<p>"My daughter did this summer of her freshman year, working at Merrill Lynch's branch office. She quit after 2 weeks, unpaid work for answering phones, getting people lunch, typing...........not learning anything. Her experience would not have helped her"</p>
<p>THAT SUCKS HARDCORE.</p>
<p>In the trading firm i'm interning at, although I have to get lunches on occasions (but on those occasions my lunch gets paid too! CHIPOTLE!), i do useful research work/database work for the traders.....
AND i get 10/hr.</p>
<p>I am an unpaid intern in the Merrill Lynch Global Private Client so maybe I can tell you what I do on a daily basis - pick up phone calls, buy lunch, print out documents and file them, and for more than half of the time, I sit around doing nothing. I work in a team that consists of two investment management consultants who are also vice presidents, one senior financial planner, one senior financial analyst, two senior associates with CFM, and one other intern that has been there for over a year. Even though I wasn't given alot of responsibilities, I have the opportunity to learn what everyone else does everyday as a financial professional. I think the experience is worth it. Alot of times the office is so busy that everyone is occupied by their own things and they couldn't even find the time to assign you tasks. When I am idle I just study for my actuarial exam in August- I have a career goal for actuarial consulting, not wealth management or i-banking.</p>
<p>This is a little profile of myself - entering my senior year in NYU Stern, majoring in Finance and Actuarial Science, with a 3.9 GPA. I thought I could get a better internship than this, but with my zero work experience I really couldn't. That's why I have an internship with ML that's usually taken by freshmen. It's just a way to keep myself busy during the summer. By the way, Merrill requires me to work 3 days per week so I have another work-study job in school in budgeting and I get paid 12 per hour. This job balances the fact that the ML internship is unpaid with a small stipend, and gives me enough money for ice cream in the summer. :-)</p>
<p>Btw, I intern in the ML corporate office in the world financial center here in New York City.</p>
<p>icqchatboy I work part-time (high school senior) at an asset management/PWM firm and do mostly the same stuff as you do; cold calling potential clients, filing, copying, adminstrative stuff but no coffe/lunch buying except for myself of course. Also I'm almost always busy either cold calling or doing adminstrative work besides the 1h lunch which is just chill time. Since my pay is commission based it varies between $25-50/h working 3 days a week (8h/day). PWM/PCS/Asset management is all about cold calling, a pure salesman job.</p>
<p>icqchatboy, did you try to apply for summer internships through Stern's career office ? Those internships basically are for people with little or no working experience.</p>
<p>coporatefinance, I am actually glad that I don't have to do the cold-calling stuff. I heard that interns in Morgan Stanley's PWM have to cold-call clients all the time. Since the Merrill internship is unpaid it's better that they give me less work. It's not like I can learn anything from cold-calling anyway. I really wasn't expecting so much out of this internship. I just thought that the Merrill Lynch name can create some value for my resume.</p>
<p>cbreeze, I did use the NYU careernet. Using it I got interviews with financial consulting firms, insurance companies, and some hedge fund. It just happened that other Stern students with more experience got those positions.</p>
<p>icqchatboy, I don't really agree with you on the cold-calling topic; it really is a good experience. If you can sell financial services on phone; you can sell almost everything. Besides developing a good feeling on how to approach potential clients/customers on phone, I've also learnt to stay focused, sharp and "psychologically cold" (somethimes ppl might get ****ed at you for calling them at an inappropriate time). I think this an interesting experience to bring with when going for a less cold-calling but more client facing job at, perhaps an ibank, later on.</p>
<p>All in all, trust me, you will learn alot from cold-calling, wether you purposefully develop qualities or its just plain unintentional experience.</p>
<p>I think I would rather do cold calling then get people lunch. The cold calling can get pretty boring, but last week I was able to attend a meeting where we closed a million+ dollar deal and it was with a client who I initiated the relationship with (a cold call) so that made me feel pretty good.</p>
<p>I think it's good because it teaches some basic skills, thinking on your feet, persuasion, it could be good experience for if you're ever in an interview and are thrown some curve balls I suppose.</p>
<p>cold calling is a uselses technique to learn, at least to me. It really helps you think on you feet. I cold called from the worst list of possible candidates for time shares and got enough appointments in a month in 2 hrs. Did i learn anything, absolutely not. I quite the next day. I have learned nothing helping customers at any other jobs i have had. This stuff is pure common sense, know your product, sell your product....period. </p>
<p>Interviews, be prepared, that is all you can do, there should be no curve balls. You call, you learn and you apply. You have an interview with a company, you call employees visit, anything you can do to learn what you need. I have been hired for jobs out of my league dealing with computers and design yet i know barely the basics. Its personality and the fact i did my reseach.</p>
<p>Personality personality, that is what matters, seriously, i have never been turned down for a job due to it. I show up with a smile on my face, im talkative attentive and ready. Im lucky enought to have a hr manager at my home depot that is a graduate of berkley and pepperdine and has been adcom for both, personally recruited students and been a career counselor for the last 15 years. Good hr managers should be able to lay down some essential knowledge to help you in the future. Who else do you know works at home depot and comes back with $60 bucks in tips each and every weekend. Un heard of, probably, but my personality has taken me along way, enough to afford me and work friends free lunches evrey weekend.</p>
<p>BUT sshhh, home depot policy is no tips or if you get them, they got to home depot. PSSHH, they were given to me not them so i spread the money to people who need it more.</p>
<p>It all depends on the group you're interning with. </p>
<p>For my group, I only talk to owners of businesses because that's who we focus on. So we may provide them with business accounts, lines of credit, equipment financing, etc.</p>
<p>But then I've seen other groups where they focus on people who are retired/soon to be retired and they try to sell retirement/health care type packages.</p>
