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If you want to learn how to cold email for an internship, you’ll have to answer a key question first: is it even worthwhile to try?
If you poke around online, you’ll see many negative comments from people who have emailed dozens of professionals and gotten poor results.
Negative outcomes are certainly possible, but if you have the right profile and you use cold emails correctly, you can get positive responses.
When cold emails don’t work, it’s usually because:
- The person used them incorrectly (e.g., they contacted the wrong people, used bad templates, or didn’t follow up after the initial message).
- The person using them had an inappropriate profile (e.g., a post-MBA professional emailing boutique banks to ask about “unpaid internships”).
If you avoid these two problems, cold emails can work quite well:
How to Cold Email for an Internship: Definitions and Ground Rules
Since this site focuses on the finance industry, I will define cold emails in terms of investment banking – but the same idea applies to related “professional services” fields:
In an investment banking cold email, you send a message to a banker and ask DIRECTLY about interning at the firm, and if you don’t receive a response, you follow up several times with the goal of conducting a quick phone call with the banker.
Cold emails are one of the major investment banking networking strategies, and they work best for finding initial, informal internships that lead to “official” internships at larger firms later on.
You can also use cold emails to win off-cycle roles at the large banks, but you need previous experience to do so.
Cold emails are most appropriate if:
- You are an undergrad, and you are seeking an initial finance internship in your first or second year of school; or
- You are an incoming MBA student, and you want to complete a pre-MBA internship to give yourself a leg up; or
- You are about to graduate from university, or you just graduated, you missed recruiting, and you need to get work experience ASAP.
Cold emails tend to work best if you have brand names on your resume/CV, such as a well-known university or experience at large companies.
But you don’t necessarily need to be at one of the top schools nationwide to use cold emails effectively.
For example, if you’re at a well-known university in your region with many alumni in the area, cold emails could also be effective – even if your school is not in the top 50 or 100 nationally.
How to Cold Email for an Internship: The Step-by-Step Process
The steps in the cold email process are as follows:
- Find Names of Firms in Your Area – Paid databases such as Capital IQ are best, but you can also use simple Google and Google Maps searches.
- Find 3-4 People at Each Firm and Their Email Addresses – Use the firm’s website and guess email addresses when necessary, using email verification tools.
- Email 1 Person per Firm to Ask Directly About an Internship – Keep your message very short (<= 5 sentences) and request a brief call to discuss internships at the firm.
- Follow Up If You Don’t Hear Back After 1 Week – And make your follow-up message even shorter.
- Follow Up Again If You Still Don’t Get a Response After Another Week – Most “networking” consists of following up repeatedly.
- Move Onto Other Contacts and Firms – You can try other people at this same firm and, in parallel, keep reaching out to contacts at other firms. If you don’t get a response from ~3 people at the same boutique firm, cross the firm off your list for now.
- Conduct the Brief “Do You Offer Internships?” Call – These calls are like mini-interviews, so be prepared for the usual interview questions. You’ll also have to “sell” yourself and be prepared to answer common objections about why they should hire you.
- Complete Real Interviews – Assuming that you’re interviewing with a few firms and you’re well-prepared, you should be able to win one offer out of this process.
At most, you should spend around 2-3 months on a single cold-email effort.
And you might take even less time than that, depending on the speed of your responses and follow-up messages.
The steps above assume that you’re targeting boutique banks, private equity firms, or venture capital firms for an early internship.
If you are aiming for off-cycle internships at the bulge bracket banks, the main differences are:
- More Bankers – You might be able to get results with anywhere from a few dozen to 50+ bankers at boutique firms, but you’ll probably need to reach out to more like 150-200 bankers at the large firms to win an offer.
- Different Targets – You want to contact Group Heads, if possible, as they’ll be the most aware of hiring needs everywhere. And if you get rejected or fail to get a response, keep trying with other groups at the bank.
How to Cold Email for an Internship: The Effort Required
If you target boutique/local firms, you can expect something like this:
But the numbers vary wildly depending on your region.
For example, you’ll have far more firms (hundreds) to contact in places like NY and London, but the response rates will also be lower.
If you’re in a small town in the middle of nowhere, you may not be able to find even 20-30 firms within several hours of you.
But that may not matter because if you can find a few firms, you might get responses from all of them.
How to Cold Email for an Internship in Steps
Here’s a quick summary of the key steps, along with a few email templates:
Finding Firms and Names
The best sources here are paid databases like Capital IQ and FactSet, but even simple Google and Google Maps searches can reveal a lot.
Sometimes, boutique private equity firms are more responsive than boutique banks because fewer students contact them, and they have more ongoing year-round work independent of deal activity.
So, you could try either firm type, but you may have better luck with boutique PE firms.
You should target mid-to-senior-level professionals because they have the hiring power at these firms, and their contact information should not be difficult to find.
Do not wait for the “perfect conditions” to start sending cold emails.
Once you have 20-30 individual names and email addresses, that’s enough – start sending messages and add a few more names each day.
That list will expand over the next few months, so you don’t need 100+ names to get started.
Initial Cold Emails
You want to keep these short and sweet, which means no more than 5 sentences:
Subject: Name-drop a university name, firm name, referral, or mutual connection to get their attention.
Sentence 1: Immediately ask about an internship at the firm (you can also ask about it later in the email, but I think it’s better to do so upfront in most cases).
Sentence 2: Describe who you are, your previous experience, and the relevant skills you’ve gained.
Sentence 3: Explain why you’re interested in this firm, specifically (i.e., how it matches your background).
Sentence 4: Make a “soft request” for a call to ask about completing an internship at this firm.
Sentence 5: You could add a “reason why” or split one of the other sentences into two.
Since you are contacting senior bankers, it’s fine to be more formal and use “Mr.” and “Ms.” in the beginning.
Don’t propose dates or times in this initial email because you’ll almost certainly have to send a follow-up message.
If you already have at least one internship, you can attach your resume or CV; if not, don’t send it until they request it.
Here’s an initial cold email template:
SUBJECT: [Firm Name] – [Time Period] Internship for [University Name] [Student / Graduate]
“Mr. / Ms. [Name],
I am writing to you to see if [Firm Name] might be interested in taking on a [Time Period] intern with [a start date of X / an immediate start date].
I am a [Student at / Recent Graduate of] [University Name] with a degree in [Major / Degree Name] and [Summarize grades / academic results]. I have also completed coursework in [Relevant Areas] as well as internships in [Summarize the most relevant fields and firm names].
I am especially interested in your firm because of your focus on [Industry Name or Deal Type], [Explain your personal or professional connection to this industry or deal type].
If you have any availability next week, I would greatly appreciate the chance to speak with you and learn more about your firm and the possibility of completing a [Time Period] internship there.
Best regards,
[Name]”
Follow-Up Cold Emails
You’re unlikely to receive a response to your first email, so follow-up is essential.
I recommend waiting one week and sending a follow-up email if you haven’t heard back by then; if you’re under time pressure (e.g., 4-6 weeks to find a job), maybe shorten the follow-up interval to 4-5 days.
You can send 2-3 follow-up emails to one person before you move on (so, 3-4 total emails).
These follow-up messages should be even shorter – here’s an example:
SUBJECT: RE: [Insert your original subject line here by replying to your first email]
“Mr. / Ms. [Name],
I just wanted to follow up on the email below and see if you had a few minutes to speak with me about [Describe the internships or other opportunities you’re seeking at the firm].
I’m currently a [Briefly summarize your school/work status], and I would greatly appreciate the chance to speak with you and learn more about [Firm Name].
Thanks in advance,
[Your Name]”
Call Preparation and Execution
Your goal in any cold email is to get the other person on the phone, which will usually take a few messages back and forth.
These calls will be short – 5-10 minutes or 15 minutes at the most – and they’ll be like “mini-interviews,” meaning that technical, deal, and industry questions could come up.
But it also depends on how you’ve presented yourself; technical questions are more likely if you’ve had previous internships.
