Interview Question: What else did you work on during the internship
So during an SA ib interview when the interviewer was looking at my resume, he pointed at an internship and asked, "What else did you work on during the internship?" How should you answer this question?
I was pretty confused, because I listed all of the most important work I did on my resume already,but he still wanted to know more. Fortunately I worked on some other stuff that wasn't listed on the resume so I said it, but what was the interviewer looking for? Why did he want to know about some unimportant stuff that I wouldn't even put on my resume? Before that he also asked me to explain what I did during the internship, which seems pretty repetitive as it is already on my resume, but I guess he just wanted to test whether I know my experiences well. It was still quite odd to me, since he can totally spend that several minutes asking better questions, like my internship feedback or some other behavioral questions.
What do you think? What is the best answer to this question? Also what if the question is phrased like "What else did you do during the internship?" What should I say?
Thanks
It's impossible to really help you without you providing more detail. Can you post what you have written on your resume for this internship (obviously remove the name of the firm or anything that can give you away)?
If that's not possible, I would simply give an overview of what you did. I think what the interviewer is getting at is trying to see if you really understood what you were doing.
Thanks for the reply. It was an IB internship at a small firm. I listed stuff like preparing income statements, researching companies, composing company profiles, doing due diligence and developing prospective lists. I also did cold calls but I didn't list it on my resume.
You were probably asked that question because your description does not describe anything that you really contributed. While this is tough to do at an internship, especially one at a boutique, you need to find what you did that is unique to the transaction(s) that you worked on.
Try something like this (things in brackets should be at the right-hand of the page):
"Firm Name [dates you worked there] Your role -One bullet one general responsibilities, such as preparing CIMs, pitchbooks, etc. -Second general responsibilities bullet -Third general responsibilities bullet
Representative transactions: -Transaction 1: brief description of company (e.g. $100mm EBITDA manufacturer of industrial chemicals) -unique responsibility one -unique responsibility two -unique responsibility three"
Unique responsibilities can include creating complex financial models for different sales opportunities, working with management to discuss and model out a potential divestiture, etc. Basically, you need to describe what you did on a transaction that sets that transaction apart from others. If all you did was grunt work, that's fine (that is expected at most boutique internships), but as you build up experience, this becomes important.
Okay, I see. It was mostly grunt work given that it was a sophomore summer internship at a boutique, but I did try to glorify by saying something like conducted valuations of XXXmm companies by preparing income statements or composed company profile for XXXmm client and was presented by CEO blah blah blah. I'll try to explain more on the big picture of the transactions next time. Thanks for the advice.
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