Summer 2010 internship candidates - how is the search going?

Question

Hi guys, I'm a Fall 2010 B school admit and am fascinated to see how the internship hunt pans out this year. I've seen on this forum that summer 2009 was a total bloodbath - lots of people struggling to find positions, especially internationals and career changers.

As an international career changer, I'm particularly keen to see how things go down this year because it'll be my turn next year...

As an international career changer, I'm particularly keen to see how things go down this year because it'll be my turn next year...

refurb · Answer

The on-campus interviews are just getting started at Tuck.

From the number of job postings things are much better this year than last year. If the economy keeps improving, I think this will be a pretty solid year for internships.

RF

DrSatisfaction · Answer

i'm looking for internships now. from what i hear, it's better this yr.

but it's harder for me of course since i don't start school 'til fall of 2010, so i'm applying for associate level internships vs. 1st mba students. still though, it's not impossible and that's what i gotta do since i'll be in a 1 yr program.

nink · Answer

Okay. Just made a decision on summer internship destination. I am indeed headed to NYC for a finance internship. I was really down to 2 opportunities on the top of my list. I did my 4th round interview with one of them last week (Solaris1 - this is the bank that we talked about before. They sure made me interview with crap load of people like you've predicted) and was notified this morning that I wouldn't be extended an offer. As a result, I am going to accept a summer internship at a boutique investment bank (without mentioning names - hint: their name sounds like a type of a reptile) in restructuring. I chose restructuring over their M&A practice because I once had a dream of buying up distressed companies, take them private, restructure its operations, and then take it public again for profit. This is soooo not what I thought I would be doing post-MBA but hell, it's too good of an opportunity to reject it and spend my summer at a Fortune 500 tech company in a mgt training program.Any other Class of 2011 make a decision on their summer plans yet?

Jerz · Answer

I've also signed an internship offer for the summer, and will be heading back to NJ and interning at a well-known multi-national healthcare company. Overall from talking with friends here it seems like recruiting was better this year. I know many people who were choosing between multiple offers. But for career changers and internationals it was still pretty challenging since companies were looking for "safer" candidates. It seems like the big change from pre-recession was that there is more of an expectation that finding full-time employment this fall at somewhere other than your intern employer could be challenging, so a lot of people were making decisoins about internships while thinking about whether they'd want to work for that company post-graduation. There was a lot less thinking about using the internship to try something out then look for a real job when you got back to school for the 2nd year.

nink · Answer

LMAO! Is this the same company that you, fatb, solaris, and terp all predicted for summer internship before start of bschool?

Posted from my mobile device

3underscore · Answer

Jefferies, named after my pet gecko?

solaris1 · Answer

Congratulations, ninky! Excellent, excellent place to work at!

I'm still looking, but that's mostly because I only applied to very few on-campus recruiting opportunities (interviewed, and subsequently got dinged), and now want to do something rather specific that's a bit non-traditional as far as the MBA goes. We'll see. There will always be the World Cup in South Africa come summer! Ha.

Investment banking did fairly well here. JPMorgan and Barclays made the most offers, I believe (I want to say 10-ish each?) Marketing did very well too with a surprisingly large number of people going to big CPG companies in the New York Metro. I know of a few people who accepted BCG, Bain, and Booz offers but I'm not really tuned to the consulting grapevine on campus.

Things look good and there's certainly no sense of despair among the folks who're still looking. Yet.

nink · Answer

I wish you the best solaris1! I know you will find something no matter what. And speaking of World Cup this summer, I just know that I am gonna eat lots of lunch at bars again..... :-D

(or am I allowed to eat lunch anymore?)

Raabend · Answer

I landed my internship in early February (on-campus recruiting). Will be doing brand management for a major global CPG.

Jerz · Answer

I think so, but I've killed off so many brain cells since school started that I can't exactly remember what we talked about last summer.

Good luck at Geico this summer.

krispy · Answer

Congrats guys! It is so nice to see familiar names again.

At Booth, this year seemed to be better than last year, but I still know that many of my classmates are without an offer at this point. Internationals looking for positions in the US are definitelly struggling (I get the feeling that internationals from English speaking countries faired relatively well). Having said that once they start focusing on their home market, the game seems to suddenley change. What I didn't realize was how stressful recruiting could be. Rejection after rejection was sometimes a bit too much especially after putting so much hours in networking. I thought I was going to lose it.

I actually put good effort in off-campus recruiting during the fall and it turned out to be fruitful. I will be doing investment management at this fund. I didn't think I would be doing anything financy, but oh well, it seems like a great opportunity, and I don't have anything else lined up. So there it goes.

nink · Answer

Congrats Raabend and Krispy!

And I will say hello to the caveman for you, Jerz.

DrSatisfaction · Answer

well i thought i'd jump back in here and update. i'm doing my internship at CICC in china. almost sure it'll be in ibanking (since it's their core business), but not sure which product group yet. since i don't have 1 yr of mba education under my belt yet, they're gonna pay me slave labor wages (i.e. local chinese analyst wages), but they'll give me more interesting work to do, given my previous experiences.

all i gotta say was, this place was damn hard to get into without an mba!

but they are pretty prestigious in china though, so i'm really glad to have the opportunity to intern there, even if i'm being paid crap all.

hopefully it'll be easier next yr with the mba.

but they are pretty prestigious in china though, so i'm really glad to have the opportunity to intern there, even if i'm being paid crap all. hopefully it'll be easier next yr with the mba.

riverripper · Answer

Found this from our CMC blog...companies recruiting on campus was up 24% from last year, the number of interview spots available was up 16% increase over last year. The number of companies indicating they are willing to hire international students has increased by 40% over last year.

So things were definitely much better this year than last year. Personally I think next year will be even better and closer to normal as long as we dont go back into the recession.

a11c99 · Answer

Congratulations, Dr! I hope you'll get interesting work even though not the big bucks. :-)

Are you considering also an internship for the summer of 2011? I think Oxford web-site mentions that it's possible, but the focus is on SCP.

Yahsek · Answer

What is up, 2011ers?!

I'll be working on an energy efficiency project in Plano, TX this summer as an Environmental Defense Fund Climate Corps Fellow. Anyone have suggestions on what to do in Plano and/or Dallas?

Say "hi" to Martin for me this summer, nink.

https://blogs.business.com/whatworks/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/gecko_head_shot_small-300x293.gif

nink · Answer

Haha, congrats on your internship Yahsek. And I sure will send him your regards. :-D

dharmabum · Answer

Hi all,

I recognize that my posting has been spotty at best, but I wanted to give a quick update. I'll be working in sustainable product strategy at a major chemical manufacturer this summer. As someone who is quite young (just turned 24) and didn't have any relevant business experience (came from TFA), I was fairly concerned going into the recruiting season. I count myself fantastically fortunate that I had a couple really good offers to choose from. If you run across folks that are concerned about age or experience, do send them my way.

Best,
dharmabum

curiousapplicant · Answer

Hi dharmabum,

Congratulations on securing your internship at Dow, it sounds really interesting. Could I ask, do you have any previous experiences that you believe better positioned you for a job in sustainable project strategy?

thanks for your time and have a good day.

-curious

Summer 2010 internship candidates - how is the search going?

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