FT Recruiting vs Internship Grind

Hi everyone, I hope the quarter is going as well as it can be. 

I am interning at a HF this summer, and the return rates are fairly low (no return %, basically just exceptionalism). I really love this firm and have been super hyped to finally work there, but I am now faced with the reality of post-grad employment. I've spoken to people on my team, and it seems that I will be working roughly 16 hours each day -- and I've already made peace with the fact that I'll likely work on weekends just to deliver best performance. 

Obviously, this schedule is incompatible with FT recruiting, so I'm wondering how you did it when you were interns. Did you just focus on the internship and grinded for the return or recruited while working? 

It seems impossible to recruit without undermining internship performance, but the timelines are so early this year that I pretty much have to apply now to have a chance (even though I haven't even started). So it's a chicken-or-the-egg problem: either I grind/maximize chance of return and won't have to recruit or I recruit and end up not maximizing return chance. 

Presumably the firms know this? Both the recruiting and the firm I'm interning at. Are the timelines a little more relaxed compared to the internship recruiting?

Sorry in advance if this is a repeat post -- did not immediately see anything similar in the HF section. Thank you all in advance.