This essay is based on a conversation with Nick Rutherford, a recent member of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate who completed an internship at JPMorgan Private Bank and starts at Unilever this fall. This text has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has reviewed his offer letters.
I didn’t have a clear career plan before I started studying. I wasn’t particularly interested in math and science and I thought I would study law after my bachelor’s degree.
I studied political science, but took courses at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Being surrounded by career-focused students who were constantly talking about their resumes and internships made me interested in these things.
During my studies, I tried out different internships: I worked at a non-profit media company, an advertising agency and a think tank.
My strategy has always been to put 100 to 150 jobs and their details in a spreadsheet and apply to five every day until I run out of positions. In my last summer before graduation, I managed to get three internship offers – from a consulting firm, a consumer goods company, and JPMorgan.
When I got the call that I got the internship at JPMorgan, it was so exciting and I was really grateful. I would be working in their private banking division in Seattle. I wasn’t too nervous because they made it clear that even if we knew nothing, they could teach us something.
Despite what I’ve heard from other friends about banking, the interns and even the analysts we worked under were not required to work beyond their working hours or on weekends. I didn’t feel like my internship was physically or mentally taxing on me.
When it came to getting offers for full-time positions, I expected to get it because I thought I had done a good job and felt like I deserved it. They selected three out of five from my cohort, including me.
But when the offer came, I think I already had a lingering feeling that this was not the environment I wanted to work in long-term.
I definitely had mixed feelings about the offer, even though my starting salary was $100,000 a year.
The most important factor on my pros and cons list was financial stability and knowing that a six-figure salary was just a signature away. I don’t come from a wealthy family and my mother is a single parent to me and my three siblings. Thanks to several scholarships, I was able to attend university.
Nick Rutherford and his siblings Nick Rutherford
It was hard to say no, but I have a strong growth mindset and I care deeply about how I spend my time and who I become. I really wanted to be somewhere where I felt stimulated and interested in the work I was doing.
I was fine, but I didn’t have that feeling during my internship. I didn’t have any bad experiences, there was just too little work that I really enjoyed, like model making.
I had no other offers. The alternative would have been to look for a job from scratch, not knowing what I would get and whether the offer would be anywhere near what JPMorgan was paying.
I thought, “What’s the worst that can happen if I turn this down?” The answer was that I won’t have a job for a few months, but I’ll find one. I consulted with my family and a professor at my business school about my decision and turned it down.
After sending that email, I didn’t regret my decision. I immediately went back to looking for more jobs, creating my spreadsheets like before, and started going to interviews. A few months later, I applied for a position at Unilever on a leadership program.
During my interviews at Unilever, I was able to use many of the same skills that helped me get the finance internship.
I received an offer from the company’s New Jersey office and will start this fall. The pay is significantly lower than my first offer, but the way I look at it is that if I enjoy what I do, the money will come.
There was definitely a prestige factor in having JPMorgan on my resume for a few years, but compared to what I usually wanted from a job, it just wasn’t that important to me.
I think that’s how many other Gen Z members see work today. They don’t want to give up 40 years of their life for a year’s salary anymore. We’re much more demanding about company culture and about more than just salaries.
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