Slow on Excel and PPT and making mistakes during my summer internship - how to recover?
I have been interning in the FIG team of a BB for about five weeks (four if you consider that we didn't do anything during week 1 because of technical issues). I knew that the learning curve would be steep and that I would be making tons of mistakes, but I didn't realise just how many I would make. Even little things that I should pay attention to keep falling through the cracks, and I am slower on Excel and PPT compared to my fellow interns.
I had a meeting with my manager yesterday during which he asked me how I'm doing, and I told him exactly what I mentioned here. I also added that I tried not to make the same mistake twice by having a checklist for both Excel and PPT that I could go through before submitting work. He replied that the feedback that he received is largely in line with what I said. I asked "So, am I going in the right direction, or did the feedback just say that I am slow?" He said that it was overall positive.
I can't help but feel crushed and demotivated. The anxiety about not getting the return offer is eating me alive. Every time I am staffed, I know that this will influence their review at the end of the internship, and I can feel my heart rate jump. I know that I should seek out more work so that I learn, but the worry about making more mistakes is paralysing me.
My questions are: 1) is anyone in the same position as me, and if so, what are you doing to recover from this? and 2) what are my chances of getting the return offer?
Don’t sweat it. Everyone has different learning speeds. If you don’t get a return offer you can get another offer somewhere else as long you are thoughtful about how you position the story. I’m sure you’re stressed but you will learn and you will get better.
I can tell you are having a difficult time. It's totally okay to feel like that. You're going to be alright.
Remember that THEY picked you. You applied, interviewed, and they wanted you there. If you weren't good enough, you wouldn't be there. The position you have is highly competitive. They rejected candidates to have YOU. The fact that you already started at a BB already makes you highly marketable. Stop doubting/being too hard on yourself.
1- Make a list of your strengths and positive qualities and reread them when you’re feeling insecure/anxious.
2- Remember that one bad moment doesn’t mean a bad day. One mistake doesn’t mean you did everything wrong.
3- Write down all your worries and plan how you’re going to eliminate them. One by one. You’re already doing this.
4- Accept yourself; making mistakes doesn’t have to mean you’re weak or unworthy of your position, instead learn to be comfortable with making mistakes and growing from them.
Also - note that your situation has everything to do with experience, not you. You really shouldn’t compare yourself with other interns, it isn’t a fair evaluation anyway.
Another approach you can use… Unless someone tells you it's a problem, it's not a problem. Someone's frustrated with you? Not until they tell you. They wish you did something differently? Not if they didn't tell you. Is this approach a bit delusional? Yes. But it helps with imposter syndrome. I personally don’t see anything wrong with this approach. Everybody needs to be an adult and communicate. I can’t read minds. This doesn't mean do whatever you want and not care how it affects people… this is more about not overthinking problems that don’t exist yet.
This was really helpful and reassuring - thank you so much for taking the time to write to me!
I think that when it comes to an internship and return offers, attitude is more important than you might think. If you do the hours, are eager to take on work, have a positive mindset, seek out feedback, and show that you learn from your mistakes, it is far more powerful than someone who does an excellent job but is lazy and arrogant. During my internship, I thought of the following things:
- For every task you get, ask what the deadline is. If you think that the deadline is too tight for you to do a good job, tell them upfront. They would rather give the work to someone else or delegate part of it to someone else than receive a bad output at the last minute.
- Do not stress to submit something that does not have a tight deadline. Make sure to improve the quality instead. For example, if your only current task is to pull some comps from the excel model and put it into PP, double-check that shit 5 times until you're certain that everything is correct rather than getting the task done quickly and asking for a new one.
- Ask for help when uncertain. The people on your team would much rather have you ask about something before submitting the work than submitting a job that likely contains errors.
- Ask for feedback. If you feel that you are making mistakes, ask for advice on how to avoid them. Be upfront with your analyst/associate and tell them that you feel as if you're making mistakes and ask for advice. I would also ask analysts/associates to point out every mistake that you make. Sometimes, analysts and associates don't care about pointing out your mistakes as it's quicker to just fix them themselves. You're just an intern for a few weeks and they do not know if they will be working with you long-term, so why take the time to teach you things?
