I get there’s probably a few superstars who are great at modeling/PPT/excel but I’m curious to hear how many people come in with almost no knowledge of these things as Junior interns in IB. Are you in trouble if you’re not already proficient in these things by the time you hit the desk? Thanks
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I don’t think so. You are a junior intern. Not sure if you need to be a technical superstar…
Interns are useless. The key is to reliably be able to do literally anything. Things like sending an invite, reminding of deadlines, redacting, scheduling, checking for errors all can make you a great intern. Notice the keyword is reliable. You won’t be running with a model or doing anything complicated in excel likely, so not having those skills isn’t a big deal as an intern.
The key is finding some analyst to help you out who can teach you the fast tricks. Really all the internship is is a test to see who culturally can’t handle the industry or who might be just too slow or oblivious to understand how to act in the job. Things like making sure you respond within 15 minutes, communicate ahead of time, have a good attitude, don’t screw up simple tasks are what matters the most. Being slow at excel or ppt doesn’t matter, anyone telling you it does, has no clue what being on the other side is like.
Appreciate it, thanks!
SA rn, you don’t NEED to be super proficient to get a return. If you are, it makes the summer much easier and honestly a better experience imo. Ppt at least at my bank uses an add-in so any practice is pretty useless. In terms of modeling, I would try and practice before just so you understand it on a deeper level and so training is easier. In terms of excel if you learn shortcuts a little before thats super helpful. But you don’t need to be an excel god. In terms of expectations, from what ive seen its very low, but it makes your summer easier and lets you do cooler stuff if you come in with some practice like I mentioned above.
Yea the advice above is spot on. Expectations are very low. How to get an offer for sure: super fast communication, super slow but thorough work product
I think the key to doing well as an intern is being "into" finance. if you remotely care about finance stuff and enjoy reading about the latest headlines etc, you'll be ok. If you don't care about finance, it will be hard to stay motivated and do well. You DO NOT need to know much about finance or excel or banking to do well as an intern. You just need to be generally interested and not a fuck up too many times.
1) Be nice / normal
2) Be responsive
3) Double-check your work
As long as you’re not brain-dead, you should be able to get a return if you can handle the above. Nothing put on your plate will ever be too complex.
Thank you
Tangent, but curious based on your title - Can the same be said for the first 3-6 months as a PE Assoc coming from banking? I imagine the learning curve is pretty steep even if you were a great IB analyst
You’re expected to have some general competencies in finance, accounting, Excel / PowerPoint, etc. And it’s definitely “real work,” unlike an internship. That said, you’ll never get something dumped on your plate that’s totally (conceptually) out of the realm of doable.
Good attitude, 3-digit IQ, and able to stay up late?
You’re fine.
I'm an SA at a BB , in a convo i had with an associate on a different team who interviewed me and we became close, he said your not gonna be doing a lot of modelling it's not what your here for, but you are mostly trying to do the small things well, making sure any work we are given is good quality checking the small things like using the consistent syntax throughout, sense checking stuff like that.
In most cases the interns you think are technical superstars especially in my bank were masters students who already did a year in industry in another bank or consulting firm
Doing a Master's is only an EMEA and APAC thing, right? Are you in those areas?
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