Unspoken Rules for Summer Intern?
Saw a similar thread on the IB community. I start at a large institutional multi developer (TCR, Alliance, Greystar, wood) next week.
I will be the only intern in the regional office. What are some of the small (or big) things that I should have nailed to boost my odds of a return?
Thanks!
Dress up to the level of the team.
Take notes, ask questions
If you find yourself with idle time & start to feel self conscious / useless, stop and relax. You are somewhat useless, but also it’s not that big of a deal. Nothing you do will have a real impact.
Socialize & network with the back of house folks (asset management, investor relations, portfolio management)
Request access to closed deal folders and review standard processing docs (closing memo, underwriting templates, 3rd party reports)
Actively look to join in on any and all out of office activities - site visits, lunches, meetings
Triple check your fucking work and make sure your template work ties out to source documents (rent roll / income & expenses). The quickest way to get relegated to being completely useless is to consistently have simple data entry / computational errors.
Don't hurt my ego by calling asset management (or IR / PM for that matter) back office. Thx
Sorry friend. You are MORE important than those acq/dev losers.
If the team happens to be casual dress, then would you go in casual too instead of whole suit and tie
Go a step or two above whatever the team wears. Maybe not whole suit and tie, but I can't imagine going to a real estate interview without at least wearing a button down and a jacket.
If the team is casual dress you can literally never go wrong with a simple khaki and patterned button down shirt. Maybe you'll look a bit square, but that's fine, much better than going in the opposite direction.
And then when you leave, stay in touch with people you connected with. I did my internship at a large institutional multi developer and was bummed when they didn't have a full time spot for me, but it still absolutely got me my full time job. Everyone in real estate is hyper-connected, especially in regional offices. My eventual full time boss hired my intern boss for his first job in real estate, so when I was interviewing with my full time boss, a quick call to my intern boss is what sealed the deal for me. You'll be surprised how the people you meet in your internship stick with you through the years. My intern boss, a regional MD at the time, is now the CEO of a large institutional multi developer, a VP I worked under runs his own multi firm, and the associate I worked directly under is now a MD.
Oh, and if you can, meet other interns at other shops similar to yours. This might be difficult, so don't stress over it if you can't, but the group of you who are interns today will be analysts tomorrow, and associates the next day, and VPs the next, etc.
both of the above posts = great advice
my 2 cents
- numbers are always correct and you know them cold. This is your job as low man and regardless of how many layers of checks there you are hired to be the expert and know them the best. So do it. (yes i know this is more FT analyst advice but thats what youre training for essentially)
- have fun
- don’t get in your own head. Don’t make mistakes or be late - but if you do - don’t overapologize or make it a bigger deal than it is. Stop stressing- you literally have no weight of decision making or responsibility or financial outcomes tied to whatever is happening. Enjoy the years that maybe you work most hours of anyone but truly don’t have to bring it home with you from a mental perspective.
ignore title im well into my career- but i speak as someone who was intern, got FT offer, got asked to work remote for senior year of college. Struggled badly with bullet 3 at first.
In the words of my direct associate: FITFO
Make mistakes, but only once. Over-communicate; if you don't know something, ask for help and guidance. It will make everyone's job easier.
Network within the firm, enjoy the summer!
Be the intern who removes work, not creates work. Show up early, write stuff down, send clean follow ups, ask questions once not five times. People remember reliable way more than “smart”.
Just be chill, don’t be annoying. Be well liked in the office. Being well liked is something you can’t really control, it’s up to how the other people in the office feel about you. They may like your personality, they may not. If they don’t, fuck it. There’s a million other jobs you can apply to. We’re in America.
Otherwise, find out what your job is to the tee. What exactly are you supposed to be doing? Whatever that is, do it better than good. Exceeding their expectations will help your return offer chances. Have perfect attendance, that’s something only you can control. Shows you care.
Buy a HP12c calculator and learn how to do the basics on it
Assume you might have to present at the end of your summer internship, say a deal or what you learned. If not and you’re confident, do a presentation anyways. You’ll be remembered.
calculator is unnecessary coming from somebody who bought one for fun
Do you know why a T-Rex has small arms? Because over time, their prey got so big that they needed a big, powerful mouth to kill them, but something else had to give, and the arms shrank.
I get that it can be impressive to do mental math, but I think it’s just for fun too.
When you’re in a meeting with the senior guys, they’ll give you 5 secs for you to chime in with the total budget and then calc the levered yield while you are taking notes about important dates and timelines, building sizing, unit mixes, comps, and remembering the numbers you provided 5 mins ago.
I’d rather my intern or analyst use more of their brainpower synthesizing the information and asking good questions than showing off what they learned in Kumon. Sure, it’s useful to do some mental math for high level discussions. But unless you’re some kind of genius, use tools and concentrate on higher level thinking.
Your question was about 'locking in a return' but as a hedge for not receiving a return offer (very possible in this environment): get to know a project (a refi, an acquisition/disposition, development, etc) really well so that when you're interviewing in the future you can talk about it in depth (and claim to have done a bunch of things yourself that you actually just watched others do from afar).
^on the money. I feel like I sailed smoothly through a handful interviews, including the super day I had for the Analyst gig I landed now, by talking about a Senior Housing case study I worked on from start to finish with another intern at my internship last summer, which I btw did not get a return offer for so it’ll all work out eventually, believe me.
If you give interviewers the skinny of deals you worked on that had lots of depth, it’ll showcase good some good experience that makes you valuable.
That goes for your internship in is entirety too. Interviewers will always dive into ur most experience on your resume.
When a senior person invites you to something (coffee, lunch, a site tour, golf, whatever), say yes. Being an analyst is mostly hard skills, but the soft skills of networking and being comfortable talking to people is very important for the senior levels.
As others have said, don’t be weird and try to fit in. One of our current interns is coming in a 7am because he is an early riser but the rest of the team doesn’t show up until 9-10 and we clock out around 6. What could be a 9 hour day is an 11 hour day for him. You will burn out doing that.
Otherwise, be attentive in meetings and to e-mails (I have a policy to always answer every email by the end of the day, even if it is just a “received, will get back to you.”
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