Crossing the Finish Line

Well it's over. Sorry it's been so long since I last wrote. The last week of the internship was the longest and best for me. Every single day I was at the office getting slammed. The funny thing was that the other interns really didn't have much to do. All week long I was working like crazy and they were kind of playing around and just coasting to the end. I think what happened was in the last three weeks, people in my group started to see that I was there to work and that I could do the job well, so they started depending on me to help them when they needed something to get done.

This was a very good thing to happen. I didn't come to New York to play around and to leave the office at 7:00. I came to get a job offer and to learn as much as possible, so if that meant staying until the early hours of the morning then I was happy to do it.

In the past week I put together a pitch book by myself. That was pretty exciting. Well I wasn't totally alone, but I was basically the analyst on the book working with a summer associate and a full-time associate to make sure I did it right. It was 90+ pages so there were lots of slides I put together, but it was all things I had done before so it went pretty well. We were looking pretty closely at three companies, so for each one I did a detailed profile with financial information, various valuations (dcf, comps - transaction & trading, acc/dil, etc), shareholder information, defense profiles (what kind of policies they had in place to fight against a takeover), and other industry-specific stuff. It was a good experience.

This entire week the interns everywhere in the firm have been going nuts trying to figure out who will get offers and who won't. It was (almost) funny to watch how paranoid people are and how they would read into every situation. One summer told me, "Dude I just walked by the staffer's office and he wouldn't look me in the eye when I went by. I don't think I'm getting an offer." My bank typically accepts a high percentage of the intern class to come back, but since markets are so difficult this year, they are cutting back.

One cool project that I worked on this week came in my last two days of the internship. The star analyst of our group pulled me aside and told me that he needed me to help him in building an integrated model for a company. We actually had to build a model for three companies, so he wanted me to do one and he would do the other two. I've worked a lot with this analyst and he really trusts my work, but I was surprised that he would be willing to just let me build the entire model on my own. Of course he checked it and we went through it together, but I built it out from scratch.

The model was integrated in the sense that it had the three financial statements and they were all connected. So one change of the model on one statement flows through all three financial statements. I built a debt paydown section and a revenue build-up section. The revenue buildup was basically just a separate part of the model where we break down all the incoming revenues and allow for different variables to determine the revenue levels. It's important when you build a model to be able to adjust certain variables and have them flow through the entire model.

So I spent my last two days working on that model. On Thursday night, the entire intern class had a big party at a club near the bank. It was an open bar and they had the top floor of the club sectioned off for people from the bank. I only got to go for the last 10 minutes because the rest of the time I was jammin on the model. I didn't mind though, because it was a great experience and I can always go to a club in two weeks when I'm not trying to get an offer.

On Thursday they told us the schedule of our final reviews. For some reason I was slotted to go first, even though alphabetically either by first or last name I shouldn't have been first. The order of the reviews caused even more speculation among the interns. It turns out that the last two people to go didn't get offers, so speculation was actually correct for once.

On Thursday after the intern event I came back to the office (at about midnight) and helped an analyst finish up some work she was trying to get done. One thing I've learned is that if you can do anything to help people get home earlier they will love you. That's a question I asked a lot this summer - "Hey what can I do to get you home earlier tonight?" The analysts LOVE when you ask that because they can tell that you "get it." You understand that your role as an intern is to make their life easier, whether you do that by making copies of stuff or actually building a model. It doesn't matter what you do, it's more the attitude you have and the willingness you have to get any job done.

One reason that some people from Ivy League schools didn't get offers this summer is because they had too much of a sense of entitlement. They felt like since they go to the "best" school they should of course get an offer. I think it was for sure an advantage to me to have come from a non-target school because I always felt like I needed to prove that I was still just as good (if not better) than the Ivy League kids.

After helping the analyst finish up I went over to my desk and started to clear it out. It was kind of a sad thing to do. One thing that my group always says about me is, "Man this kid LOVES banking. We've never met anybody that loved to bank like you do." What better comment could someone say? The reason I got the reputation that I did is because I really do love it. When I got asked to work on a model for the first time, I had a smile so big the analysts made fun of me for the rest of the day. They thought it was hilarious that I was so excited, but deep down they also really liked the fact that I cared that much. You want to come away from your internship with the group feeling like you absolutely love this stuff. And it helps if it's true.

