"My father is a global businessman. Here's how I got a top banking internship"

This summer, I will be an investment banking intern at a major global investment bank in New York City. I'm 23 years old and this will be my fifth internship in financial services. If you want an M&A job with a major investment bank, I'm afraid that this is what it takes. 

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I'm passionate about business and I'm passionate about banking. My father is a global businessman, and I am very international - I've lived all over the world. I understand how important it is to work hard, and I am very prepared to work 80-100 weeks as an M&A banker. Too many people go into the industry because they want the money, without genuinely loving the industry. If this is the case, I'm afraid you need to step aside. 

I'm used to having very little sleep. I worked full-time for a small fund throughout my undergraduate degree and completed my college work at the weekends. I timed emails to my tutors so that they were sent early in the mornings on weekdays.  It wasn't easy, and the fund paid me nothing at all, but it gave me the experience that I needed to get more internships. 

Working in M&A for a major bank is the kind of job that everyone wants. It's a job that you have to build up to - you need prior experience and other internships in the industry if you want to be accepted. People don't understand that you need to get as much financial services experience as you can before you even apply for the summer internship if you want to succeed.

In my case, I got that experience not by nepotism, but by sending out literally thousands of applications to smaller firms and networking like crazy. I paid for myself to fly into major financial cities every weekend for months for coffee chats. When I got one internship, I kept applying to others. I went up and up the ladder in terms of internship prestige, and this summer I'll be close to the top. 

People in banking respect this approach. Banking is an industry filled with hard-working people. If you can demonstrate that you're smart, passionate and willing to put in the late nights, this will make you stand out. 

I appreciate that it's harder if you don't have some money behind you already, though. My friends and I have been discussing how difficult it would be to get the necessary pre-internship experience if you were juggling college, volunteering in a financial services firm and working in a coffee shop to pay bills. It really helps to have some money for yourself. I'm lucky that I have that. 

Mats Wallner is a pseudonym

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