, there are specific areas within finance (Investment Banking, Investment Management) where the internship hiring has passed. This would primarily be for the Investment Banks and larger financial institutions with a more formalized internship hiring process that follows the on-campus recruiting schedule. Many times, the recruiting cycle for these companies is very early in the season but this does not mean that there are no more opportunities! In fact, there are finance opportunities being posted to Babson’s job board site every day. I have also been speaking with alumni & employers that are now determining their intern hiring needs for summer. There are two main points to this post that I would like students to take away which are: 1) Start exploring finance opportunities at smaller finance firms and also outside of financial services and 2) Never stop networking.
I encourage students to start thinking about working at a smaller finance company or working in a finance function outside of financial services. For example, if your goal is to work in a finance role for the summer and you also have a passion for the marketing industry, why not try and get a job in finance at a marketing firm? That way, you get the best of both—you get to gain experience and develop your technical finance skills and at the same time learn a whole lot about the marketing industry. When you search for jobs, keep this in mind as this will open up more opportunities for you.
The other important thing to note here is to never stop networking! If you have a long term goal to work in finance, you should continuously be networking with representatives from the industry. This will only help you for your future full time recruiting efforts. Also, you never know who people are connected to and what hiring needs they may have. The more time you spend building your network and meeting with people to educate yourself on career paths and the industry, the better off you will be! So many internships and full time jobs happen due to one’s own network. So, even though hiring may be over for specific areas of finance you may be interested in, that doesn’t mean you should stop networking with alumni from those companies If anything, take the time to build relationships and get prepared for the next recruiting season.