Lying about what you did during internship

NOT a TROLL POST, i think this is perfectly possible and can get away with it:

Suppose during your freshmen/sophomore summers you decide to get an "internship" with some unknown boutique and in there you end up only doing bitch work and printing stuff. (or you just generally don't do anything that relevant to finance)

But clearly if you write that you just did bitchwork on your resume, then noone will take you seriously (even if you exaggerate it can bring you only so far). So while you do that pathetic internship, you buy BIWS and study on your own about valuation/modeling, create a couple of your own industry reports, where you learn a ton about finance ON YOUR OWN.

Now the question is, could you "lie" about this on your resume in the sense that you write about the skills you gained in valuation and modeling through this internship (when you actually learned it via BIWS and self learning) and make your "internship" appear more meaningful much more impressive?

The implications:

  1. They do a background check to make sure you aren't BSing. This is easy since you technically did intern there, and 90% of the time the HR don't go further than that.

  2. You get called on this during interviews. Again, assuming that you actually did study BIWS and made those industry reports etc, you could elaborate on what you did and the skills you gained - just state that you did all this during the internship.

So what do you guys think? Do you think you can get away with "lying" about what you did during the internship via self learning?

12 Comments
 

Hell yea you can...as long as you can back up with you wrote: like if you write ..completed a discounted cash flow model and lbo on ...Citi (who gives a fuck)

you better know how to walk someone through a dcf and lbo.

hope this helps

Wally!
 
donkeyBusiness730Hell yea you can...as long as you can back up with you wrote: like if you write ..completed a discounted cash flow model and lbo on ...Citi (who gives a fuck)

you better know how to walk someone through a dcf and lbo.

hope this helps

make sure you don't do this - dinged for thinking you can use a DCF to value Citi or even attempt a realistic LBO value

 

Interesting to hear, I'm assuming this will most probably work best with lesser known boutiques and such?

Obviously if you did a UBS/Merrill wealth management internship and you state you did IBD-type work then it may be less credible, and easier to verify by HR since BBs are well known. Or am I wrong?

 

As someone who has conducted interviews for incoming analysts there is no way in hell I would believe that a firm gave a intern, a freshman/sophomore no less, any real modeling responsibility.

That said, you can say you were trained in doing it or even you can put as part of the internship you did that specific modeling training. That would be totally fine because no one would expect you to have done that type of work for a live deal anyway.

There is blurring the lines and then there is straight out lying. Stick to the former not the latter.

 

I did small amounts of modeling in my internship, but studied tons so I could inflate it a little. Just be sure that you know your shit down cold, lots of my interviewers tried to call me out, but I knew it well enough to back it up.

 
noobstari think this thread should be deleted in case there are recruiters lurking around here
Not really. All recruiters know that the list of things you did in your last internship is complete BS. Consequently no one gives a shit what you write.
 

especially if its a minor experience, like during your freshmen or sophomore year, they won't dig too deep. If it' s really recent they can ask about more details where your hesitation can back fire.

Do what you want not what you can!
 

wouldn't it be more impressive to admit that since you weren't challenged enough during your internship you took the initiative to teach yourself new skills? then you also wouldn't be going through interviews scared your little secret will get out.

 

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