''Washington DC Headquarters
- Division of Corporation Finance
- Division of Enforcement
- Division of Investment Management
- Division of Trading and Markets
- Office of Chief Accountant
- Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations
- Office of General Counsel
- Office of Inspector General
- Office of International Affairs
- Office of the Secretary
Offices (Enforcement Only)
- Atlanta
- Boston
- Chicago
- Denver
- Fort Worth
- Miami
- Los Angeles
- New York
- Philadelphia
- Salt Lake
- San Francisco''1
To apply for an SEC internship a questionnaire can completed online, before March 15 each year. The SEC also requests a cover letter, resume, writing sample and transcript (if available). They can be sent online to the SEC in their requested format. There are details at their website for properly preparing all the documents. (http://www.sec.gov/jobs)
There are some eligibility requirements for winning a position to intern with the SEC. The candidate must be a law school student and attend an accredited law school.
- Students are not eligible if a member of their family works at the SEC
- Students must have finished at least 1 year of law school by summer of the internship
- Students must be US citizens or of members of the allied nations for paid legal positions. However, those who do not qualify to be paid are eligible to work voluntarily or for credit.
It is helpful to know exactly what type of background or work experience the SEC looks for on the student's resume. The SEC does select interns based on merit and looks for prior internship experience. A background in service such as volunteer work in a public service project is impressive as well as having a strong academic record. The internship requires above average writing skill with the law review or other types of publication work. Any extracurricular work in legal aid, clinical experience will give the candidate a hand up to an internship.
The hiring decisions are made on a rolling basis so it is best to get your applications in as early as possible. The committees start their reviews in mid January. The applications are first reviewed by a committee in Washington DC and hiring decisions are determined. After a decision to hire is made, the assignments for location are determined and each regional office of the SEC has their own hiring committee. It's a process and the intern is hired based on information the committees get from the application. If there is anything missing from the documents requested they are returned to the applicant. This can cost the student their opportunity to be the ''early bird'', so check and double check that application requirements are met the first time the documents are sent to the SEC.
Overall, these types of internships with the government look very good on resumes and they give valuable training experience to the interns. The best employment recruiters will always suggest a student work at a position that lends itself to the profession for which one is preparing. In today's market it has even more influence. Internship work experience may be the difference between applicants who compete for the same positions after graduation.
Resources:
1 Summer Honors Program — 1L, January 2009, Securities Exchange Commission.
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