The steppingstone to your successful career launch

Internships are an essential part of every finance student’s timeline, whether they are part of your study program and completed in between your semesters or as a way to spend your gap year between your bachelor’s and master’s degree. A modern career, especially in finance, is basically impossible without internships as a first step, and they have several advantages for both sides, as you and your employer can get to know each other very well before committing to each other. Furthermore, you have the chance to evaluate whether this specific job is the right one for you or whether you would like to explore a different field instead.

Transitioning from Intern to Full-Time

If you are a student and have only had internship experience before, you are most likely wondering how you can turn your internship into a full-time position and what differences and new experiences you will feel when making the transition. Based on my experience as starting as an intern at MP Corporate Finance and transitioning to a full-time analyst, I will tell you about the path I went through and the most interesting points and differences you notice when moving up to your first full-time position at MP Corporate Finance.

My Personal Journey

As for me personally, I have received my bachelor’s degree in spring 2020, knowing, after having completed two internships, that I want to start my career in the area of Investment Banking. Nevertheless, I have mostly applied for internships, with the goal to then transition to a full-time role if the company suits me and my wishes for an employer. MP Corporate Finance offered a very clear chance of being promoted to an analyst position after successfully completing an internship, which was a great advantage for me.

The Internship Experience

Starting as an intern, you participate in a comprehensive onboarding that teaches you everything you need to know to do your job and immediately get the chance to apply your learnings in practice. You start to assist your team in different tasks across different projects. As a part of the onboarding, you get access to three courses by Breaking Into Wall Street, which you must complete being eligible for an analyst promotion. While challenging at times, the courses are very helpful and help you immensely in your daily tasks, as you will be working with excel and financial models a lot.

The Path to Analyst Promotion

Depending on your performance as an intern, you will receive feedback from your mentor, who collects impressions from everyone you worked with and shares it with you in your personal mentoring discussion. There are several criteria your work will be evaluated upon, based on the MP Corporate Finance values. Those criteria are classified into three types: business, behavioural and professional competencies. To become an analyst, you need to reach a certain level of skill in each of the competency types and you need to have completed the three Breaking Into Wall Street certificates. If you fulfil those prerequisites and delivered a good performance during your internship you will be very likely offered a promotion to an analyst at the end of your internship.

Transitioning to Analyst Role

There are several differences you will notice when starting your first day as an analyst. As you would expect, you receive a greater responsibility than before. As an intern, you are not staffed on specific projects but instead assist your colleagues in various tasks and across different projects. Analysts, however, are staffed on specific deals. You will be responsible for your own deals and get to know them in-depth. This is a very interesting change as you feel a far heavier emotional investment into the project and you can focus your resources on it. There are several new tasks, such as approaching potential buyers, sellers or talking to clients. You are furthermore responsible for the documentation of the projects and keeping the client up to date with the status of the deal.

Launching Your Career

Internships pose an important stepstone into a career in finance and if done right, they can lead you to your first full-time analyst position. MP Corporate Finance offers a great opportunity for every intern out of university or with previous experience to be rewarded for their performance and receive a promotion. As an analyst, you encounter many new tasks and new responsibilities which help you grow a lot as a person and are rewarding to complete. Upon completing your onboarding and proving that you are a helpful and essential part of the MP team during your internship, your path to an analyst has no more obstacles and you are ready to successfully launch your career.