To prepare, you need:
- Your (Short) Story: Condense your normal “story” down to 1-2 sentences, similar to the first few lines of your initial cold email.
- Industry/Technical Knowledge: Don’t kill yourself, but be prepared with some basic knowledge of accounting and valuation.
- Why You Want to Work There: You will have to do some “selling” to convince them, and you’ll need responses for the most common objections.
- Person/Firm Research: Do a quick LinkedIn search, read the website, and find 1-2 recent news items or deals related to the firm.
Your goals in these calls differ depending on your age and experience level.
If you’re younger – Year 1 or 2 of university – you want to seem enthusiastic, diligent, and willing to learn quickly so you can save them time and money.
If you already have experience and you’re targeting off-cycle roles at larger firms, you want to convince them of your long-term interest in investment banking.
You also need to prepare for common objections:
- “We can’t afford interns.” –> Offer to work for free.
- “We don’t have enough deal flow.” –> You can help with administrative tasks and point out that things might change.
- “We can’t train interns.” –> Highlight your relevant skills and say that you can assist with non-technical tasks.
Follow-Up Emails After the Calls
After you conduct this quick call, you can send a combined thank-you note and follow-up message within the next few days (and if you don’t hear back after a week, try again).
If the person requested specific documents from you, such as your resume or a work sample, respond quickly with those (within a few hours, if possible).
There’s no point in “staying in touch” with someone after one of these calls because the goal is to ask for an internship, interview, and get a quick decision.
But follow-up messages are still important because smaller firms may not have formal hiring processes, so they could forget about you in the absence of reminders.
Here’s an example follow-up email:
SUBJECT: RE: [Reply to the initial cold-email chain]
“Mr. / Ms. [Name],
Thanks again for taking the time to speak with me about [Firm Name] [“earlier today” / “the other day”] and the possibility of interning there.
I understand that [Firm Name] does not normally offer formal internships to students, but I am grateful for the chance to learn more about your firm and look forward to hearing from your team soon.
Also, [You can mention something specific that you discussed on the call, such as information or a document they requested].
Thanks,
[Your Name]”
How to Cold Email for an Internship: Putting in the Reps
The good news is that cold emails are easier than informational interviews in some ways:
- Less preparation is required before you can start sending outreach emails.
- You don’t need to research the other person’s career, interests, hobbies, etc., in much depth before each call.
- And you don’t need to track discussions over months or years because these efforts tend to finish quickly.
Cold emails are more about simple repetition until you get results, similar to door-to-door sales.
The bad news is that cold emailing is a repetitive process, and it’s not exactly full of intellectual stimulation.
But if you want to be competitive for the investment banking internships at large firms that lead to full-time offers, you’ll probably have to use some amount of cold emailing.
For Further Learning About Investment Banking Cold Emails
If you want to learn about cold calling, read Cold Calling Investment Banks: When to Do It, and How to Succeed.
If you want detailed, step-by-step tutorials, plus many email templates and several example calls, you can get everything in the IB Networking Toolkit:
IB Networking Toolkit
Win investment banking interviews with dozens of templates, examples, and guides for informational interviews, cold emails, cold calls, and more.
learn moreThis article gives you a good foundation, but the Networking Toolkit goes into the process in more detail and has executed examples of everything discussed here.
As with all networking, though, the key is to get out there and practice.
And since you can do everything described here from your couch, you don’t even need to “get out there” – you just need to practice.
Want More?
If you liked this article, you might be interested in:
- How to Conquer the Super-Early Investment Banking Recruiting Timeline and Win Offers – Even If You’re at a Non-Target University
- Last-Minute Investment Banking Recruiting: How to Win a Full-Time Offer Without an IB Internship
About the Author
Brian DeChesare is the Founder of Mergers & Inquisitions and Breaking Into Wall Street. In his spare time, he enjoys lifting weights, running, traveling, obsessively watching TV shows, and defeating Sauron.
Free Exclusive Report: 57-page guide with the action plan you need to break into investment banking - how to tell your story, network, craft a winning resume, and dominate your interviews
Comments
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Hi Brian,
For the cold emailing structure, if I don’t have any past internship experience in finance, what/how can I write for sentences 2 and 3?
