Boutique IB Internship with no modeling

Sil couldn't say it better.

I've built maybe 6-8 models in the past year. It's not a primary duty.

This is perfect. Thank you

I am actually really interested in this as well. I, too, will be interning at a Boutique IB in a week and am afraid this might be my case.

My plan was to do whatever they gave me, albeit busy work, to my best ability to show them that I can handle more serious work. It seems like you've done this already and they still aren't changing the pace? You've already asked them, and was their response a straight no?

I found myself in that situation several years ago at a good-sized boutique consulting firm (~200 employees). I was in high school and I think I was really only expected to do admin work. For the first couple of weeks I did copying, clerical crap, boring research (no analysis) and so on, I really wanted to do cooler stuff. So whenever I had a free moment I'd pour over past work on the server, read industry journals, and go through a copy of the analyst handbook I found near my cube. I also started talking to the analysts (a misnomer, like your place everyone was Masters/MBA or above) a lot more, not just about work stuff but more to establish myself as one of them rather than a support-staffer.

The real key was speaking up in meetings. Asking questions that showed an understanding of the subject and furthered the discussion. This wasn't that hard, even for a high-schooler: the particular industry this firm dealt with was on the front page every day, and there was no shortage of analysis I could read. If I could speak up credibly as someone who'd never taken an econ class, there's no reason you guys can't as people with years of finance instruction. Although this was a place that had rather frequent group-wide meetings, I don't know if that's as common in IB as I haven't started yet. Approach meetings like you would a discussion section at school--one or two intelligent comments/questions so the professor knows you're on the ball, but don't ask stupid questions or be The Section Douchebag who won't stop showing off.

What I noticed after doing this a few times is that I'd start getting projects from people besides my immediate supervisors. They'd give me research projects that didn't require in-depth analysis, but were better than clerical work (which there wasn't really enough of for me to do anyway). My 'big break' came on some research into elections in a particular country. After getting information on the candidates as requested I did some further digging on their ties to the industry and what could be likely impacts for our clients with in-country assets if each candidate was elected. Not in a show-offy way, just a few unrequested bullet points for each guy. My boss loved it 'cause that's what she was going to have to do anyway and I ended up getting to prepare a full-length client deliverable.

Then I got staffed on a major modeling project and it was all pretty sweet analytical work from there on out. I never asked to get staffed on anything, it just sort of came to me after I demonstrated that I could think like a consultant. Although it seems like that's not very hard to do (http://www.leveragedsellout.com/files/bain2005.pdf).

I had an internship like this also and you just have to make the best of it. I would listen to the above poster and if things don't change in a couple months, look elsewhere. Some places will open up to you and others will just use you to do BS work.

You get to do the "cool stuff" when you get a freaking job you dorks. Its an INTERNSHIP. You think they or their clients want a college kid intern doing their financial models/anything of importance?

The point is to learn through osmosis here, suck up anything you can, ask questions, show your a smart, hardworking kid...and then get a better one next time, you gotta climb the ladder for gods sakes.

That's retarded. You do internships to learn and to acquire experience to talk about on your resume/in interviews. PeakLapel, sorry your internships weren't particularly fulfilling but I have had several that were, as have dozens of people I know in finance, consulting, engineering, computer science, PR, marketing, public policy... pretty much every field I can think of. That's the only way to learn how to do the job. It's not like a pitchbook is going out to a client unchecked after an intern was the last person to touch it, anyway.

Thanks for the input. I try adding commentary whenever possible, but have taken the approach where I try absorbing as much as possible for now. It just annoys me when I come back from an 11-hour work day where I had to take out an extra $1k in debt to fund an unpaid internship where I spent the day looking through documents for spelling/grammar mistakes.

This kid is an obvious idiot. I understand the feeling of wanting to have a 'fulfilling' experience but thinking they are going to waste time/energy/risk clients by letting you do financial modeling is ludicrous. Maybe you can practice on your own using their deals as a template....but that would be on your own time, not while they need you doing other things to be helpful around the office.

Lose the ego, lose the feeling of entitlement. You are worthless to an IB transaction right now, suck it up and earn your stripes.

it's the reality of any small shop. they don't have any sort of structure in place to teach you really anything, and they simply can't take the time to teach you. it's better then nothing but internships at small shops are pretty worthless. I got a summer paid internship years ago at a HF with $700m aum and 5 employees and they essentially just gave me all their research and 5 books on investing/investments and told me to go in an office and read for two months. The only way to spin the situation as worthwhile is if you can exaggerate when writing your resume.

The consensus seems to be that a boutique IB internship requires mostly proof reading, updating comps, researching industry overlook, etc. Is that really much better than working at a F500 company where you might actually be assigned a project?

Supposedly fresh PWM-->Soph boutique IB--> Junior BB--> Full time is the desired route, so is the soph Boutique just to prove your interested in IB if you won't have much more IB skills than another kid who worked F500 finance?

Sorry to bother you guys with this again but there's a new dilemma:

So after working their for a couple of weeks, I finally went around to VPs offering to help out with some valuations and just then the MD who hired me came up to me and asked me why on earth I was helping individuals with their deals when I should be sticking to the admin work that'll "benefit the whole firm, not just one person." He also went on to say "these guys are getting paid good money, you don't need to be their slave labour."

I explained I thought I could balance both and it would really help me get a feel for the industry and he just shot back with "you're young, we're in our 50's so don't worry you have so many years before you need to learn modelling."

Internally, I was appalled since I don't know what possible reason he could have for slowing me down. I'm guessing they don't want a freshman fucking around with their $100mm deals, but even if I'm spending my day reading through past deals, they have a problem with it.

Externally, I just apologized, smiled, shut the fuck up, and continued making photocopies.

I'm really not willing to continue this and I really hope it changes. I know these are hurdles I have to jump through but god I'm trying to get some experience as well. This MD seems really cool when we go out to lunch or drinking, but at the office he just turns into a total dick.

Do you guys have any similar experiences or input?