What NOT to do as a Summer Analyst

In the spirit of giving back, I’m going to give all of you eager interns some advice. Instead of the usual tips of what to do, I’m going to tell you what NOT to do, purely “hypothetically” speaking. Do not:

  1. F*ck another intern (trust me, she’s not that hot bro)
  2. If the above doesn’t resonate, don’t f*ck a full-timer (he doesn’t actually think a college Junior is the love of his life)
  3. Cheat on an intern assignment. The Company profile you were assigned is not that tough.
  4. Do blow with co-workers. This isn’t the Wolf of Wall Street pal.
  5. Wear a tie bar. Not sure where this one comes from but gonna throw it out there for you DEI guys.
  6. Make it clear you’re recruiting for PE or another FT job. The Warburg interviews are usually held around 7am ET, so it should be pretty easy to hide if you’re not a dumbass.
  7. Flex your Dad’s wealth. We get it, he’s #sick and drives a blacked out 7 series.
  8. Cheat on the TTS test…hopefully you’re catching a theme here. You’re going to do great this summer (attention to detail!)
  9. Yack at the Company event, particularly on a member of HR trying to escort you home. 2 drinks max unless you’re ferda af
  10. Talk about killing yourself in the teams chat HR monitors. Only ok if you’re at Jefferies, since I’d kill myself too if I worked for Handler.

    Feel free to drop any more knowledge below, always good to share the wealth!
16 Comments
 

2 of the 3 happened in my group of 8 SAs last summer. Neither got returns

 

I blacked out at company events. Ferdaaaaaaaa. Go big or go home come on. We'd max out that prepaid bar tab within two hours easily.

I also would repeadetly go drinking while waiting for comments with other interns and / or full timers.

It can be done gents, depends how you act when you are drunk

 
Most Helpful

Alright here are my do nots:

  1. Don't be a dick to other interns or people in the firm. Seriously, this happens. For some reason kids think they are hot shit. Relax and just do my profile bro.
  2. Don't ask me the same question repeatedly. Do not fire off a million individual questions throughout the day. Maybe try and figure the answers out then send me a list of what you haven't figured out. I always would spell out what I tried to show that I took initiative. Some stuff is understandable (how to navigate for certain things on the BBG terminal for example). Other is not (if you can google the answer, do that).
  3. Don't disappear for hours at a time without explanation. We had an intern do this. Naturally she got a return regardless but it pissed myself and a lot of the team off. She'd just dip out to dinner for 3 hours on a Wednesday after saying she'd be gone for 45 mins tops and she'd fuck over other interns who were working with her on a project because now they have to do all the work. No.
  4. Don't talk about how fucked up you got or the chick you got with or whatever. I swear to god it confounds me how people do not understand it's not professional and a bad look. Yea, I like to get rowdy on the weekends. I do with my friends when I can. I also like to have fun with girls, as most 22 y/o heterosexual men do. That doesn't me I ever bring it up when asked how my weekend was. I just say "It was good" or "Caught up with some old friends" and leave it at that. The 55 y/o MD does not want to know you knocked back 18 drinks and spit game at Spaniard. 
  5. DO NOT ASK FOR MORE WORK TOO SOON. This is a big one, and something I made the mistake of doing myself. I turned what was a very manageable workload to back to back 6am nights in the office repeatedly during the week because I wanted to be the eager intern asking for more and be staffed on everything under the sun. No. If things are a little slower, good, enjoy it. Wait a couple days before notifying staffer. Stuff may pick up. It may not. Appear busy but enjoy not being crushed. Then maybe you can sneak out earlier, and get a workout in or a date or explore the city. Idk. I only got to go out a couple of times with a handful of girls, and see my friends a separate handful of times. That is my fault. I really didn't do much else in the city which blows but as Sinatra said that's life.
  6. Don't mistake seemingly kind analysts or associates as friends. Some people are just fucking mean and that is the reality. Don't give them any ammo to want to effect your return. Case in point with this story: I sat next to an analyst. We got staffed on a pitch together. The company was unique. I put together a list of questions I asked after a couple days of work. He said these are good questions, was super helpful and explained everything to me. I thought he liked me based on that interaction. Nope. I find out through someone else that he basically immediately started shit talking me as an idiot. I was dumbfounded. Sometimes you can do everything right and still be fucking wrong and that sucks but it is reality.
  7. Don't defend yourself or be aggressively defensive. Just take your licks and move on. Another broad strokes quick story that I can't get into the details for anon reasons.  Let's say I had an important time sensitive meeting and materials to prep. I did everything and sent to associate for review. While he was reviewing I emailed some people about other work because...associate was reviewing to give comments...I thought it was smart to get other stuff done while I wait. Nope. Someone I emailed was also attending time sensitive meeting. This someone is more senior than associate. This guy calls someone else on the meeting who then rips me a new one. I kind of panicked, wrote the senior guy, and other guys an apology email and never talked about it again. As with point 6, sometimes you can do everything right and just be wrong. Realistically, if I tried to explain myself to person who give me a stern talking to, Idk what the outcome would have been. He was angry because he got ripped a new one by superior guy. He was also burnt out after a couple consecutive 5am nights. I figured this approach had the best outcome. All worked out.