Thanks.
You can discuss any relevant student clubs or leadership positions you’ve held, any personal hobbies that are related, or any classes you’ve taken that are related to finance. Citing family members or friends/acquaintances in the industry could also work.
Hi Brain,
I’m a Senior from a non target graduating this June, and I was wondering if I should continue cold emailing boutiques for an internship? Or should I ask for full time roles instead? I know you’ve mentioned on this site that offcycle IB internships generally aren’t converted into FT, so I’m not sure if continuing to email firms under the pretense of an internship is right or not.
My only relevant finance experiences that I can show is a small m&a stint in asia, along with a search fund internship in the US that I’m wrapping up in 2 weeks.
Hard to say without knowing your full profile, but if you already have an M&A internship and a search fund internship, I’m not sure how useful it is to keep cold-emailing boutique banks at this point. The experience might be marginally more useful than the M&A internship in Asia since non-U.S. experience tends to be discounted, but you’re probably better off going for full-time roles since you have 2 solid internships already.
However, I think you’ll probably have to target smaller banks (middle-market and ones like Wells Fargo, etc.) for full-time roles and aim for regional offices. That could change if the market picks up a bit more, but it’s usually quite tough to win a full-time role without previously interning at the bank.
Brian,
Thanks for the reply. When you say smaller banks would I be excluding regional boutiques and focusing more on just middle market banks? And would my current strategy for cold emailing work for full time? (i.e being very direct) My plan prior to your response was to focus exclusively on regional boutiques & lateral once securing a full time offer.
This has been incredibly helpful so thanks!
The problem is that many of these regional boutiques won’t necessarily have full-time positions, and it’s not that useful for you to get another internship at this stage. So, I would recommend focusing on middle-market banks and firms like HSBC, Wells Fargo, RBC, etc., especially in non-NYC locations.
You can still contact regional boutiques, but I would only bother if they’re somewhat larger and have at least a few dozen employees. Places with 5-10 people or less aren’t really worth the time/effort for anything but internships.
Yes, it is worth being direct and asking for full-time roles. There’s a good account of some of this process here (but the scenario was slightly different from yours):
https://mergersandinquisitions.com/last-minute-investment-banking-recruiting/
Dear Brian, very helpful.
I would like to ask, what do you think about cold emailing 3-4 people in parallel at the same firm? You mention to move on after 1 drops.
Second, what is an expected email response rate? Is 3% normal?
Thanks
Thank. I would definitely not email 3-4 people at the same firm in parallel. It will look like you’re just spamming them, as you have no idea if the people you’re contacting are close physically or trade notes at all. If you want to do this, space your messages apart and wait a few days to email the next person.
A 5-10% response rate is normal. 3% sounds a little low but is not that bad. If it’s something like a 0-1% rate, your messages aren’t great, or you’re contacting the wrong people.
Thank you for your response Brian, this makes sense. I have made a mistake and emailed in the initial list of firms 3-4 contacts in parallel. From one firm, 3 replied independently, which was surprising.
Response rate has gone to 10% after couple of days, but leading to only 2 calls. Time to keep hitting…
It’s not the end of the world if you email too many people at once, especially at bigger companies. A 10% response rate sounds about right. I’ve seen and heard stories of people getting as low as a 1% response rate, so 10% is actually pretty good for cold emailing.
Hey Brian,
Thank you so much for the article. I only have one question some firms don’t have directors of managing directors, but managing partners and principles, and partners. In that case what would be your advice to email?
Thanks. There is no difference between emailing MDs vs. Managing Partners or Principals or normal Partner. They’re all senior-level people at firms.
Hi Brian,
This is a great article and has helped me get some interviews, secure an internship and build some contacts in the industry. A bit of background: I graduated in May 2023 from Monash University, Melbourne, with a Bachelor of Commerce and a double major in Economics and Behaviour Commerce. I completed a corporate finance internship at a large Australian bank, a strategy consulting internship, and a corporate restructuring internship at a national Australian firm. I now live in London and want to move into IB, and I secured a 3-month internship at a boutique starting in September 2024. My concern is that this significant gap in my CV will be unappealing regarding full-time recruitment and that I may have missed the boat in starting my IB career. I’d greatly appreciate your thoughts on my situation and prospects (if any) following the internship.
