Pre-MBA Internship

This pre-MBA internship idea is very interesting. Anyone has any experience or leads on how to go about hunting for opportunities?

I live in a small city (pop. ~ 250K). My school's alumni network isn't very strong here.

Congrats! I wish I could get in and afford to go to Oxford.

the person who originally gave me the idea was a 1st year student at HBS. i went up a few months ago for a prospective students day, and he mentioned that he was able to obtain one through his network at MLT (management leadership for tomorrow).

unfortunately, i was not a part of that program, so that rules out MLT as a resource. however, if i do get into my top school, im going to start reaching out to my other networks (undergrad, former work colleagues, current students at my admitted school, professional networks etc) and try and snag something. eminent put it best in another thread:

This is the master Pre MBA Internship from last year.

pre-mba-internship-74642.html?view-post=558063#p558063

I've been feeling some pressure to get a pre-mba internship myself as I am intending to be a career switcher. Do you guys have an opinion on whether or not it is appropriate to include your prospective MBA program on your resume?

When you say "prospective", are you saying you are going to put a school X on your resume before admitted to a school X? If so, that's a no-no. If you are admitted to school X and communicated that you will be attending to that school for sure, yes - then you can put on your resume.

I'm also looking for a pre-MBA internship.I would be a career switcher from IT to MC.

I'm meeting Tepper alums this week but not sure whether I can request for an internship as I'm still applying to few schools in R2.

Should I tell them that I won't attend Tepper if I get into other schools or should I just hide it and request for an internship opportunity?

It certainly is a good idea. I fear you are slightly hamstrung on a 1 year program with the HF, PE or VC type careers as I think the best way to truly make that happen is screw around with your second year classes so much that you can take on an internship throughout the year.

For people who have made switches in to these fields, that is normally what it takes. Rhyme talks about it on his Chicago summary.

so i've talked to all my contacts and i'm getting some vague leads right now. does it matter if the internship is paid or unpaid? i mean i personally don't care, and if a bank/fund is willing to take me on for an unpaid internship because they're out of budget and already offered their paid internships to first yr mba students, then that's cool too. i'm just wondering if that has a negative effect on the quality of the work i'll get to do or look not as impressive on my resume later? even though i feel like the connections i make will be pretty beneficial during even an unpaid internship.

also the reason i'm looking at the unpaid "of out the box" atypical interships is because i don't want to just do analyst level work, yet i don't have the first yr mba education to do a paid associate level internship, so i'm kinda stuck in limbo.

also is it better to do something in a big bank that'll likely offer me a post-mba job or in a smaller buyside fund that might not have a job for me later? what are the risk and benefits associated with the opportunities given my eventual interest in being in the buyside?

If you want to go buyside, go buyside. If the firm is the right fit, go whether they pay or not if it isn't an issue to you. Different places pay different ways, but you really need to pick the experience that you think develops you more. Buyside firms will prefer experience on that side over doing bank work for sure.

As I look for an internship in IB/PE before school starts, I'm worried that an eventual situation will be a company saying "sure, we have a position open, what do you know about <technical stuff>? Does anyone have any recommended resources for a career switcher trying to break into these areas?

I did not major in finance, but took a fair number of courses in it during UG and did well. I took no accounting. I've dug out my textbook from advanced corp fin and have begun re-teaching myself that. I also have a few accounting textbooks from a friend, and plan on going through those also.

So I have two questions before I get too far into this:

- Are there equally good/better resources I should look into, and ones that preferably take less time than going through an 800 page textbook?
- Is my focus in the wrong area? For example, should I be studying a book on valuations instead of corp fin and accg?

Thanks!

i'd prob go with the valuations stuff over accounting. corp finance is somewhere in between.

what type of internships are you trying to do? ibanking? consulting?

PE would be ideal, but thinking I will probably focus on IB and try to use that as stepping stone

Just saw this in another thread about books - will probably get these.
https://www.ibankingfaq.com/for-further- ... nce-books/

hey guys, a bit of an update on my situation. will definitely need advice from the more knowledgeable guys here if possible.

so i have 2 potential opportunities right now. nothing solid, but the connections i have that led to these opportunities are good, and that'll give me a realistic chance at both. so now my question is, assuming i get both, which one should i take?

keep in mind my long term goal is to get do PM work at a HF or start my own fund yrs down the road.