I'll add more if I think of more. Best of luck interns. Have fun.

 

I thought people were reasonable because that's what I was sold during the internship. Then I started full time and found out that people are just psychos who will blame you, belittle you, etc.

I wish I knew this early on. If I did, I wouldn't have pushed back as much when being told I was doing everything wrong when actually the person I was working was (documented btw) incorrectly reviewing work (saying stuff was wrong when it wasn't), not maintaining version control, and saving things down in random files. I should've just said "ok thanks, sorry" instead of pushing back and now probably getting not as good of a rating.

But I lowkey do not care because I am not returning to this team anyway, so I had some padding there. Can't fault me too hard if I am going to a team that has zero contact with them lol

So yes, unfortunately, you need to be skeptical of everyone until they prove you differently. People lie, gaslight, chat shit. Not everyone, mind you, but it only takes a few to make you suspicious and until you know exactly who is who.

 

Yeah you should try and get on/be friends with analysts you work with. Obviously they could fuck you over but if you aren't unlucky and you click and become good friends with them they'll give you sick reviews and bat for you in the round table

 

These are crazy stories - you’re saying you got yelled at for trying to do other work while waiting for comments? Seriously? Thats incredibly toxic 

 

Sometimes when working on a model or something similar,I find it can be hard to move on without asking individual questions. Subsequently, it’s hard to make a list of questions when you haven’t been able to experience other problems because you’re still bogged down on this one thing.

A lot of the terms and things we do at my group are part of the group lingo and not really google-able. What advice would you give for tasks like this? Generally what I do is try to ask another full timer if the question is general enough.

 

Great question and I think it depends on the analyst and urgency. Yes, there were definitely sticking points in a model where I'd just fire a one off question because we needed to get it done ASAP. Generally, I recommend trying to figure it out for 20 minutes by referencing old materials (a lot of things we do there are reference materials for). Asking an analyst who is not involved or who may be more approachable is also a strategy I used frequently. I also would sometimes just ask the other SA's or MBA summer associates. Group lingo IDK what to say here. I read a lot of RX material before the internship so I really think there was only one term that I didn't have a full understanding of and that was when I was just asking about where a deal was to get a better understanding as to where we were in the mandate. 

A lot of the work we get stuck on we can generally figure out on our own with a little time. It is a combination of time pressure, trying to earn a return offer, and having a first or second "true office internship" that cultivates in stupid questions being asked. Generally I tell people to just take a step back, take a breath, look at it with fresh eyes after getting some water, and reduce tunnel vision. This will work for intern work 90% of the time.  

 

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