Cheers
Thanks and congrats on your internship. I’m not clear on how big your work experience gap here is because I don’t know when you completed all those internships and when you moved to London. If it’s a gap between May 2023 and September 2024, you just need to find a way to spin what you did during that time in a productive light… think about self-study, volunteer work, side projects, or something else that cannot be easily verified by recruiters. Off-cycle hiring is common in London, so I don’t think you’re necessarily “too late” as long as you can present your gap appropriately.
Hi Brian,
Great article. I wanted to ask, how should we go about finding the email addresses and if using LinkedIn instead would be equally effective.
Thanks,
Muhammad
Thanks. For email addresses, you can usually guess based on email formats and combinations like firstname.lastname@companyname.com. It’s a bit more difficult at some banks, but you can usually figure it out by searching online. LinkedIn can work, but people tend to be less responsive and many do not check their accounts frequently.
Hi Brian,
I wanted to say a big thank you for writing this article – having sent out 10 cold emails, I now have a summer internship at a boutique SME private equity firm in the UK! Really appreciate the advice and very well written.
The work is going to focus on building financial models, assisting the evaluation process, market research, and assisting in due diligence/valuations (as well as other typical tasks I imagine).
The internship is unspecified currently so I could end up working there for a few months (It’s possible I may even stay there longer, it all depends really). I wanted to ask if this would be considered direct experience to break into BB IB graduate/off-cycle roles for the cycle beginning in August/September (either IB or S&T)? Also, how does boutique PE rank compared to other similar positions (like boutique IB/VC, BB off-cycle etc)?
I only (technically) graduated this year with my master’s in finance (1st class) at a “low” target uni with other internship experience at big 4 audit, investment management, and a sales role + good extracurriculars.
Any help would be great – I look forward to hearing from you and thanks again!
Congrats!
Yes, this would be considered direct experience that you could use to apply to full-time or off-cycle roles. It’s about the same as any other off-cycle/boutique role in related fields. I think you have enough to be competitive for roles at large banks, and I don’t think you need another internship just to apply.
Thank you! For anyone interested, I find it helps to make it as easy as possible for them to say yes – in my email, I said I would work unpaid and that we could trial this arrangement for 2-4 weeks to see if it was suitable for their needs (if not, we shake hands and walk away)… they were very receptive to this.
The firm I’m with mentioned they would have a position full-time as an analyst working in their PE/Acquisitions team for sourcing new deals and investment opportunities, and that they think I would be a good fit for this. I’ve always been quite set on going for BB IB/S&T roles, so I’m unsure what to think about it. Would you have any advice on whether this would be a strong option long-term and/or if I should consider it in relation to BB IB/S&T?
I know PE is often considered the exit option for BB IB alongside HF/VC so does getting a full-time offer just bypass this step or would I be at a disadvantage down the line compared to BB analysts who are trying to move into the buy-side?
Any help is always appreciated and a big thank you once again!
Thanks. I generally don’t recommend starting out full-time in PE unless it’s at one of the biggest firms. Otherwise, you lose out on the training and networking/alumni/branding benefits that come from a large bank. And most people change their minds about what they want to do in the future, so it helps to have this optionality.
Hi Brain, I have 2-3 years experience in fp&a. So, I am targeting the entry-level after working at a pre-IPO tech high cap in US doing some internal audits and forecasting for 1+yrs.
Given the current environment COVID many bankers left, do you think if I should cold emailing them or start prepping for the modeling and deal examples first before the cold emailing? Does targeting a SF elite boutique tech a stretch? Do I need a transition stop in some boutiques before that?
or do I have better chance to some VC?
