I'll be interning at a group that historically has only taken ~50% or less of its interns. It's a great gig, but I'm really scared about not getting a full-time offer given how tough FT recruiting has become. Does anyone have any tips on getting a return offer in a more competitive intern environment where getting one is far from guaranteed?
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Ask for contiuous feedback (weekly), get coffee with people, come up with a method to never make mistakes. Play it safe.
Agreed and I would add be enthuastic. Don't have to love every task, but being positive and interested in your work will go a long way.
The most important thing is your attitude. Before leaving, up to 1am, make the rounds to ask if anyone needs help. It's only 10 weeks-it'll fly by faster than you thing. Keep a smile on your face, try to be relaxed but focused. I would not recommend pestering too much people for coffees. The priority should be your work quality. If you're urgently needed on a pitch with an analyst but take half an hour to grab a coffee with a MD, you're doing it wrong. You would be surprised how important the opinion of Analyst and Associates is when comes the time of making an offer.
Don't make silly mistakes and try and be as efficient as possible (knowing excel, powerpoint shortcuts).
Those are the two things I wish I emphasised more when I was interning more!
In addition to that, being proactive and hard working. A good attitude always goes a long way.
Sounds like JPM FIG
Do a "Trump" and if someone is a threat then coin an insulting nickname for them that sticks. Something like "Little Rocket Man" that makes people not take them seriously.
Make sure engage in ruthless sycophancy. Praise, eat lunch with, and look up to the MDs. Focus your efforts on the MDs who bring in the most money for the firm.
Try to maneuver taskings so that other interns get hit with things they can't handle. This is called offering them a "development opportunity" or "exposure opportunity".
If you know a document will have mistakes in it, then ask another intern to review it. Then have them do you a favor and send it over.....they'll think they're getting a chance to get their name out there, and they're correct for all the wrong reasons.
For said MD's note their writing style. Mimic yours as closely to it as possible. Work to make sure that documents attributable to other interns are as far away from that as possible.
Everyone else will be focused on face time because they're trying to be seen as working harder and thus liked more. Keep in mind that the goal is more important as the means....there MAY be times when you need to do something that undermines the immediate goal but helps the ultimate goal (throwaway example: leaving the office to golf with a director who is likely to help you).
Your performance doesn't matter unless people notice. Make sure your name appears next to/on any work that's GOOD regardless of how much you actually contributed to it. People are associative thinkers so make them associate.
If you get tied to a stinker, try to use every legalese/policy rule you can to prevent doing it. Should you be able to back up a refusal by citing the exact policy most people can't push you further. Compliance, Internal Audit, and other policies may be bullshit but they're lethal weapons in the hands of a skilled office politician.
Don't just accept EVERY project. Try to avoid stinkers or ones that will damage your ability to perform well on high visibility assignments.
OK yes...this IS kind of a full on "evil asshole" version of the answer to your question, but it's not entirely wrong. Don't do this kind of thing unless you're both comfortable being an asshole and very good at it, because otherwise it'll blow up in your face or someone better at it than you will decide they'll play dirty too.
Also most of these ARE real tactics you should be aware of either way. For example one guy on another closed forum (select group of guys, you have to be invited to get in) was talking about he had a couple of eager office ladies at his company and he'd offload his blame for mistakes by asking them to "proofread" documents that had them and then getting them to send the document over from their email which adds a level of separation between him and the problems.
That said DO be very smart and savvy about what projects you work on. Both you and the firm get more out of it that way.
It is more important to do a few things really well (or as well as you can) than to do an OK job on lots of things.
Definitely quality over quantity. It's OK to volunteer if people explicitly ask for volunteers, but you don't need to go out of your way asking people if they can give you more work.
Also, at least in my group, people didn't get offers for fit reasons more so than work reasons, unless they were really bad.
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