The Ares Management internship is an approximately 10-week summer programme for current students across credit, private equity, real assets, and other groups. Apply through Ares Early Careers and Workday, where you rank your business group and location preferences.
Ares runs an approximately ten-week summer internship for current students across credit, private equity, real assets, secondaries, wealth management, technology, corporate functions, and other teams. Apply through Ares Early Careers and the linked Workday form for your region.
The application asks you to rank business group and location preferences, and you will usually interview for one participating group. For the June 2027 US cohort, current Ares careers-page guidance gives an opening date of 31 August 2026, with interviews often running from September to October. The live page controls if that guidance changes.
This guide explains the programme, the Workday application, and the preparation expected for the group you rank first. It also helps you coordinate Ares with Blackstone, Apollo, or Brookfield without confusing their timelines or investment strategies.
Quick facts (Ares summer internship)
| Fact | What to use |
|---|---|
| Where to apply | Ares Early Careers → Workday (US / UK paths differ) |
| Programme length | About 10 weeks, typically starting June |
| Preference hinge | Rank business group and location; you usually interview for one group |
| June 2027 careers guidance | Applications open 31 August 2026; interviews often Sep–Oct |
| Evidence note | The local Trackr snapshot does not confirm that opening date. Check the live Early Careers page and Workday requisition |
| Fit check | Alternatives platform, not a bulge-bracket IB summer |
Keep these facts with your application notes so your preference order and regional path stay visible when you submit.
What the ten weeks actually involve
Ares describes its Summer Internship Program as immersive, aimed at building analytical, leadership, and collaboration skills inside a global alternatives platform over roughly ten weeks. The early-careers pages welcome a genuinely broad mix of majors, which is worth noting if you assumed this was a finance-degree-only door. What they are actually screening for is academic strength, initiative, and real comfort with Excel and structured problem-solving, applied to whichever platform you end up on.
The application itself has one deliberate hinge point. You apply once into the overall summer programme, but you rank business group and location preferences as part of that single application. Interviews then place you onto exactly one participating group. Rank first a group you can actually talk about: how those assets get underwritten, financed, or managed, not a vague “alternatives” line.
Getting the application in properly
Start by reading the Early Careers page in full for the current programme timing and eligibility language. Ares updates this each cycle rather than running one static evergreen posting. From there, use the US or UK apply path that matches your target office because each region has a separate entry point.
The Workday application is where you set group and location preferences, so treat that page as the real decision point. If you are early relative to the next cycle, join the early-careers talent network contact listed on the careers page while you wait for the form to open.
One practical note worth flagging: campus career portals and aggregator job boards tend to mirror Ares Workday postings, but they can lag or misrepresent the live requisition. Confirm the actual Workday ID on ares.com before you invest real preparation time in a listing that might already be stale.
How to use the current timeline
For the US summer cohort starting in June 2027, current Ares careers-page guidance gives 31 August 2026 as the opening date, with interviews typically running September through October and offers commonly landing October through November. The local Trackr snapshot does not confirm those dates. Verify them on the live careers page and requisition because Ares can adjust its timetable.
| Milestone | Typical window |
|---|---|
| Applications open | 31 August 2026 in current Ares careers-page guidance; live page controls |
| Interviews | September to October (video and/or in person by team) |
| Offers | Often October to November |
| Programme start | June 2027 |
Some team-specific postings publish their own close date, and the date on the live form should guide your plan. When no close is listed, applying soon after the role opens gives you time to handle later stages. The process can include an online application with your preferences attached, a recruiter or HR conversation, and team interviews. The exact mix of markets, credit, and behavioural questions varies by group and requisition.
Prepping by the group you actually rank first
If credit or commercial finance is your target, the interview leans on accounting and credit basics, real capital structure intuition, and a clear answer for why Ares credit specifically rather than a bank's leveraged finance desk. Clean Excel habits and a genuine attention-to-detail story matter more here than a rehearsed markets pitch.
If you are aiming at private equity, real assets, or secondaries, you need deal process vocabulary without inventing proprietary deal experience you do not have, plus sector curiosity that actually matches the group's public focus. Reviewing a handful of recent Ares transactions in that space gives you better material than a generic "I love investing" answer.
Client solutions, partnerships, and corporate roles reward a different profile: communication, CRM-style organisation, and writing samples pulled from coursework or clubs that show you can produce investor-facing material. Explain why Ares's specific platform and the role interest you rather than describing it only as a finance internship.
Whichever group you rank, build one crisp answer for why alternatives broadly, then a second, more specific answer for why that particular group. And if Ares sits alongside bank or other alts summer processes on your calendar, our rolling deadlines guide helps you keep the timing straight across all of them without dropping a deadline.
Before first-wave submit, run a short materials check: one-page CV with the ranked group’s evidence at the top, preference order written down, and two spoken answers (why Ares, why that group) timed to under ninety seconds each. Fix the CV with our finance CV template ATS guide if the top half still reads like a bank summer.
A few details to check before submitting
Research the actual platform before you commit to a preference order. You should be able to explain what interests you about the group, refer to its public work, and connect that interest to your experience. Motivation written for investment banking will usually need rewriting for alternative capital and the specific work of your chosen group.
If no hard close is published, apply reasonably soon after the form opens once your materials are ready. This leaves more time for any team-specific screening and avoids relying on an unannounced final date.
Use third-party listings as alerts, then confirm the Workday ID on ares.com before applying. Also check that you are using the US or UK route for your target office.
For another large alternatives platform with a major direct-lending business, compare the Blue Owl summer internship application guide.
What to do after reading this
Applying to Ares this cycle? Rank a business group you can discuss with specific evidence, confirm the US or UK Workday path before you submit, and keep Blackstone or Apollo on separate timelines so credit and PE preparation stays distinct.
Compare with our Blackstone internship guide and Apollo internship guide.