<p>Different groups will focus on different individuals. For example there might be a group somewhere in the US who focuses solely on people retiring from Proctor and Gamble and their job would be to provide them with ways of helping maximize their money when they sell off stock options. Another group may focus on retirees. A group in California may focus on doing business with Latin Americans who may travel in and out of Cali often. You get the picture.</p>
<p>You don't call with a phonebook. There are companies who compile a data which provides them with the numbers of companies/individuals who apply to their niche. But some groups may not even cold call people. It could be that they've been established long enough to have a large list of clients who also give them referrals. Or some groups will have seminars for retirees and maybe that's where they get the numbers from. </p>
<p>As for asking to cold call, see if your superiors cold call in the first place. They may not. If they do cold call, maybe start by asking them what the call is like, what strategies they use, etc. Maybe after enough questions they may volunteer to let you try calling. It's pretty funny that you want to cold call though, because many of the people I know love doing anything but calling!</p>
<p>"i was wondering about the do not call lists and how i would think it makes cold calling some what iffy? do those laws not apply to business?"</p>
<p>Those laws/lists are PRECISELY for businesses--or rather against business. Hence, the need for a third party screener that provide numbers for cold-calling. Like dfca said: "You don't call with a phonebook. There are companies who compile data which provides them with the numbers of companies/individuals who apply to their niche [and are not on Do Not Call lists]."</p>
<p>Some people view retail as glorified telemarketing--where you don't sell vacuum cleaners, only knowledge.</p>
<p>The people in my group there at Merrill do not make cold calls. Rather, they look for good investments for their clients' assets, answer client calls regarding their investments, and do some trading/wire transfer for clients at a small fee. Also, customer relationship management is also one thing these people are engaged in. Once in a while clients come in and the senior financial analyst and the senior vice president would prepare presentations for these clients on the performance of their portfolios and give more investment advices. Even though as an unpaid intern I don't do much of any other stuff except for basic administrative work, it's an experience to observe what financial consultants do.</p>
<p>I agree with the people above that you don't cold call with a phonebook. I don't see anyone making cold calls at Merrill, but from one of my friends who works for Northwestern Financial Networks as an insurance sales agent, I learned that salespeople normally just call people who work in large corporations and have a high likelihood of becoming a client. The other day she called several associates at Citigroup and once they showed an interest in purchasing insurance, she would schedule an appointment to give them a presentation and normally one of the more senior people in her company would go with her to the presentation to increase the chances of closing the deal. And after that, it depends on the prospect whether he/she wants to buy the insurance product. That's how the cold calling thing works.</p>
<p>yea your group sounds very simlar to mine, although im not at merrill. i agree at first i was skeptical about what i was going to learn but i think that seeing how fa's work from the inside gave me a great career insight.</p>
<p>just out of curiosity do any of you guys who are interning in private client think that that is what you are gona do when you finish school?</p>
<p>i think i would enjoy it a lot but am worried about building up a book of business--i mean it seems really hard to convice people that they should trust there lifesavings with a 20 some year old.</p>
<p>i suppose the best thing would be to join a huge like 5 fas or more team as an investment analyst or associate and then work on building business from there? any idea what people in that position get paid? no one in my office works on big teams just 2 brokers and mabey one assistant at most so i dont have anyone to even bring the subject up with.</p>
<p>Pretty sure the private client business is totally based on commission. If you're a star you'll be able to make a lot, but if you're not you'll easily get fired. </p>
<p>I know that at ML there's a program that's supposed to be the best in the business that spans about 2 years, you're given individual goals on how much in assets you have to bring in during that time, I hear the salary is like 40k or something and they invest a lot into you for doing it. The goal of the program is to make sure you're able to actually get assets on your own. </p>
<p>Personally I think if you're going to get into PCS it's better to target businesses than individuals. If you target a private business you have more ways of making a good relationship with them by providing financing, cash management, etc. Then you can follow and help the owners when they want to retire by selling their business off in pieces, that sort of thing.</p>
<p>I believe incoming FAs are paid based on their previous year's declared income. So, if you come straight from college, you get the minimum ($24K) while you get your licenses--basically you study all day for the licenses and get paid for it. The maximum I believe is 60K. If you are a senior FA you probably come in with a book of clients already--maintaining your previous income.</p>
<p>private client associates can make a lot of money, one of my mom's coworkers brings in over 200k a year to to commission in riverside CA. Also, he just got out of his mba program at UCR which is uter crap and still makes 200k with a relatively small client base. But he is already near his plateau which isnt good nor bad. Pretty all he can do is move up through management.</p>
<p>there are actually some very established group leaders at my office who pull in around 2 mill. I've heard of some in NY with GS who make much more than that, it's really a matter of being able to bring in good clients and keep getting referrals or finding them on your own. If you're good the sky is really the limit.</p>
<p>Excellent people and sales skills are a must.</p>
<p>yea there is definatly a lot of upside in PCS. and once you get a decent book of business built up you dont have to work that many hours, mostly you are just playing golf or going to lunch with clients/potential clients.</p>
<p>compared to ibanking where the long hours never really stop. 1-2 m per year is what the top mds in the ibanking divisions make anyway, and the money in pcs is more guarentied as long as you dont loose a huge client. so i guess they are actually kinda opposite in that way because in pcs in the begining all you do is sell, sell, sell. but once you develop the right relationships and start geting referals you only start going after the really big clients but mostly service your existing. vs ibanking you start doing modeling and stuff but then once you reach vp/md you have to sell.</p>
<p>are you considering do pcs after you graduate? can you think of any other comparisions btw pcs and ibanking?</p>