LSESU Business & Investment Group 2021/22
Speculative Summer Internship Guide
for First-Year Students
A detailed breakdown of speculatively applying to internships
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LSESU Business & Investment Group 2021/22 – Speculative Summer Internship Guide
Speculative Summer Internship Guide
President’s foreword:
The purpose of this guide is to provide insight and understanding of the ad-hoc ‘process’ of
receiving the offer of an informal internship. In reality, it is far from a ‘process’ with very little
clarity or transparency of whether firms are looking to take on internships. As students, we are
prone to looking on LinkedIn and becoming confused when trying to understand how someone
from our university or school got the opportunity to intern at prestigious companies as a first-year
undergraduate. While even in 2021 it is very often due to family networks or connections (note:
which is absolutely fine and we would suggest maximising your chances if this is an option to you),
there is little reason why this cannot be matched through graft and hustle. There is absolutely no
need or pre-requisite for first-year students to gain this level of experience, but some might find it
to be a useful learning curve ahead of summer internship applications.
While primarily serving to first-year students who might seek to fill their summer in place or as
well as spring insight programme(s), it provides the foundations for anyone seeking to cold-email
firms in hope of obtaining work experience. This guide aims to suggest a granular approach to a
sporadic and unwritten area of early careers recruitment. Using this as inspiration for your own
process, built upon trial-and-error, will serve you best when making your informal applications.
We welcome and encourage any feedback or suggestions to be sent to: businessinvestment@lsesu.org.
Contents:
Section
General advice
Step 1: Preliminary research
Step 2: High-level scoping
Step 3: Low-level scoping
Step 4: Execution
Step 5: Trial and error
Step 6: Reflections
Topics
-
Resources available
Interviews
Determine the industries you wish to target
When and where do you want to intern?
Ensure your CV is ready
Tracking your progress
Finding your firms
Writing the email
Identify contacts within the firm
Finding email addresses
Sending the email
Undeliverable emails
Update the tracker
Follow-up emails
Widening your scope
Other opportunities
Adapting your target
LSESU Business & Investment Group 2021/22 – Speculative Summer Internship Guide
General advice:
Throughout the process of trying to find your own summer internship, there are some resources
which can present opportunities:
- LSE Career Hub
- Firms with existing summer internships open to first years (i.e., Bank of England and
Redington)
One might also take the risk to apply to internships which are vague in their target audience. For
example, there is precedent for freshers to be called to interview for UniCredit’s summer internship
in London. While this is likely to have a very low success rate, it might also serve as an opportunity
to practice the application process – this might be more useful for those who did not apply to
spring insight programmes.
Interviews
For informal opportunities, the interviewing process is spontaneous and often seen as a ‘getting
to know you’ process. This will always differ firm-by-firm, but make sure to have a solid
understanding of the firm and its work, as well as trends in the industry. You might wish to use
resources such as ‘Glassdoor’ or ‘WallStreetOasis’ to build on any experience of prior interviewees.
With that in mind, take everything you read (including this document) with a pinch of salt and do
not rely on it as up-to-date or fact.
Step 1: Preliminary preparation
Determine the industries you wish to target
While one might initially think that industries such as consulting and investment banking are built
on few, extremely large firms, the reality is that the firms serving small and mid-cap clients are of
a similar size to their clients. As such, while there might only be nine bulge-bracket investment
banks, there will be at least ten-fold small firms which do not hold formal internship schemes but
might be interesting in hosting an intern. Therefore, no industry should be off limits in your search.
‘Step 6’ will discuss how to expand your search, but it might be easier to start off with a clear focus
on just one industry. Doing so will allow for a greater focus and allow for clear synergies between
research and preparation for reaching out to firms.
