eFinancialCareers

With most internships directed at penultimate-year university students, what do you do if you’re graduating this year and haven’t landed one of the few places on offer in the front office? The good news is that you can still intern at some banks after you’ve finished university.

Barclays Capital, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and ICAP (not a bank, but a broker) all say they will consider internship applications from students currently in their third year of university.

But HSBC investment bank and UBS say they will most definitely not accept interns who’ve already graduated.

If you want to be a postgraduate intern, it will help if you keep busy after your university course has finished. Rothschild, for example, will only accept internship applications from third years going on to do an MSc.

Other banks appear to feel the same. “We’d look for very clear direction from graduates on what they plan to do in the year between the internship and joining us full time – if the internship results in an offer,” says Claire Miller at Credit Suisse. “A lot of people who apply for postgraduate internships are going on to do a Master's course. Others are spending time doing volunteer work, for example.”