Last week, Xuan Liu reached out to me for insights into landing an internship in the private equity or venture capital world. As someone that hires a lot of new grads for several different companies, I always reinforce how important internships are. They can really help you land that first gig right after graduation. As you can imagine, every MBA or like is seeking these type of internships along with other places like Goldman, other top investment banks and the management consulting companies. Just keep in mind you’re facing infinite competition. With that being said here are some tips that may work in the PE \ VC world along with the investment banks, consulting and other large corporations. 1.    Get a well written, compelling pitch letter together. These people are busy so it should be short, to the point yet articulate. Great communication isn’t about how long you can write about something, it is about how short you can write it while getting the message delivered. Focus on what skills make you unique, what skills you have that are relevant to their core focus, how great of a quant you are and even list out some qualitative abilities since some deals end up more about feel than numbers. (but yeah its often about the numbers) 2.    Be prepared to work for free. You’re a quant right? We can argue about how you should be paid blah blah, but the ROI of having that PE or VC on your resume will be far greater than whatever pay you missed out on. If you’re coming out of a top 25 MBA program, with a solid undergrad and GPA you may not have to think about this as your chances of a paid gig is high. But not everyone gets that shot. 3.    Depending on your college, be prepared to relocate for the summer. While you will find some epicenters and clusters of firms, if you’re going to school in the middle of nowhere, you probably don’t have 10 VC’s down the street from you to apply to. And if you have 1 or 2 and plan to bank on those, don’t. 4.    Learn how to use LinkedIn well for your research. Connect so you can contact later, don’t contact someone 2 seconds after they connect. Also learn how to find email addresses or email address schemes. (this is not hard to do) 5.    Create of a list of all friends and family that may give you a warm lead or put in a good word for you somewhere, start here. 6.    Make a list of alum from your school who are in the PE \ VC world. This should be step 2, lean on those that fly the same flag, this can go a long way. (I know one CEO that hired 90% of his people from his alma mater) 7.    Do DEEP research all across the country and find every PE and VC firm that makes sense for you to do work at. Don’t be afraid to contact the super small firms, they don’t see as many applicants but could use the summer help more than many of the large firms. You’re going to have to send out a ton of messages, this is a contact sport, the more you contract with a targeted pitch, the better your odds are. Also don’t be afraid to pickup the phone and follow up with a select few. 8.    Apply to online postings, but like anything posted online, its going to get pounded with resumes. 9.    Don’t be afraid to snail mail a resume or a hand written follow up. Some of our biggest sales came from hand written notes. Put in the hard work, do things that others won’t and you may gain a slight edge. But don’t be crazy or a stalker, relentless persistence won’t get you far here. 10. Reaching out on other social networks is fine, such as Twitter. Again, don’t be a stalker. 11. Search for news about new funds, acquisitions etc and sneak that into your pitch or cover letter. This may give you a slight edge as it shows that are you a decent cybersleuth, that did the research about their firm and took the time to integrate it into the letter. Top firms naturally want the best and brightest, but they also want the highly motivated and ambitious that are great with attention to detail. Lastly, search for internships outside of PE and VC. In the event you can’t pull it off, I would rather see you land an internship at Boeing than to not have anything at all on your resume. So shoot for your goal but have a backup plan to.

I caught the trend but it really took a while for it to set in and make a lot of sense. The trend wasn’t limited to those on work visas or immigrants, it included many US Citizens as well. It was a class of nomadic people that would pick up and move wherever there was good employment. Sometimes any employment. One trend I noticed was the rural areas or metro areas that lacked a certain talent base to sustain the areas of growth often had a large transient workforce. Companies in areas without the talent base were more willing to pay to relocate people or pay for sponsorships. Those without ties to a certain area, such as family or friends, are more likely to pack up and move (regardless of citizenship status.) Those that are deep rooted will give it consideration, but unless they must, they don’t relocate. So those on visas, those on the path to citizenship, and US Citizens without many ties to an area do have an advantage in the employment market. That is where I found 3 hacks for those seeking sponsorship if they are willing to become nomads: 1.       Apply to large companies that need your background. Large enough that the fees to sponsor you don’t matter to them and then go wherever they need you to. 2.       Apply to rural area companies or companies in less desirable areas that really need your background but cannot find it locally or have trouble getting people to relocate. 3.       Try Canada with the long-term plan of getting a TN visa. I recall a conversation recently where we were talking about some of Canada’s growth rates and it was attributed partly to a fluid immigration policy. Small companies in large metro areas that have access to endless talent will be less likely to spend the money on sponsorship, which is very costly. Even large companies in large metros may not have to if the local talent pool fits their needs. You will have to accept that if you’re not in high demand such as an expertise in something in technology, engineering, medicine, etc., you may have to move to land a gig or won’t land a sponsorship at all. If you do get a gig and move, then you may have to move again and again. I have seen people bounce from the east coast, to the west coast, to the southeast, back to the west coast, then the Midwest. They wanted to work and stay in America so they did what they had to. The biggest issue is supply and demand, if your degree and background is not in demand, it will be very tough so you will have to dig deep and research companies all over the country that would value your experience. Getting what you want in life is never easy. And moving to non-desirable areas isn’t exactly…. desirable. But you have to do what is necessary to reach your goals, especially when most of the things affecting your life in this instance are out of your control.