Completely agree with this!
During my internship this summer, my manager would always assign me multiple things without a deadline or would be so ambiguous when telling me when something needed to be done. I had to constantly go out of my way to make sure he knows exactly what's on my plate and how I plan to delegate my time to each (especially if someone else requested something from me as well).
The Eisenhower (Urgent/Important) Matrix is super helpful to use. We didn’t necessarily have scheduled tag-ups for this, I would just informally pass by his office to say “Good Morning” everyday and that would eventually lead to a daily brief catch-up. I had him tell me many times "I don't want to put pressure on you" or "actually, you don't have to worry about that" or "you don't have to do that". These catch-ups are also when I showed him a bit of my progress on different tasks for feedback. I don’t plan for these “catch ups” to take too long so I’m not wasting his time (or making him seem like I’m clueless and need help with every little detail), but it usually ends up with him extending the conversation (even providing me with more data or resources that would make my life easier).
All in all, communication is key. Always keep your manager in the loop and they’ll be really understanding when doing their review on you.
You’re already doing the right things, some points to help you finish strong:
1) Recency bias is a thing. Continue to improve and continue to demonstrate that you’re actively working to get better. You’re already doing this by developing a checklist. No matter what stage of your career, no matter what bucket you’re in, people respect and appreciate those that are aggressively working to get better.
2) Communicate and show that you want and will accept the return offer. Do this directly and indirectly. Demonstrate that you understand the projects you’re on, that you find the work interesting, that you’re thinking about the client and considerations, that you enjoy being on the team, that you have skills and relationships you look forward to building.
Yes it might seem obvious, yes it might be implied, but I guarantee you people notice the intern that is starving for it vs. the intern that is overly-confident just going through the motions.
I wouldn’t stress too much about being slow as long as you have a positive attitude and are showing signs of improvement.
I was a terrible intern (in terms of skill) and certainly not a value add (in a time sense) for the first 4-5 months. Senior analysts and associates had to check my backups because I always did something stupid, my formatting sucked and ppl would go in and leave comments that took longer for them to leave then for them to fix (ex: putting a strike on a comma and making it red and then sending the ppt back for me to go in and delete). Time on the calendar to go through my work and how I should improve it etc. ended up lateraling that year and got a good bonus.
Wouldn’t focus on learning every shortcut imaginable I have about ~5 that cut out a majority of my mouse usage. If you don’t know how to do something in excel, google it and write it down.
- Alt + tab: switch between windows
- ctrl + page up/page down: move between tabs in excel
- Alt + S/Y3 + R + W/T/S: factset refresh excel
- Alt + E + S (opens the paste menu. V: values, T: Formats, F: formulas. If you press E at the end it will be transposed)
- Alt + H/D + R/C (insert/delete rows/columns)
- In your quick access tool bar, set up a shortcut for aligning things (becomes something like alt + 1 and then L for left, R for right, V to space vertically etc)
- ask an analyst to show you how to cycle through the color pallets (this has been different at the 2 banks I’ve been at so don’t want to give the wrong short cut)
Finally, if a junior is asking you if you need help with anything, ask if they have ~5 minutes to look at whatever you’re working on and have them stand next to you or bring their chair over. If they are asking, they probably have some time and you need them to be next to you and go wtf are you doing, or you know there’s a short cut, etc. (I made it 3 months into being FT before learning about alt + tab (Covid) and my vp noticed it when I was screen sharing one night and was like wtf - associate got an earful for that one, friend had an intern who made charts out of shapes in ppt etc - looked great on the pdf etc)
Your work is a reflection of your analysts + associates ability to train you. In my team, interns are put into verticals and each vertical has an intern. Junior team had multiple convos talking about what the intern needed to be taught to get caught up to the others. It’s not a good look if the team doesn’t train the interns well.
If you have a presentation, first ask another intern to look over yours and then ask the analysts. Do this well before the presentation is due. 1st have them make sure the content makes sense, next turn is for formatting. Finally, look back at v1 of the first page you ever made, you’ve come a long way.
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