Help: Really Struggling
I am at my dream group after a very targeted recruitment cycle (the group is a niche product - PCA/PFG/RECA). Although I really care about getting a full time offer, I keep making mistakes in my deliverables. Every email with comments makes me miserable and worry I'm not going to get a return offer. The stress has built to where I am nauseous every morning and physically shake before work. I have no idea where I stand (if I'm on track for a full time offer) and am concerned that by the mid-summer review it will already be too late. Honestly the job is not too bad other than this dread of not getting a return offer.
What are your thoughts on what I should do?
- I have been told the standard advice of print all of your deliverables before you send them and to double check, which I do, but errors still slip through.
First, what type of errors are you making? Grammatical, formatting? I’d first say evaluate what’s not working - are you trying to read over your work after working 8 hours straight? Maybe take 5-10 minutes and come back with a fresh set of eyes.
2nd, and imo most important, a lot of output product is subjective to the seniors and group your on. Ie one person likes sentences formatted a certain way, types of slides designs, etc, and I’d say do your best to understand the work deliverables your seniors call a finished product (check back on previous materials). Also, it’s IMPORTANT to realize that your likely going to always get comments, and you have to realize that they aren’t personal, they’re all in regards to the hit expectations of this job. It’s not a sprint, working in banking for 2+ yrs is a lot of long days and nights, and u gotta be able to roll with the punches. Don’t rush your work, underpromise deadlines and overdeliver - Ie “this is totally gonna take me 30 minutes”, u tell the analyst I can have this back in an 1-1.5hours, takes you 30 minutes, you review for 30, and then submit perfect work at the hour mark, still 30 minutes early of what u said.
Lastly, your an intern. Ask your analysts and such how they go about improving their work product, and how you can do your best to improve over this summer. You got this man, control what’s in your control - leave out the noise and believe in yourself
Probably half the comments I get are more subjective (writing MBA vs M.B.A. although I should have looked at other slides and matched formatting) with the other half being flagging of errors such as a formula not looking right or pulling properly.
I will definitely go slower and take more time for reviewing - I like the idea of breaking for 5 minutes then coming back to check over versus trying to check after working in the model for a few hours.
Lastly, thanks for your comment; I am planning on sitting down with the analysts I have worked closest with to get their advice and feedback.
Everybody makes mistakes. That's why startup models are always broken because vs. IB there's not anyone looking at your work
Making mistakes is one thing but it looks like the larger problem is one of mindset, if you are shaky hitting the desk in the morn, don't think it's going to go better from there. As someone who's been there, here's (idealised) some advise,If you are nervous already at morn, you could do a combination or one of the things to get out of it - breathing exercises, physical work (walking), watching a spot of tv in the bathroom with headphones or just taking to someone in your class, try to get to an even keel (coffee or sugar high foods does not help, contrary to popular opinion)Murphy's Law: if something's gonna go wrong, it probably is…human mind loathes the unknown, harsh to say it but if you feel the FT offer is slipping, it probably already has, so now spend rest of the summer thinking I need to get the most(skills) of this internship so I can leverage and apply for elsewhere - either way (if you get FT or not) you cannot lose! Start networking with ppl from other groups / teams / banks with an intent to see if you may get a better opportunity.Like water in hands, you will only let it slip more as you hold it tighter
There is enough content in this forum for you on see on methods to correct your mechanical prbs
All the best!
1. Will definitely try this for the up coming week - thanks
2. Definitely very worried about this, I try to be exceptionally responsive, go out of my way to get to know full-timers, and demonstrate interest as best as possible - so hopefully that offsets my increased error rate when looking at FT offers.
Relax and seriously consider therapy and learn to deal with this. I would never want to work w you and I read it as you are in this for all the wrong reasons (I.e. show everyone else how elite you are @evercore).
based on everything said, I know you are reading into what the above person said re Murphy’s law and that it is game over for you. Have that mindset and focus on the skills and understanding the bigger picture of your business. Why do you need a PCA team, where are there excess pool of capital, are there any other solutions you see coming in Near future ( fund finance?) for gps liquidity mgmt, what happened last October with LDI what would your team do for lps? Where do secondaries price right now?
I would have asked few of the above questions to myself in order to see whether I understand.
Don’t be too attached on the outcome and try to go on your internship as if it was a game. You fail you just play again until you learn something new.
you are supposed to get comments from your MD then incorporate them. It is not a mistake, even if it was a mistake it is genuinely ok to do something wrong and thoughtful > right/wrong.
Plz fix
Just to say that it will get better. Whether you get the full-time offer or you have to recruit again - it will get better. In 4 years’ time you will look back and realise you were doing your best; and that everyone around you was making mistakes and getting comments too (you just cannot see it).
Keep going man. If you have gotten close to any analysts, potentially express your thoughts and concerns.
A lot of people have been in your situation before.
Best of luck, I know it will work out.
I don’t know the details of your group or program, but I can assure you that receiving some negative feedback in your midsummer review is not a death sentence in the slightest as long as you take the time to respond and fix what they tell you. If anything, showing you are coachable and can improve after getting feedback is a core part of the job and will likely help you get a return offer versus somebody in the opposite position (crushes the first half of an internship and proceeds to coast after receiving positive feedback). You have another month to show your superiors that you care and are willing to put in the time to improve when given direction.
You’ve been on the desk for a month: comments are expected. You are simultaneously having to learn what a real workplace is like, how to do your job, and what your superiors want so it is understandable things will not be perfect this early. If you are working with a group that doesn’t understand this, you might not want to go back there full time in the first place. Screwing up the same things in deliverables is a different story, but it sounds like you have already taken steps to avoid that.
From one intern to another, you’re doing great man.
A VP in my group told me that if you do an internship u have 3 months grace period of still being sloppy, if u didn’t u have 6 months. This means even after a full internship they expect u to still have room for improvement.
No ones expecting perfect work 24/7 from an intern. Even the analyst who’s been there for a year or two is getting comments back. U just gotta try to not make the same mistake twice, roll with the punches and keep a good attitude.
Advice for checking work- print it out! May seem like a waste (someone’s gotta keep the paper companies in business) but printing out the deliverable, taking a 5 min break or so then coming back, even the slightest error or inconsistency will stick out like a sore thumb. Also it’s a good way of making sure u addressed all the comments or whatever it is.
Best of luck, ur doing great!
Cheers
When you're at a good shop and interning for the first (or second, or third) time you're going to make mistakes. It sounds like some of them arent really mistakes, but are arbitrary formatting suggestions. When I was your age, my work had a lot of mistakes and honestly, so did many of the other interns Ive known. Im not going to tell you that you will for sure get a return offer, but just keep your head up and work on improving. The main goal for you should be to compare yourself with where you were at the beginning of the summer. If you show strong improvement, that may be enough in itself. Remember, other interns are making mistakes and this isnt exclusive to the intern level. I have never turned in a work product that hasnt gotten comments and guess what, even many years into my career, I am making mistakes.
The people you work for make them too, so take a deep breath and work hard to improve, but go easy on yourself. Beating yourself up only increases the probability of you making more mistakes due to increased frustration and irritation.
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