what is expected of an intern?
Basically, what is expected out of an intern in Asset Management? Particularly, at a mutual fund? Think about 10-15 billion in AUM.
Am I expected to generate ideas, get coffee, work on models?
What happens if I mess up?
I'm planning for next summer and was wondering if anyone's firms h had any set expectations of interns or just told them to stay out of the way.
Speaking from someone who was in your shoes a year ago ...
Nothing is expected of you - you are there to make the lives of the analysts easier by doing the things they have gotten tired of over the years and you can be reasonablly expected not to screw up.
If you pass these tests of editing their work and entering data and pulling data points from bloomberg, morningstar, factset etc without error you will be recognized (somewhat) and may be moved into more challenging things such as drafting investment memos or actually interpreting some of the ratios you have been pulling.
If you mess up with the data entry or complain about it, expect to be doing nothing.
Do whatever work they ask you to do, do it well, ask for more work, and try to stay later than anyone else who 'matters' (you'll figure that out soon enough, doesn't always correlate with seniority).
If no one recognizes you for your work and your are simply given more data entry when you ask for work the nyou have two approaches - 1) keep pluggin on and hope things will change or 2) figure out a project the team is working on and determine how you can add value
Anyway, an internship is 99.5% what you make it, 0.4% your manager, and 0.1% luck
Forgot to mention - attention to detail is huge. For example, capitalizing the first word of a title
To the OP - I started my ER SA internship last week, and I've already gotten a feel for how things are gonna work the rest of the summer. Literally everything I've done so far has been updating models or locating data and creating spreadsheets/models. The only thing I've done so far which has been different is creating a Leading Economic Indicator Index from scratch which I'm working on right now.
Take my advice with a grain of salt since I've only been here a week, but there are two things I concentrate on to be efficient: Making sure my work is accurate and that there aren't any silly mistakes, and finding ways to make my excel work go by quicker by including new functions and macros that my Sr. Analyst either didn't know about or hasn't considered using.
Generally (regardless of whether it's asset management or IBD), people want an intern who is willing to work hard without complaining (regardless of what type of work is thrown at them) and with accuracy and a good attitude. You'll obviously be given easier, more menial tasks when you start out but if you are able to get those done accurately and efficiently, then people will naturally trust you with more complicated items. You're allowed a mistake or two at the beginning, but make the same mistakes repeatedly afterwards and you are doomed.
That's it in a nutshell. Easier said than executed, though.
Summer Internship Expectations (Originally Posted: 05/29/2012)
So I started interning, as a freshman, at a regional boutique ib. I haven't been doing much, in fact, today at work i literally spent by day doing nothing from 9-5. I was not told to do ANYTHING. Am I expecting too much from the internship or what?
you shouldn't be sitting around and waiting for work to come to you. Be active and try to get your hands on everything you can.
IB Boutique internship as a freshman, you're good. You don't need to do squat lol.
But I'm sure later on, they'll give you a few assignments here and there albeit some might be quite mundane tasks.
I'm in the same position, at a boutique pe shop. no live deals so usually the office is pretty quiet. I just take that time to read up on valuation & modeling techniques so I won't come off as completely incompetent when junior year ibd recruiting season rolls around.
Yeah, I'm just reading stuff right now. There are a lot of deals and valuations to do, but I don't think they trust me to do much of anything. I get that I'm a freshman, but I'm sure I can do something. How do I approach it in terms of asking for more work--they have acknowledged the low workload already by saying it's the first week (last week) and that i will get integrated, but I'm not sure how long I can just wait.
What type of tasks do they ask you to do? I mean, surely, you do not do "nothing?" Also, was the interview tough? Did they quiz you on technical questions?
What type of tasks do they ask you to do? I mean, surely, you do not do "nothing?" Also, was the interview tough? Did they quiz you on technical questions?
.
It was today that I did nothing, literally spent the whole day reading about valuation on my own. Yes I am fucking serious.
There was little in the way of technical questions, mostly fit. Any thoughts on this, should I just wait for it or what.
Hmm you shouldn't be reading about valuation on your own. You should be out walking around the office meeting the other employees. Maybe have some food prepared to hand out to employees. Pick up trash from the ground if you see it. Walk around with some keyboard cleaner (everyone likes getting their keyboard and screens cleaned) and small talk a bit while you're cleaning their stuff. You can also ask if there's anything they need. If you do stuff like this the work will eventually come to you because everyone will like you.
