Investin IB Summer Internship - Worth it?

My son has registered for a 10-day engineering internship, including an internship in Italy. Ironically, they offer options that we can cancel, but points can only be used for next year's bookings or rebooked to this year once the situation stabilizes. This is not an option! The benefits are entirely theirs! This is unfair treatment! Don't take classes at this company!

I think they make an application look worse, in my opinion.

Yeah exactly, it doesn't "show interest", it just shows you're well off.

i am in the exactly same situation! i booked a half internship for investment banking and they are not providing return of funds even if i am from another country that has completely shut its borders. they are offering a live and online version but its value is completely incomparable to the original programme

Our school sent us an opportunity to register for the Investin Investment Banker Summer Internship in 2020 Summer at UCL for either 2/5/10 days. I was wondering if it's worth doing and if anyone have done it before? It's 1350 pounds for five days, which seems to be quite unreasonable. They mentioned that it will include a Private Experience-day, Cutting-edge trading simulation and a Private networking session.

Yup, and that’s not a personality you want to work with imo

did you do it in the end? Im thinking of doing it

same here im thinking of doing it but here and elsewhere people are saying its not worth it and could do it elsewhere but nowhere else seems to offer the stuff that they are offering so maybe I'm narrow sighted but should I do it?

My school actually paid for a couple of us to go years and years ago, so I can offer my thoughts but the program has probably changed at least a bit since then.

In short, would I pay for it personally? No.

I guess it's helpful if you don't know much about the financial industry or finance careers but everything they say is easily available on a couple of Youtube channels for free. They make it seem like they have top top bankers on the panel sharing their insights but really they're just pretty regular bankers once you understand what level their titles indicate, like I remeber they really bigged up a 'vice president' and a 'president' and everyone thinking that was super senior haha, didn't even have one MD. Like they didn't say anything incorrect as I know look back after working in banking, what they say is all correct, just not worth the money in my opinion.

With regards to how it looks on CVs, depends on the hiring manager I guess. Personally, I don't consider it work experience or a signal of a good candidate, you 100% cannot class it as work experience. What I would recommend though is lots of banks run schemes for 6th form students, mainly in London, these are more useful and you don't have to pay, aside from that just watch good informative videos from people who've worked in UK banking, better yet would be to try to network with some on Linkedin and ask them for advice.

For what it's worth, listing this on your CV as work experience/internship is even worse than those people who put on their CV and Linkedin that they did a "summer internship at Amplify Trading/AmplifyME". If you have to pay for it then it's not work experience or an internship, if it's unpaid then it's work experience rather than an internship/job experience, if you get paid then it's something proper imo.

The one good thing about about things like Amplify or the InvestIn banker programs is that they let you know what kind of people you're up against in the recruitment process, you can't gain this from online videos really.

Hi Ben,
Just one query I am on a gap year and an Incoming student at the University of Nottingham for this summer I am trying to gain work experience I have already applied to Morgan Stanley Lloyds and some other banks but unsuccessful I am thinking of Cold Calling and Cold E-Mails for all big and small Investment Banking and Asset Management firms in London and even accounting firms paid or unpaid. Do you think it is a good method to gain work experience this summer?

I would say that trying to arrange things now for the summer is very very late in the day indeed. Banks don't really hire from cold calling/emailing nowadays, things have to be done through formal channels where everyone can apply and there's a proper process, so I'd give the probability of success as zero in the limit. IMO it would be a much better use of your time to focus on small firms, whether that be in IB (very small ones), asset management and wealth management (PWM is the easiest).

Generally, cold calling/emailing is a very unsuccessful way of getting work experience but you only need to get lucky once so it can be worth doing. Given you've had a whole gap year to arrange this, not sure why you're asking this in June, but I would go onto Google Maps and find tonnes of small AM and wealth management/advisory firms in London, create an excel list of them all and start emailing and connecting on Linkedin. As I said, your odds aren't great generally (esp given you're doing this in June for a summer work experience) but you only need to get lucky once.

My school actually paid for a couple of us to go years and years ago, so I can offer my thoughts but the program has probably changed at least a bit since then.

In short, would I pay for it personally? No.

I guess it's helpful if you don't know much about the financial industry or finance careers but everything they say is easily available on a couple of Youtube channels for free. They make it seem like they have top top bankers on the panel sharing their insights but really they're just pretty regular bankers once you understand what level their titles indicate, like I remeber they really bigged up a 'vice president' and a 'president' and everyone thinking that was super senior haha, didn't even have one MD. Like they didn't say anything incorrect as I know look back after working in banking, what they say is all correct, just not worth the money in my opinion.

With regards to how it looks on CVs, depends on the hiring manager I guess. Personally, I don't consider it work experience or a signal of a good candidate, you 100% cannot class it as work experience. What I would recommend though is lots of banks run schemes for 6th form students, mainly in London, these are more useful and you don't have to pay, aside from that just watch good informative videos from people who've worked in UK banking, better yet would be to try to network with some on Linkedin and ask them for advice.

For what it's worth, listing this on your CV as work experience/internship is even worse than those people who put on their CV and Linkedin that they did a "summer internship at Amplify Trading/AmplifyME". If you have to pay for it then it's not work experience or an internship, if it's unpaid then it's work experience rather than an internship/job experience, if you get paid then it's something proper imo.

The one good thing about about things like Amplify or the InvestIn banker programs is that they let you know what kind of people you're up against in the recruitment process, you can't gain this from online videos really.

The reason for a taking a gap year was the reason to immigrate from India to the UK as in that time in India they were a rise in cases, and my equivalent A-level results were also received late due to the pandemic I had to apply for a visa in august last year but my father had British citizenship then I was able to get my visa in January 2022 which was ILE which was equivalent to ILR I do not require any work visa for the rest of my life until I stay in the UK. I came to the UK in March.
I have also applied to diverse organizations such as SEO London, The Brokerage, Upreach, and Migrant Leaders I was able to get into SEO and The Brokerage. Do you cold emailing small and private wealth management would be the easiest chance to get work experience this summer?

The reason for a taking a gap year was the reason to immigrate from India to the UK as in that time in India they were a rise in cases, and my equivalent A-level results were also received late due to the pandemic I had to apply for a visa in august last year but my father had British citizenship then I was able to get my visa in January 2022 which was ILE which was equivalent to ILR I do not require any work visa for the rest of my life until I stay in the UK. I came to the UK in March.
I have also applied to diverse organizations such as SEO London, The Brokerage, Upreach, and Migrant Leaders I was able to get into SEO and The Brokerage. Do you cold emailing small and private wealth management would be the easiest chance to get work experience this summer?