Some suggestions of industries that are popular with LSESU Business & Investment Group
members include:
- Investment banking (mergers and acquisitions, debt capital markets, equity capital markets,
restructuring); also known as global banking/advisory/corporate finance
- Asset management; including hedge funds/private equity/venture capital/family offices
- Consulting (technology, strategy, management, pricing)
- Marketing (in-house, agency)
- Entrepreneurship (co-founding, start-up)
Some candidates will already have a strong understanding of what industry they wish to enter,
while others will not yet be at this stage. In order to gauge what sectors, you may wish to intern in,
it is first important to consider what type of learner you are.
LSESU Business & Investment Group 2021/22 – Speculative Summer Internship Guide
1) Visual learners à YouTube videos (incl. news, interviews with executives, people in the
industry)
2) Auditory learners à Spotify podcasts (incl. news, firm-specific podcasts)
3) Reading/writing learners à Reading the financial press, blogs, or company
website/annual report
Proper research will pay dividends when making targeted applications as you can expect to
accurately present your interest and desire to gain relevant experience. Having clear reasons for
wanting to enter an industry is crucial in motivating yourself to put the required effort into
applications and your employability more broadly.
Where there still exists confusion about what your desired division would be, aim to prioritise one
industry which shares a similar skillset with others, as this will develop both the soft and hard skills
for a role in this area at a later stage. As an example, work experience in investment banking would
be extremely relevant for breaking into consulting – these synergies are seen far and wide across
sectors.
When and where do you want to intern?
While this is straightforward for most, it is important to determine your availability and location
for the time you wish to intern. For example, as an international student, would you prefer to work
in London or in your home country/city? Would you prefer to like to use this as an opportunity
to work in a different country or city to where you plan to live forever? Taking this step will direct
you to the region of firms to search for, as well as allow for a smooth process of choosing a set of
dates to work for an employer.
Ensure your CV is ready
It is crucial to attach your most recent CV to a cold email, providing detail behind a simple covering
email. By ensuring its aesthetic and linguistic accuracy, you will put your best foot forward. More
importantly, you will not provide scope for a simple ‘no’!
Keep a professional name for your CV file name. For example, ‘Max Verstappen (LSE) - CV’, is
clear and concise while still providing your full name, university, and document name. When
attaching, ensure that the document is saved as a PDF. This will maintain a consistency for the
appearance of your document on the reader’s device – a Microsoft Word document cannot ensure
this.
By using the LSESU Business & Investment Group Resource Drive as well as asking mentors and
friends to check over your CV, you will minimise errors and maximise chances.
Tracking your progress
It is important to keep a detailed and simple-to-use log of your applications. Whether this is for
your own progress checks or to be able to pass on information to people in the following year, it
is important to begin with good practices of logging.
Microsoft Excel offers a local way to save your progress on your computer, but Google Sheets
allows for sharing and collaboration amongst a group of peers/mentors/family/friends.
A basis for columns might be:
LSESU Business & Investment Group 2021/22 – Speculative Summer Internship Guide
Firm Industry Contact Name
Role
Email
General/HR
Email
Date of First
Contact
Progress
Additional columns could include notes, source, and secondary contacts.
Step 2: High-level scoping
Finding your firms
An extensive list of firms is necessary in order to spread your chances widely. There are many
methods of finding these firms, including:
- Google Maps à simple searches such as ‘investment banks near me’ will yield a wide-list
of (mostly) relevant firms that are on your door step. This is a very good way of finding
regional firms which might not even have a website.
-
Lists à searching ‘list of consulting firms in London’ will likely find lists of >100 firms;
all of which are potential targets in your search.
-
LinkedIn à when you look at a company page on LinkedIn, it provides a range of similar
companies, under ‘pages people also viewed’. Use the findings from the other methods to
then find peripheral companies which did not quite make the original list.