Hmm, alright sounds good. I guess it's good to learn this before a junior summer SA stint. Anyone have more advice on how to approach this?
yeah dude, carry a rag around and bring some shoe polish with you. maybe ask them if they need any chores done back home or if they need you to pick something up from the store for them. ask them if they like blowjobs too.
jgx101, fuck are you talking about?
I agree, be social and talk with people, at least to learn more about what they are doing. When they realize you are interested, they will likely find somehting for you to do. Just ask, its not a big deal.
Yeah, I thought the computer cleaning was over the top. I will definitely ask more questions.
thats the key. ive found at times if I dont ask, I am left with little to do. However, if you do the few things they give you well, everyone is busy and will start giving you more and more to do as they trust the work you do.
Summer Analyst Expectations? (Originally Posted: 02/13/2015)
I recently accepted an offer for a summer position at a BB in NYC. Needless to say, I'm very excited and would like to make a great impression from day one. I have a few questions about standard protocol, though.
My firm awards OT after 40 hours. Obviously I want to be the first one in, last one out, and work very hard. Will it look like I'm milking OT if I put in excessive hours? Or will my workload just naturally require 80+ "facetime" hours?
How early is too early? In other words, if I'm scheduled for 7 or 8am, is it preposterous to arrive an hour or more earlier?
I know these questions may sound ridiculous, but I just have no frame of reference for standard operating procedure.
Being an intern is awesome, go to work stoned, mindlessly plug in numbers, leave £10,000 richer 10 weeks later
Interned last summer at a BB, received and accepted FT offer at same group -
Most likely you'll just end up having to put in 70-80 hours a lot of the time. I don't think it's necessarily the case that the more hours the better, though: the intern in our group who put in the most hours last summer was the only one who didn't end up with an offer, at least partly because people thought he was inefficient.
Also, I don't know about your bank, but there really wasn't much OT to milk at mine...and an hour early is a bit much, I'd think. Unless you got shit to do.
I worked at a boutique where "Facetime" was definitely not a thing, so perhaps a BB is different. But the only thing that mattered in our group was getting your work done and doing it quickly. If you don't have work to do, you go home and if you linger around the office people think you're a bit crazy. You'll have to learn to know when extra work may be required of you; there will be times when you have nothing to do at the moment, but you should stay at the office because there is a high probability work will be coming in soon. However, minor things could always be done at home, just make sure you bring your work laptop home.
Being early in the office is fine if you have work to do, but what you're going to find out is that the early morning is typically a slow time in banking. It depends on the group and the habits of your senior guys, but typically peak work generation was in the late morning in my experience. That said, when I was a SA I did get in early quite a few times and because the MD I worked with would get in very early, he would often ask my opinion on something and/or give me work directly, bypassing the full time analyst on the deal who always got in at 9. So Id say that you should learn the dynamics of your group and make a decision based off of that; just don't stand out to the analysts as a weird guy who tries too hard and isn't fun to be around. There's some kind of balance there.
This is a good post.
As a Summer Analyst at a BB are you given a set time you are suppose to come in everyday? Or do you play off the group dynamics and determine a time on your own (between 8 AM and 9:30 AM)?
I am just curious when a Summer Analyst comes in, not when they leave. Getting over 40 hours will be easy.
Training and your first day on the desk, you will be given a set time to be there for sure. However, after that it's very much about observing what full-time analysts do. You should arrive in the earlier part of the range of times the full time guys get in. Aim to do that on a daily basis and arrive earlier than that if necessary or if you want.
What to expect during summer internship? (Originally Posted: 04/16/2009)
Will be a summer analyst at a bank with pretty good deal flow. What can I expect to be doing in the summer? My guess would be spreading comps or something that's hard to fuck up, but to make the most of my internship how can I ask for more responsibilities?
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make sure you have an iphone or a itouch so you can log onto youporn during your shit break/jack off sesh during those oh so lonely nights.
Don't be a jerk. YouPorn doesn't work on the iPhone. What you want is mobile.youporn.com
then i recommend jizzhut they have a fantastic collection of anal stories
but in all seriousness to the OP the search function comes up with some good tidbits
:|
edit: will blackberry work?
