How to tell a summer internship you can't do full 10 weeks
So I recently have been accepted for a full time 10 week summer internship and due to some family things, I don't think I can do a full 10 weeks and instead can only do about 6-7 weeks of the internship. How do I tell the company that I won't be able to potentially do the full summer internship. Should I wait till I begin to internship to tell them or should I let them know now. My worry is that if I notify them now, they will take away the internship offer that I was given. Also if it is a valid and reasonable reason for leaving the internship early, will that burn any bridges?
It depends heavily on the reason, and apologies if this is crass, but what is the reason? It better be something unbelievably important, and even then it will probably preclude you from getting a full time offer.
It's a tough decision. Obviously the "right" thing to do is tell the bank so they can plan for the time without you, but they might pull the internship if you can't do half of it. However, even if you start and then "suddenly" can't do 4 weeks, you will still get your full time offer pulled, so I'm not sure what the difference is. You'll also be telling the story of what happened this summer / why no return offer to all future recruiters for other internships and full time opportunities. Really momentous decision so make sure it's warranted. I got a week off for the birth of my child for context, and that was as a full-time employee.
Seriously - this. I read this response before the OP and thought you were talking about doing 9 instead of 10 because your sister was getting married out of town. I was ready to go to bat for you.
But doing 6 weeks out of 10? You can't really do that.
The situation is actually more of 10 weeks rather than 12, same answer or is that a different situation?
If this is important to you, your family should support you and will understand you need to spend these ten weeks away from them to lay the groundwork for your future.
It certainly isn’t going to get easier to get time off in the future either...
^Agreed. If it's a health thing, like taking care of your mother after a scheduled major surgery, that's one thing.
If you're spending a month in the south of france and it clashes with your internship, I'd rescind the offer.
What’s the reason? If it’s something you already know in advance, it’s hard for me to imagine it’s a good reason. I’ve literally never heard of anyone doing this before.
Nobody should provide any more responses until we get the answer to this.
Maybe the reason is personal, and that's why it hasn't been shared yet.
As others have stated, it's kind of a d*ck move to wait until the internship begins to tell them you can't do the full 10 weeks.
This hasn't been brought up yet, but just remember you're taking someone else's spot, and pretty much wasting it.
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1) If you knew this at the time, why did you apply?
2) How certain is this "can't"? If it's for a wedding on the other side of the planet, I'd tell you to skip the wedding, or compress everything so that you miss less than a week. If your mother has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and will likely die during the internship, I would be lenient. A possible unanticipated mismatch between school terms and the internship would land somewhere inbetween, but I would want to see that the class schedule changed significantly from the prior year.
3) telling them now is better. You probably have a 33-50% chance that they rescind the offer, but it will be a small-ish, although not insignificant black mark against you for a full time offer. Explaining the lack of a full-time offer, combined with their likely poor review of you for flaking for 40% of the job would be more detrimental.
4) 6-7 weeks out of 10 means you are missing 30-40%. 8-9 out of 12 means you are missing 25-33% the difference is insignificant.
Edit: I agree with Henri. If it is something that actually contributes more to the bank's reputation than your (admittedly insignificant) work at an internship, it could actually be a plus.
The reason is personal hence why I didn't mention it, but it actually is more like 10-11 weeks instead of 12. I talked to the recruiter and let them know the issue and it worked out well
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