LSESU Business & Investment Group 2021/22 – Speculative Summer Internship Guide
-
Databases à often provide a comprehensive list of firms in an industry, although often
excessively long and include irrelevant firms. Examples of databases would be Bloomberg
Terminal, Crunchbase, and CapitalIQ. (Note: CapitalIQ is available free of charge to LSE
students. This is a massively useful resource; try and get familiar.) As seen below, the list
of advisors on UK transactions over the last 12 months has 2,023 results. At the same
time, it includes ‘13 pubs and bars’ as an advisor… oversight is imperative when using
databases. Bloomberg can be accessed on Terminals in the Library (fourth floor).
o For a walkthrough of CapitalIQ, here is a fundamentals course from Corporate
Finance Institute
To research whether firms are relevant or of interest, taking a simple look through an available
website to check that they remain active and are in the industry of interest. There will be plenty
more firms to look through, so do not be too worried to filter through companies amply. Look
through their recent work and social media accounts (namely LinkedIn for the latest news).
For cold-emailing and ad-hoc internships, greater success will be seen from companies that you
have never heard of. At this stage, it is more important to show a longstanding interest and
competence in the industry rather than having a recognisable name – often, this is simply
unobtainable. Ideally, firms will not have a formal internship programme but do have a history of
taking students for work experience – often this can be found through a LinkedIn search. Issues
can sometimes arise when companies are too premature in their development such that taking on
an intern would cause a large burden on them.
LSESU Business & Investment Group 2021/22 – Speculative Summer Internship Guide
Writing the email
Executives are busy people; getting through to them will be hit-or-miss. The email should be
humble and straight-to-the-point. Make sure to use grammar checkers such as Grammarly to
ensure it is accurate and lacks careless mistakes. With the purpose being to gain an internship, look
to state the aim explicitly and not skate around the topic. Over time, you should adjust your email
as you notice areas of improvement and weaknesses in your writing – be adaptable and do not be
stuck in your ways. Below is an example email, with annotations provided.
Example 1:
Subject: Max Verstappen - LSE
Dear Lewis Hamilton,
I am a first-year [your subject] undergraduate at the London School of Economics and
Political Science; I am writing to express my interest to the possibility of an unpaid or paid1
summer internship at [firm name].
I have a deep interest2 in the [investment banking/consulting/etc] industry, developed by
watching others in the industry and my exposure to client service through my [length of
time] internship as a [position]3, both of which introduced me to a variety of concepts such
as [costs of operation and the shutdown point]. This has been further developed by my
involvement in the [society or group] at the LSE where I have been introduced to [deal
rationale, financing and basic financial statements]4. This involvement in combination with
my previous experiences highlighted in my attached CV would place me in a position to
be able to support the work carried out by [firm name] whilst being able to learn more
about the industry I am keen to break into5.
Thank you for your consideration, I know you are really busy, but even a 1 or 2-line reply
would really make my day6.
Kind regards,
Max Verstappen
Notes:
1
You may wish to make it clear to the employer your expectations of remunerations, this might
be paid/unpaid/expenses paid – it is important not to complete an internship that is unaffordable
to you.
2
When talking about your knowledge and interest, be cautious not to over-exaggerate your ability.
While it is good to be confident and actively engage with the industry, use your personality to
succeed in your career, rather than your career being your personality.
3
It is not expected to have prior experience, but it would be useful to highlight if you do. If not,
show your interest to learn more in a practical setting following your exposure to the industry via
societies/events/conferences/networking/reading.
4
Try to find a good balance between showing your knowledge and using complex ideas for the
sake of doing so. Remember, you might be asked about mentioned concepts in an interview or
introductory call.
LSESU Business & Investment Group 2021/22 – Speculative Summer Internship Guide
5
Show that you are eager to learn.
6
Good way to show understanding and respect, while also opening the invitation for conversation
beyond the prospect of an internship.
Example 2:
Hi Beyonce,
I hope you are well.
My name is Jay-Z, and I am a first-year [your subject] undergraduate student at the LSE.
Over the summer I interned at [prior firm name], and at the moment, I would be interested
in exploring summer internship opportunities at [firm name]. I was wondering whether we
could connect and discuss any insights you have about your team, as well as your
experience so far at the firm. Please find my CV attached for some background on myself.
