Evolving Monkey: How do I ask for more responsibility as an intern?

As the title states: How do I ask for more responsibility as an intern?

I've interned at L/S HF this past Fall/Spring semester, and I recently accepted an offer to return this upcoming Fall semester. The learning curve has flattened a bit (as far as intern responsibilities go) and I'm ready to venture into slightly less ad-hoc 'monkey work.' Now obviously I don't expect to be generating PnL, but I'd like to be less removed from the investment decisions and models. How do I signal this to my PM? Should he have already asked if he thought I was ready to take on more tasks?

 

my bosses only handed me more work as I kept putting in work without any mistakes / with conviction. Being proactive might also help. Maybe say something along the lines of "this looks very interesting... do you think I could look at this" or "do you have anything for me to look at..."

Usually your boss hands you more work if he feels comfortable with your previous work. At one of my internships during school year I was only told to initially come to office 2 days a week for a few hours but after a couple of weeks that turned into 4-5 full days of work with some even spilling onto holidays

I would assume that if you're returning then your PM likes your work and would be willing to give you more work. What type of 'monkey work' were you doing initially? If you were already doing some diligence / modelling / recommendation work and if you did good work I'd expect the PM to give you more work given you're returning

 

Definitely going to give that a shot. I guess I just needed a way to bring it up without sounding entitled/over stepping. My work is largely diligence and data related. I definitely want to take on some more recommendation responsibilities and get my hands a little more dirty with modeling.

 
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My two cents:

1) with the right kind of manager, you should be able to discuss it openly but how you handle is critical.

2) doing more is great as long as you’re excellent at the blocking and tackling and have had enough reps at them to earn trust.

3) pick an existing check in conversation so that it feels natural to discuss (e.g., don’t make it awkward) - approach it along the lines of one of two ways: a) I have been thinking - now that we have had more experience working together, are there things I can take off your plate to free you up to do more higher value things? Or b) can we schedule a meeting weekly or every two weeks to go through questions I have that come up?

Note I do B with everyone on my team to make sure they have the time to learn. And I’m always looking for chances to do A too - win/win.

 

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