The new undergraduate arms race: bagging a spring internship

Katie Hickman can pinpoint the moment when she first heard the words “spring internship”. It was her first day as a student at the London School of Economics (LSE), when she was navigating her strange new surroundings while struggling with the jet lag that had set in after her flight from her home in America. “Someone came up to me and, instead of saying ‘hello’, said: ‘How many ‘spring weeks’ have you applied for?’ ” Hickman’s head was spinning. “I’d never heard of a spring internship, but soon felt like my entire career rested on whether I got one.”
Spooked, she quickly got with the programme. In her first few weeks at the LSE — a time that many students spend in a fog of drunken delirium — the 19-year-old economics undergraduate, who declined to provide her real name, sacrificed most of her free time applying for no fewer than 40 spring internships in the City. And plenty of other freshers were doing the same. “A lot of people skipped all their lectures in the first few weeks to bang out applications,” she explained, clarifying that her own attendance remained impeccable. “It was really stressful and there was peer pressure because everyone else was doing it.”
Hickman’s words will resonate with many undergraduates currently settling into their new surroundings at universities up and down the country. And her words will no doubt unsettle plenty of their parents, too.
The summer internship has long been a staple for ambitious students willing to sacrifice their holidays on the altar of career planning as they approached graduation. But this established pattern is changing fast. Blue-chip companies are now offering internships in the spring — and, in some cases, even the winter — for those who have just started university.
What started as a practice confined to America’s top investment banks has proliferated across industries. It is now becoming de rigueur among law firms, professional services firms, technology businesses and energy companies. “It’s the hot war for talent — firms want to get the best candidates,” said James Uffindell, founder of the student recruitment site Bright Network.
Those students who make it on to the established ten-week long summer internship schemes at top investment banks can earn as much as £1,750 a week, according to anonymous submissions on the jobs site Glassdoor. However,the winter and spring schemes (sometimes dubbed “insight experiences”) either pay the minimum wage, or just expenses, including accommodation for students travelling from afar. The undergraduates that jump on the internship treadmill right away often find the rewards come later, though. Winter and spring interns can get fast-tracked onto the longer summer internships and, eventually, into proper graduate jobs.
At the LSE, students created an excel spreadsheet that tracked every spring internship available. Placements at the banking giants Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan, at BlackRock, the investment giant, and at professional services firm PwC were among the most sought-after. Hickman, who successfully secured an internship last spring, said students were laser-focused on their job prospects. “The cycle we are now put on is: first years need a spring internship, second years need a summer one and then, if the company likes you, hopefully you get a graduate return [full job] offer.”
White & Case, the American law firm, said about 80 per cent of its graduate intake in London (starting salary: £62,000) are plucked from the ambitious students who join its two-week internship schemes, which run each year in winter, spring and summer. The firm boasts that interns “do real client work” — including drafting memorandums and attending court hearings — and benefit from “ask me anything” Q&A sessions with partners. They even get to dabble in a bit of sushi making as part of organised social events.
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Mischon de Reya, another law firm, offers graduate trainee roles only to students who have first been put through their paces on one of its two internships, which run in spring and summer. Demand is so great for the 15 places on offer that there are as many as 100 applicants competing for each place on the spring programme. After submitting an application, students are interviewed online and then asked to attend an assessment day, involving a case study exercise and a further one-hour interview.
Even students with their eyes on an old-fashioned summer internship at big companies can’t afford to hang around. BlackRock demanded that applications for next year’s summer intern scheme be in by September. The deadlines for summer internships at a host of other financial and law firms — including Rothschild, Lazard and Linklaters — are all due within the next few weeks.
The hours of work that go into applying and preparing for interviews can make for a hectic start to university life. BlackRock’s intern application spans 14 pages, for example.
“Freshers are having to absorb so much — making friends, attending talks, starting reading lists, buying a kettle, working out their lectures — yet these internship deadlines mean they also feel a need to plan their career,” said Jonathan Black, director of Oxford University’s careers service.
One applicant said the competition for places has spawned a new and somewhat dubious industry — where students part with their limited cash in a desperate effort to get ahead.“You can pay second-year students for insights into the psychometric exams in the second round of spring internship interviews,” the applicant said, adding that undergraduates can also pay their older peers to gain sight of some of the questions asked on HireVue, a software program used by large employers to assess the suitability of candidates.
For a £139 fee, a website called JobTestPrep promises students a “PrepPack” to equip them for spring internship success at leading banks and investment firms. The pack includes a guide to sailing through the initial assessment.The scramble for places on spring internships — and the money being spent to try to secure one — has given rise to fears that students from less privileged backgrounds are being disadvantaged from the outset. Take Gary Conway, a second-year economics student at Ulster University. The 24-year-old, who spent two years working on a factory floor before beginning his course, heard about a spring internship at Citibank from a lecturer who mentioned it only hours before the deadline.“I ran home and pulled an all-nighter filling in the application form,” he said. “Everything happens earlier now — you have to be on the ball.” It was worth the last-ditch effort: Conway secured a place on the bank’s four-day “insight programme”. “I was absolutely terrified at first … we had to pitch a business idea for Citi presidents. But I loved it … you can go into an industry early on and see what it’s really like. It gives you a taster and you develop your interview skills.”
Richard Bowden, head of careers at Leicester’s De Montfort University, where more than half the students are from disadvantaged backgrounds, reckons shorter spring internships are actually an enabler of social mobility. He has found that blue-chip companies are more willing to take on the university’s undergraduates for “spring weeks” because their short duration minimises the perceived risk of picking a candidate from a different background.
Cathy Moore, a careers consultant at Ulster University, said those students who are yet to bag an internship shouldn’t panic just yet. “You haven’t missed out if you haven’t scored a spring place yet; there are enough opportunities for second and third years later on,” she said. “But if you do get on to one, you get ahead. And that’s a powerful thing in today’s job market.” Time to fire off those applications.
FIVE TIPS FOR YOUR COVER LETTER
By Jonathan Black, head of careers at Oxford University
1. Write a cover letter that hooks the reader in, convinces them you are attracted to their organisation and gives some inspiring details of your accomplishments2. Aim for a tone that is both professional and friendly – remember you want them to meet you3. Tailor each cover letter to each organisation4. Aim for a letter that spans one page with four paragraphs: a warm opener, a demonstration of your knowledge, an explanation of your credentials and a warm close with a call to action5. Be wary of AI tools. These can be helpful to lay out a broad structure but risk making your letter fail to stand out from the crowd