I’m not sure how you can do a second Master’s in Finance degree if you did the first one a few years ago (???). If you graduated and took a year off with limited/no work experience in that time, all you can really do now is network for other roles in countries where it’s easier to get a visa/work permission. I can’t speak to the ease or difficulty here because I don’t know your citizenship/residency.

So, I would recommend continuing to network in London and/or Switzerland and maybe targeting less-competitive roles, such as corporate banking rather than investment banking.

If none of this works, maybe go for something even less competitive (e.g., corporate finance at a normal company) and then use an MBA to transition into IB after a few years.

The biggest issue here is that you really need to narrow your focus before doing anything else. It’s not plausible to apply to all those different orles at the same time, and it’s too confusing to keep track of your story and interview questions. So, start by picking *just one* for now and then start your networking efforts.

In terms of informational interviews vs. cold emailing, it depends on the role you decide on, but if it’s something like corporate banking or RE, I would just cold-email to ask about full-time roles because you’ll get faster results like that. You already have internship experience, so it doesn’t really make sense to aim for another internship post-graduation or take a slow-burn approach to networking.

I’m a senior at a non-target that did a tax internship at a real estate syndicator, and I discovered my interest in finance very late. I want to get into either business valuation or corporate/commercial banking/even small business lending, but I also opened myself up to RE valuation, lending, treasury (deals with cash and banks, so banking related), and FP&A (modeling so valuation related). I’ve been trying informational interview for the last month or so, but do you think I should try cold emailing since I have another 2 months before I graduate? I’m just not sure if how well it will work for those roles, especially valuation and non-Ibanking banking.

Hi Eric, I’m assuming you’re an Ivey alumni, I am in my 2nd year at UWO and have applied to Ivey, would you possibly have any suggestions regarding any local firms I can reach out to to gain some relevant experience, possibly for this summer, or any other suggestions? Thanks in advance.
And were you able to get in touch with any bankers?

I don’t really have much to say here because we’ve covered resumes many times in the past. You can do a search to find all the resume tips and templates:

https://mergersandinquisitions.com/?s=resume

The main issue here is that the recruiting environment in France is completely different and very elitist, so normal “networking” strategies may not apply. There are some tips here:

https://mergersandinquisitions.com/france-investment-banking/

You can apply online to win these types of internships, but you should start by contacting all the students from your school who win IB offers and ask if they can speak with you for a few minutes to share tips/advice.

Probably not, but it’s worth a try. You have nothing to lose, and I think you could guess peoples’ email addresses if you can find the *email format* of this firm. You should be able to get that online, or try combinations like firstname_lastname@companyname.com until you find one that works (see: https://email-checker.net/).

Respond by asking them if there’s nothing that the senior staff currently spends time on, but which could be offloaded onto someone more junior to free up their time for more important tasks, such as closing deals.