Background check question!! Input appreciated

I'm sorry for the length, please read and comment. Your thoughts on this are valuable.

I had an internship at a trading firm about a year ago and towards the end, I asked my recruiter if there were any part time opportunities available within the company so that I could still make some money once I started taking classes again. She referred me to a desk within the company that was looking for someone to handle some simple data entry tasks. I accepted the opportunity and began learning the tasks I needed to perform. In my third week I received a stack of data that needed to be entered in and I found that it was missing some information that I needed. I took the stack to my boss and told him that I needed the missing information in order to enter it into the system. He flipped through it and gave it back to me, telling me that everything was in there and I was just mistaken.

It took me the better part of the day to call down to the other departments and dig up the information that my boss refused to admit was missing. All the while, more work was piling up on my desk. The next time I came in, my boss took me aside and told me that I needed to work faster. Again, I tried to explain the situation but he just dismissed it as a mistake on my part.

I didn't want any confrontation so I swallowed my pride and just hammered the work out faster. In my fifth week, I was asking them for more work because I had finished all they had given me. The very next day I came in, they told me I was being let go on account of not completing the given work at a fast enough pace.

Without any other reason to go off of, I dismissed the job as somewhere I didn't want to be working anyways. I now have a summer internship offer and the background check will be performed soon. I wanted to know if you guys think this will get brought up. I don't have any record of it on my resume and the group that I had my internship with in the company had positive things to say about me. Do you think its worth speaking to my recruiter at my upcoming internship or will this not be an issue. I'm sorry for the length of the post but I felt the background info was pertinent to the situation. Any thoughts on the matter are appreciated.

3 Comments
 
Best Response

Generally speaking, if it is not on your resume, they will never even know you worked there. One way or another, as long as you didn't lie anywhere, you should be ok even if they find out about it. I don't think anyone would take away an offer for having been fired from somewhere in the past.

That being said, I don't like your tone in terms of describing the situation. Should it ever come up, I would ding you for explaining the situation the way you did above. Whether it was your fault at all or not, you sound like you were dead right about everything you did and your manager was an unreasonable idiot. The thing is, those that are in a hiring/firing position are usually not idiots, and have good reasons to do the things they do. Maybe your boss was an exception to this rule, and truly was an idiot and you were an angel, but I would be skeptical. If it comes up, I would suggest changing your tone and talking about the things you learned without ever bad-mouthing the company or your old boss. Say your school commitments prevented you from putting in 110% like you wanted to, and the company required someone who could put in 110%. If true, it would help to say that after you, they hired a FT person to do the data entry you were doing.

In any case, good luck, and congrats on the offer.

 

Doloremque in dolore repudiandae sed voluptates quaerat. Quo aut perferendis consequatur reprehenderit saepe repellendus adipisci. Explicabo ipsum adipisci dolor excepturi.

Career Advancement Opportunities

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Evercore 01 99.4%
  • Moelis & Company 01 98.8%
  • JPMorgan 01 98.2%
  • Guggenheim Partners 01 97.7%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Moelis & Company No 99.4%
  • Morgan Stanley 01 98.8%
  • Evercore 01 98.2%
  • BMO Capital Markets 12 97.6%
  • Banco Santander 01 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Moelis & Company No 99.4%
  • Evercore No 98.8%
  • Morgan Stanley 05 98.2%
  • JPMorgan No 97.7%
  • BMO Capital Markets 12 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Vice President (14) $434
  • Associates (43) $259
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (8) $210
  • 2nd Year Analyst (22) $179
  • Intern/Summer Associate (13) $156
  • 1st Year Analyst (75) $151
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (65) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
3
kanon's picture
kanon
99.0
4
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
99.0
5
DrApeman's picture
DrApeman
98.9
6
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
98.9
7
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
8
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
9
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
10
Jamoldo's picture
Jamoldo
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”