Thank you in advance.
Best regards,
Jay-Z
Remember, this document will be seen by hundreds of students in the same position as yourself,
so aim to take inspiration rather than copying this guide. It would seem almost certain that two
students will send the same email to the same person as a result – don’t make this mistake!
Unless you have a deep desire for a particular firm, it is perhaps too time consuming to explain
‘why the firm’ in each email. Instead, you might want to offer a cover letter to the firm if this
would be useful to them in their decision-making stage. This would be done with a short sentence
towards the end of your email.
Step 3: Low-level scoping
Identifying contacts within the firm
There is the choice between emailing general address (HR/general enquiries) and senior executives
within the business. From experience, the best practice is though emailing a senior individual while
including the general address in the cc bar on the email. Therefore, there is a need to find the
relevant individuals to target. Ways to find these people are through:
- Company website; usually the ‘meet the team’ page
- LinkedIn; search for the company and click onto their employees
- Google; simple searches for ‘[Firm Name] Head of [Selected Division]’
When deciding between individuals, try and find a relevant position who might also share in a
characteristic to yourself. This might include attending the same university/school, coming from
the same country/city or even sharing the same first name. The success rate of emails might reflect
the extra time invested in finding the right person. Where common ground cannot be found,
consider the head of division or geography.
LSESU Business & Investment Group 2021/22 – Speculative Summer Internship Guide
Finding email addresses
It first important to consider the platform you wish to reach out on. Where possible, email is the
appropriate platform to use for a range of reasons. Not only does it allow for the attachment of
your CV, but you are also not bound by a character limit for an initial reach-out. As you might
imagine, a senior banker might tend to spend more time on their emails rather than LinkedIn.
Should you decide to reach out to people via LinkedIn, as might be the case for senior bankers
who regularly post, include your CV as an attachment.
Contact emails might be included in the ‘meet the team’ page, but often not. In order to find these,
LinkedIn can be used with a range of extensions to help determine the contact email address.
From experience, these might include ‘getemail.io’, ‘Apollo’, ‘Skrapp’ – there will be plenty more.
Platforms tend to have free versions which provide a number of credits each month; just keep
changing extension to continue. In practice, there should be no need to spend any money to
establish the email addresses. These are fairly intuitive and provide walkthroughs upon installation.
HR and general enquiries email addresses can often be found on the ‘careers’ and ‘contact us’ page
respectively.
In the case where you cannot find the correct person’s email address, you might wish to establish
the format for the firm’s email addresses and then infer what your desired contact’s email is. For
example, if Lewis Hamilton’s email is ‘l.hamilton@bank.org’, you might assume Max Verstappen’s
is ‘m.verstappen@bank.org’. Of course, this does not have a 100 per cent success rate as middle
name initials can change the order of things.
Step 4: Execution
Sending the email
Ever wonder how your LSE sends out a blanket email with everyone’s name on? This bulk email
distribution can be done via a few methods, including various CRM software as well as the mail
merge function on Microsoft Outlook. This allows for your email to fill in gaps with the recipients’
name/firm name/position and any other relevant email, all with one click of a button.
When doing this, make sure to practice the technique before using the correct emails in order to
become proficient and avoid embarrassing mistakes. Here is a guide on how to mail merge using
a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. For further advice, seek YouTube videos to get a walkthrough.
Alternatively, emails can be sent on a one-by-one basis, although this is more time consuming.
Mail merge is a great technique when there are >15 emails needing to be sent.
Another point of consideration is when to send the email. This comes down to personal preference
and trial-and-error. Some wish to be the first email in the mailbox on a Monday morning while
others think it’s better to be get in touch at the end of the week.
Undeliverable emails
Given that the aforementioned industries tend to have high employee turnover, you might that a
number of your emails go undelivered. This might be because of leaving the firm, the wrong email
format, or their mailbox being full. In this case, go back to ‘Step 3’ and identify further contacts in
the firm as well as their email address.