1. CICC - China International Capital Corporation - joint venture ibank between Chinese government and Morgan Stanley (who's trying to sell their stake to Bain/KKR/TPG). if they take me on here, i'll most likely be on the S&T team and will be covering a lot of the chinese markets. pros - i get excellent exposure to the asian market and also S&T experience. also a good resume builder with the CICC/Morgan Stanley joint venture name. these guys have a premium brand in china and with this internship on my resume, i should be able to at least land interviews with anyone else in china later on (in all honesty, it'll probably generate a job offer after my mba as well, as long as i don't screw up too badly). cons - nothing much in the absolute sense, only relative to my 2nd internship possibility, which is a bit more closely related to my long term career goals.

2. a chinese hedge fund started up by one of the biggest name chinese traders/PM. this guy used to be the head of the global macro desk at Lehman Bros and then went over to SAC Capital as a PM. highest earning asian trader by Trader magazine a few yrs ago (estimated to have cleared over $100 mil). then went and opened up shop by himself in china. here, it's different than at CICC, since i get to jump straight to the buy side and save a lot of time in my career. however, the likelihood of me getting an offer for a full time position is relatively smaller than at CICC. also, i’m not sure how much i can learn here because the team will be extremely small…only probably 10-20 traders and i’ll just be their coffee *complain* mostly.

however, it’s also very important to consider the fact that, if i do a good job here and end up with an offer after my mba, i'm looking at a pretty sizeable increase in pay over a S&T job at CICC or one of its major chinese competitors (GS, DB, UBS are the only major players there locally that i’m aware of at this point – either way, the point is that the competition will be limited, and a CICC internship will open doors to all of these companies). so in pure expected value terms, i'll probably make more in the future if i took this gig. my main concern is how much i'll get to learn here, and how likely is this job to lead to a full time offer later. if I don’t get a full time offer from them, am i stuck with nowhere else to go? the fact that i interned with a HF and didn’t get an offer doesn’t exactly look good on the resume. so i guess i’m just more worried about the potential downside risk of this job here.

also, if my ultimate goal is to be on the buy side, then should i just aim to get all the buy side experience (both real hands on experience and something good on my resume) i can right now first? rather than try to play it safe and make it to a good spot on the sell side first (senior associate/junior vp) before trying to switch to the buy side?

what do you guys think? would really appreciate advices from guys who are in the industry or have a ton of knowledge. right now i'm leaning towards the HF possibility with CICC as the backup. however, i feel that if i get an offer from CICC and turn it down, i'm burning the bridge there and won’t be able to go back if things don’t pan out for me in the HF world. maybe there are things i’m not seeing right now? issues that i haven’t considered/factored into this? let me know guys.

thanks!

No industry experience here, but I share your goals going into b-school this fall as a career-changer. I would think that the HF wouldn't necessarily limit your opportunities in S & T. Either way the sell-side firm will find you desirable after your pre-MBA internship. And to play devil's advocate to your "go sell side now to go back to same firm post-MBA" argument, what if you screwed up right now? Then they wouldn't hire you later anyway, right? I dont know how familiar you are with markets/macro principles but that first year, or in your case, the only year, of finance education will really make a difference when you enter the door.

I think the question you should ask CICC is whether S & T full-time hires need internships there first. If the answer is definitely yes, then perhaps consider taking this more likely path to securing a job post-MBA, and study your a** off to go in prepared for your next few months.

Best case scenario with option B, the HF loves you, thinks you're a great fit, and you get an offer post-MBA ... that is pretty sweet.

No-brainer for HF if you had another summer internship available. I can see why you'd be concerned if you're going to Oxford.

If it were me, and I were able to land one of these pre-MBA internships, I'd go to INSEAD January-term and get an internship (or bid points for Wharton Exchange program in September intake), and take the HF job. INSEAD is more reputable among top PE/Asset-Mgmt firms; it's just nearly impossible to get a sell-side job for a career switcher coming out of there without an internship. Doesn't look like you'll have that problem ...

In conclusion, I envy you. Congrats and good luck.