Yes blackberries work, though I have the blackberry bold and AT&T's 3G-EDGE jittery connection keeps making my phone freeze. Apparently the Bold enters an hour-long loop to reorient itself to the EDGE network every time you randomly lose a microsecond of 3G.
But seriously, it's too bad no one really answered your question. Perhaps if you were more specific about your internship people would be able to tell you more.
yea can someone please answer this question?
yea can someone please answer this question?
comps/bullshit work/coffee runs/lots of facetime
you will grab coffee and lunch for everybody, book conference rooms, all these shits....
The Fuck Up Road: -Get tagged onto a random group for their road show -You fucked up so many comps and books that they only trust you with flight, hotel and shit
The High Road: -Work on comps, books all day -You will never see a deal through, but if lucky, you might get to sit on for the printing with the Analyst at 3 in the morning
Is it safe to assume that SA at BB/boutiques don't get to work on DCF/LBO (except for maybe checking input numbers)? Does it mean SA that get to do real final DCF will have a more impressive resume (given same "bitch" work)?
P.S.: I intern for a small satellite office and my boss just emailed me financial models from 2004 Pre-IPO 1 and said to redo them all of them for new Pre-IPO
redo = weigh the models differently when doing the football field
Okay to update this post since I'm more than half way through my internship. It might answer some of the other posters questions as well.
In the beginning I was mostly working on pitch books, updating share graphs, vwap charts, cap tables, spreading comps/precedents. No coffee runs or booking appointments. However during the last two weeks I started to actually do some modeling and have more exposure to live deals, which was great. Had the chance to build a few stand alones with a DCF and a merger model.
Definitely been a great experience so far.
Received A Summer Internship - What Can I Expect (Originally Posted: 05/19/2014)
I will be working at a small hedge fund beginning in June and was wondering what to expect. Some of my responsibilities include processing daily transactions, liasing with the prime broker and maintaining Excel reports summarizing security positions, cash balances, net asset values, adjusted cost bases and realized gains and losses.
What exactly will I be doing?
It really depends, I just accepted an internship at a small HF and was told that I will be doing the same work as an analyst. (i.e. Read and find potential investments, modeling, write reports, etc...) My friend is interning for a $1B fund in TX, and all he is doing is watch the analyst and print reports.
Are SA's who have interned at an investment bank expected to have real modeling experience? (Originally Posted: 01/15/2011)
I interned at a boutique bank over the summer, but I never got to build a full blown DCF or lbo model during my internship. I've worked a little bit on tweaking a few models that have already been built, but most of my internship was pitchbooks and doing comps.
Is this unusual? Are SAs be expected to understand/be able to talk about those 10MB valuation models that bankers use?
...Come to think of it, I never even got to see a deal from start to finish
I had the same experience as you at a boutique. One of the partners did most of heavy lifting in modelling. I think because it was a private partnership and they are more thorough than at the BB's where it's churn churn.
Do BB SA's get to do a lot more modeling? My boutique wasn't that small, but I think it was assumed that since I would only be there for 10 weeks, it wouldn't make sense for me to build the model when I probably won't be there for full length of the deal
the first university summer I landed a boutique private equity internship. Let's just say that I racked up the daily show hours during that time. I dont even think I did a single thing that was finance related lol. I was fine with that, the way I saw it I could write some BS on my CV and it would help me get interviews the next summer at BB's.
Next summer, I get called in for a GS S&T SA interview, and the third question he asks me is to describe the modelling I did on the internship. He fullblown expected me to have done some solid work. Moral of the story: watch out.
What to expect in the summer internship? (Originally Posted: 04/10/2012)
So, my summer internship is starting in no time. I have reviewed some threads on common fuck-ups of analysts ... and I seem to have the gist of what to expect. But, can anyone give me some "heads-up" on avoiding fucking up / pissing off the MD / pissing off co-workers, etc. Gracias amigoss
If you've read the M&I suggestions, you'll be fine. Just work hard, be proactive, don't be a pain in the ass, and try to learn as much as you can.
What am I expected to know as an incoming SA? (Originally Posted: 05/24/2012)
As an incoming SA at an MM, what is the bare minimum I should know in regards to excel and other technical skills? Would the WSO Excel Crash Course be sufficient?
never do a deal with bernie madoff
Yes start there. What division are you in?
figs
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