“Beware the one-year French bank internships”
I am unemployed and a mistake involving a French bank is partly to blame.
I left university in the UK two years ago. I’d completed a summer internship at a major bank and then received an offer to work for a US bank in London when I graduated. For various reasons, that offer fell through. I was unable to take it; I was left without a job.
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At that stage, all the places at other US banks were full. When a one-year internship came up at a French bank, I therefore jumped at it. I didn’t want to have gaps on my CV and I thought that the French bank internship would be better than nothing.
That was a mistake.
In fact, the French bank internship set me up to fail. I received no real training, minimal pay and no offer of a full-time job at the end of it. I’m not alone in this: everyone else I know who’s done a one-year internship at a French bank didn’t receive job offers either. It’s just not how these things work.
A year as an intern at a French bank is not a preparation for an investment banking job. French banks use their one-year interns as cheap labour. You work from 9-5 and do menial tasks. To the extent that you’re prepared for a job at all, it’s a job in the middle and back office.
That’s why, at end of these French bank internships, everyone becomes unemployed. You lack the training that’s offered at US investment banks, and so you still need to do a training program, but no one will hire you. You’re out of the graduate recruitment loop and you can’t apply for experienced roles either.
Personally, I’m at an impasse. I need to earn money. I live alone and support myself in London, so I can’t afford to not work. I also can’t afford to study a Masters in Finance qualification.
Instead, I’m doing contract jobs, networking and learning as much as I can. I want to get into private markets. Any advice would be much appreciated.
Vanesa Hajni is a pseudonym
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