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:
If you avoid these two problems, cold emails can work quite well:
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:
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.
The steps in the cold email process are as follows:
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:
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.
Here’s a quick summary of the key steps, along with a few email templates:
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.
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.
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 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 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:
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].
The good news is that cold emails are easier than informational interviews in some ways:
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.
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:
Win investment banking interviews with dozens of templates, examples, and guides for informational interviews, cold emails, cold calls, and more.
This 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.
If you liked this article, you might be interested in:
