2023 FSP Intern Career Conference
The importance of this report on the Financial Services Pipeline Intern Career Conference is to highlight the success of FSP efforts to provide a platform that supports the integration of diverse interns into the financial services pipeline. An analysis of the data collected from a post-event survey allows us to understand the impact the conference had on the interns able to attend.
The results discussed below cover feedback from Black, Latino and Two or More Races (“Black and Brown”) attendees. Topics include attendance, interest in financial services careers, session engagement, learnings, and barriers to entering the industry. The report does not include feedback from unregistered attendees, White or Asian American attendees.
MAJOR TAKEAWAYS
Interest in Financial Services Career
43.75% interns expressed an increase, and 25.00% interns expressed a significant increase in their desire to pursue a career in financial services, with an overall 68.75% increase of interest.
Session Engagement
62.50% of the interns strongly agreed with the “Strategic Networking” and 59.38% of the interns found “Catching Up with Former ICC Interns” sessions to be informative and engaging. The “Rock Your Profile!” session placed third with 56.25% of the interns strongly agreeing the information presented was engaging and informative.
Learnings
83.8% of interns strongly agree/agree they are learning how to position themselves for a career in the industry.
Barriers to Entry
– 40.63% of Black and Brown interns believe the greatest barrier to having a career in financial services is mastery of skills.
– The second ranking barrier is lack of opportunity, which is 21.88% of what Black and Brown interns chose.
– Two additional barriers cited are the cost of education and relationships ranked at 15.63%.
Summary
The FSP 2023 ICC Black and Brown interns had positive feedback about the content delivered at the ICC. This feedback will help improve the format of next year’s sessions, effectiveness and engagement of sessions and the conference. Through the self – assessment questions there is an understanding that communication, networking, and technical skills are key areas of development that can be highlighted in next year’s Intern Career Conference. There will be more interactive sessions where the interns can voice their opinions, questions and understanding of current DEI trends. For instance, a facilitated session that provides an overview of a topic like ‘allyship’ and scenarios for the interns to discuss and provide feedback. A session that addresses transitioning from college to a financial services career could provide ample time for questions from interns about the onboarding process, what all the paperwork means, establishing relationships with colleagues, managing personal finances, how to communicate when a deadline may be missed and more. Lastly, next year can provide the networking but also more time during the conference to connect with each other and especially interns from different firms.