Hello

[andrew green]

I am an interested parent, already work at IB, but infrastructure side.

My son is starting economics at uni this year. Trying to find out whatever I can about summer internships etc. When I had my interns I never really bothered to ask them how they got there, they were dropped on us from HR. Now I am on the other side hoping to help my son.

 

[Trigger]

Hi, cool to have you here! The spring week guide here on the site might be a good start for him, applications are soon to open. What kind of role does he have in mind?

 

[andrew green]

Hi

He has done three summer internships at a boutique hedge fund where they love him. He is currently performing an analysis of psychological trends during boom/bust cycles. So far his exposure has been on this hedge fund so it is all about analysis of stock markets indices very tailored to how they trade there. He has three As in maths, chemistry and economics. AS further maths A, and biology B. 10 A*s GCSEs, DoE, Claritas Financial Certificate. He is gutted he did not get into Oxford past the interview, neither in LSE and UCL. I am gutted too. Decided not to take a year out but to go to Bath Economics.

I presume he would be looking to go to any department in pure IB, but would stay away from "administrative" like audit, risk, anything back office.

 

[Trigger]

That's quite solid. Think he'll be alright for spring internship interviews (I mean landing them in the first place) if he puts the effort into his applications. Bath is still up there, but I understand how you feel: was straight rejected from the same unis (except instead of Oxford it was Cambridge) for econ, all along thinking I'm gonna get at least two of them.

Given his background shooting for something BO/MO in fact seems kind of a waste, he should definitely go for S&T spots.

 

[andrew green]

Thanks for the encouragement. What is BO/MO and S&T ? How do we rate Bath Economics vs others? Rumour or something more scientific?

 

[Trigger]

BO/MO stands for Back Office/Middle Office, S&T for Sales & Trading.

While subject choice does not matter, university choice does. Your chances are substantially higher from the so-called target universities: Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Warwick, UCL and Imperial. Outside of these universities, you can still have a good chance at: Bristol, Bath, Durham, Nottingham, Cass Business School, York, KCL, Edinburgh, Birmingham, St Andrews and Manchester.

Outside the above universities, you also have a chance but you will have to work substantially harder. The rule of thumb is: the further down you are, the harder you have to work, the more relevant your subject should be and the more impressive your profile will need to be.

This is pretty much how the bulge bracket recruiting goes.

Bath is one of the top semi-targets, sends quite a few kids into BB front office internships each year so there's plenty of alumni who are already working in good positions. I think you should direct him here though and let him do the research on his options/the industry in general.

 

[Mr. Exclusive]

Thanks for the encouragement. What is BO/MO and S&T ? How do we rate Bath Economics vs others? Rumour or something more scientific?

To reiterate what is above,

He should decide what division he wants to he can explain his motivation concisely during interview. Bath Economics is fine with strong motivation and with all the background experience he has - he is in a solid position. His focus should be on extra-curricular activities while at university to demonstrate transferable skills as well as trying to get into leadership positions on some of those societies. Bear in mind, SW (Spring Week) recruitment starts now/September, and these act as feeder programmes for the summer internship so are very important. He should also practice the psychometric tests, maybe set up a demo trading account/or trading society (if he's interested in that) at university. Voluntary work can also look great and he should make sure he does well in his first year (get a first) as most people don't try that hard and this reflects badly during recruitment.

It's achievable from Bath with the right motivation, technique, knowledge, transferable skills and extra-curriculars plus his past experience (and any more he can get) that in essence, make his CV "look good". The key with that now will to be able to present it in the correct way as well as answer the competency questions on the application form very well.