LSESU Business & Investment Group 2021/22 – Speculative Summer Internship Guide
Step 5: Trial and error
Updating the tracker
Consistently logging the updates onto your tracker will ensure your progress is monitored and you
can follow the number of leads that are in the pipeline. This will support you in identifying the
strengths and weaknesses of the process so far and allow you to adapt your game plan accordingly.
This is also a useful way of keeping on top of next steps and any actionable items. As mentioned,
it is a good habit to get into for other applications. Making these updates as they happen will
prevent long periods of time being spent on this exercise.
Follow-up emails
It is likely that most of your emails will not receive a reply. At this point, you can either send a
follow-up email, as a ‘reply all’ to the initial reach out, or you can call it a dead lead. When sending
a follow-up email, keep it clear and concise, with it acting as bringing attention to your primary
email.
Dear Lewis Hamilton,
I hope you are well and have had a good week so far. I was wondering whether you have
had the opportunity to look at my initial email regarding internship opportunities at [firm
name]1.
Any response or feedback2 would be greatly appreciated, at your convenience.
Kind regards,
Max Verstappen
Notes:
1
Reiterate the overall agenda to make their job of reading the email even more straightforward.
2
Showing eagerness to improve but also for general usefulness in future emails as they might well
not be interested in taking interns.
When looking to send follow-up emails, try to keep at least a full week before clicking send.
Perhaps also aim for a different time of the week/day. Sending the original email on Friday
afternoon and then the follow-up on the Monday morning, the week after next. Once again, keep
the tracker up to date with which enquiries have had follow-up emails sent.
Widening your scope
At a point where you have followed-up appropriately and replies have slowed down, look to repeat
‘Step 3’ and ‘Step 4’ to increase the number of firms you are targeting. You can find more niche
firms by using the database approach as well as looking further into the LinkedIn sphere.
More information can be found in ‘Step 6’.
LSESU Business & Investment Group 2021/22 – Speculative Summer Internship Guide
Step 6: Reflections
When measuring your success rate, you might be disappointed and wish to re-assess your process.
Using the tracker alongside your initial research can reveal areas for improvement and further
opportunities to explore.
Other opportunities
Organised programmes exist where support staff help find you an internship. This might be on
widely-recognised programmes such as 10000BlackInterns or social mobility charities such as
upReach and SEO London. Where eligible, please do apply as a gateway to a realm of possibility.
Members will go on to intern at leading investment banks, corporates, law firms, technology
companies, and much more. There are plenty of similar organisations so make sure to keep an eye
out.
You might also wish to take the summer to broaden your skillset in other ways. This might be
developing soft and hard skills through online courses or volunteering. Available across a range of
ways, this will better prepare you for a range of different tasks you might experience in the working
world. Suggestions might include financial modelling, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and
presentation training. More straightforward opportunities could be improving your commercial
acumen through keeping up to date with the financial press and news outlets. Getting involved
with societies can also show a persistent interest in an industry of your choice. Most importantly,
find the time to relax and reenergise before second-year.
For completeness’ sake, it should be mentioned that some firms or education providers offer paid
experiences over the summer in lieu of an internship. While these have may have clear value-add,
the opportunity to upskill can be done for free as mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Adapting your target
Where relevant, one might wish to explore a different region to work, beyond their first preference.
While this offers the same experience in work, it might have different implications for living and
social arrangements. Instead, considering different industries can be an extremely useful and
worthwhile step in finding an informal internship. This might include a jump from investment
banking to corporate. As an example, working in the finance department of a textiles company.
What is important to remember, is that working in professional services (accounting, consulting,
investment banking, etc.) are client-facing professions which rely on winning clients to generate
business and therefore revenue. As such, there is great use in building an understanding of life on
the other side of the table. Not only will you develop the relevant skills in these firms, but also a
deeper understanding and ability to get to grips with the operations of an individual business.
LSESU Business & Investment Group 2021/22
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