If your goal is to work in IB, I would recommend targeting tech-related banks and groups and seeing what happens. In the current environment, banks are so desperate for workers due to high deal flow and high turnover that it’s more feasible to get in from other industries. Start with the large banks (BB/EB) and see if you get responses, and if not, move down.
I don’t think you need to start preparing for modeling and deal examples before you contact people, but you should be prepared for the standard interview questions.
Hi Brian,
Thanks!
A quick follow up question is that, should I put my gpa 3.3 (major 3.5) from semi-target college on resume, since I am already about 3 years from school? Does it matter?
Some places will still ask for it, so yes, I would recommend listing both your overall and major GPA.
Brian,
Long time reader.
Received a full-time offer from my summer internship in corporate finance. Global F500. It would be in their financial management rotational program. The pay is only like 62k base and I honestly have no genuine interest in the world itself.
Should I roll the dice and look for something better during my senior year or bank on the growth prospects of this offer and just accept it even though there aren’t many upsides?
For the record I go to a huge state school with a strong network, but not necessarily in the fields I want. I also have a 4.0 but struggle with networking to some extent.
Thanks!
I would probably accept the offer and then start looking for something better during your final school year / as you begin working. It’s quite risky to turn down an actual full-time job offer and search for something better in a more competitive industry, especially if that industry hires 90% of candidates via summer internships (investment banking). And I’m not sure a corporate finance offer at any other large company would be much better than what you currently have.
Brian,
Just one or two follow-up questions if you have the time.
I have read that reneging on an offer is highly variable and fairly risky. I assume you are suggesting that I search for jobs and actually start working at this company, and not transition until after I have worked there for some period of time. Won’t this sort of hinder my ability to search for jobs to some extent? Additionally, I do have one other offer in advising. I do like this work a fair bit, but the entry level pay is substantially lower, of course. I could theoretically fall back on this if nothing comes up in the next few months during my senior year.
Finally, am I naive to think that this offer is somewhat under whelming. Feels like everyone in tech or finance I go to school with is landing like 80k+ offers. Should I just do what I’ve always had in the back of my head and do some advanced degree in comp sci or similar and call it day, or will I be able to advance quickly once I get into the finance career path? Seems like some tech fields level out much earlier.
Yes, start working and then look for other jobs. You can wait to start looking until the job begins, and don’t star contacting people until you have a few years of work experience.
The base salary is not great, but various other corporate finance jobs also offer something in the same range. You don’t really “advance quickly” in corporate finance, so if you want to move up, you should think about switching to a different industry or doing another degree.
Forgive my ignorance but when you say “do another degree” I assume you are implying a Master’s of some kind? If so, any specific suggestions. If not, what exactly would you suggest? Corporate finance is definitely not the industry I want to be in though. Definitely working toward something else one way or another.
Yes, a Master’s degree would be most appropriate. It’s really hard to give you more specific advice than this because I don’t know how competitive you are for the jobs you’re seeking. I don’t think it would be super-helpful if you can switch into something like corporate banking out of this first job.
Hi Brian, I’m preparing to start the cold-emailing process soon and was wondering—would it make sense to target boutique banks, private equity firms, and venture capital firms as an initial finance internship (that may lead to more “official” internships later on) instead of targeting smaller firms like search funds? I have no prior financial internship experience but do come from a target school and am involved in some business-related extracurriculars and have taken some modeling courses. Would brand name alone be able to get me into an internship at a boutique bank, for example? Or would it make more sense to build my way up from some smaller firms and target those?
You could target search funds, but the problem is that it’s often more difficult to find their information because search funds come and go (the shutdown rate is very high because many do not complete acquisitions successfully). If you have a good list or have good contacts at search funds, sure, go ahead and do that. But if not, it’s usually easier to find and contact boutique banks or PE/VC firms.
If you can point to at least some skills that relevant to what the boutique bank does, that’s usually enough to get at least some type of internship there. I don’t think you need to intern at a search fund, or other smaller firm, first before you go for boutique bank internships. And remember that you really only need 1-2 relevant internships before applying to the large banks.
And if you have a good brand name such as a target university on your resume, you should be able to get good response rates from cold emails.