Like I said - it was sad clearing out my desk because I really have loved this internship. It's been so amazing to be working on Wall Street and actually doing the work that I've wanted to do for so long. The people in my group were fantastic and I learned SO much. I even asked my staffer if I could stay for the rest of the summer and work for free. He said no because of obvious reasons, but again the message I was sending out was that I wanted to be here and I loved to bank.

I stayed up until 3AM writing a thank-you card to every person in my group that I had worked with. I wrote a card to every intern, every analyst, every associate, and most of the VPs. I didn't write to any of the MDs except for my mentor. It took a long time, but you would not believe how well that went over the next day. Every single person in the group came in the morning to find a Thank-you card sitting on their keyboard. So many people came over to my desk just to say how much they appreciated the card.

I treated each card like I do emails: if you're going to write a bunch of people, take the time to write each person an individualized letter instead of spamming out the same message to everybody. I tried to be personal and specific with each person, and the results were amazing. Many of the analysts pinned up my card on their wall and thanked me numerous times. It's amazing how just saying "Thanks" can be so effective. And the greatest thing is that I really was grateful for how much they taught me and helped me get through the summer. It's hard saying goodbye to people that you've spent about 80-120 hours a week with for the last 8 weeks.

So on Friday morning I came in wearing my favorite tie. I didn't really talk to anybody; I just went to my desk and thought about the summer. At 9:45 I had my review so I went up to the conference room where my staffer and an HR girl were sitting. I walked in and the first thing the staffer said was, "Well you've done a great job this summer and we'd like to extend an offer for you to come back full-time next year." I was floored! I expected that they would talk about my strengths and weaknesses, then at the end tell me the decision.

So for the rest of the time in there they just asked me about what they could do to get me to sign the offer. They told me that there will be a "Sell day" where they fly everybody back to NYC and basically wine and dine you and try to get you to sign the offer. I told them I would think about it and let them know soon what I was going to do.

In the mid-summer review, they read many specific comments that my reviewers had made about things I had done well, but in this review they didn't even tell me any of the comments. Well I take that back. I was told that one of the questions on the review sheet was something like, "This person performed at the level of: 1) Below summer intern 2) Summer intern 3)First-year analyst 4)Second-year analyst" They told me that every one of my reviewers put me as either a first- or second-year level. It was funny to hear that because I am so obviously below all of the first and second years, but that's how people saw it I guess.

The told me some other good and flattering things about how I had done really well relative to my peers, but all that didn't really matter. The most important thing to me was that I had an offer! In these markets, which are the toughest to get a job in in the last 10-15 years, it is HUGE to have an offer.

I'm staying in New York for a few more days to meet with people at other banks and to just kind of feel out some other options, but it is a tough market and some banks aren't really even looking to bring anyone else on. Not that I'm too concerned because my group that I would go back to is top on the street at what they do, but it's always good to play it safe and just find out if there are other opportunities.

Well this has been a long post and I'm sorry it's been a while since I last wrote. I did it! The internship is over and I have an offer. Of course there are many things that I could have done better but I feel like I learned a ton and I came away a better person. In the next few days I'll keep posting about how things are going with meeting other banks and how I'm going about that process, since if you want to get a job next year you'll probably have to do something very similar this coming fall/winter. I'll also be posting some of the lessons I've learned and other things like that.

On Friday after I got the offer I just kind of hung out the rest of the day. Well, I also did some random jobs for associates that were still working, but for the most part I just printed out different presentations that I wanted to keep and packed up all my stuff. I ended up staying in the office until 8:00PM even though the other interns left long before that. It was just sad to leave and I knew I was going to miss it. All the analyst came together when I said I was going to leave and we kind of just talked about some of the fun stuff we had done this summer. I told them all what I had really appreciated about each one of them, then hugged everybody and walked away. It was weird leaving, but I'm happy. I'm going to have lunch with the second-term interns and the analysts from my group this coming Wednesday, so I will get to see them all again.

On Saturday I slept in until 1PM. It was amazing. I've never slept that much in my entire life, but it felt so good to not do anything all day long. My body is worn out but now I have the rest of the summer to just relax.

So the internship is over. I hope this blog has been helpful in some way to get a look at what it's like to be an intern. Like I said I'll keep posting and if you have any other questions about my experience, just post a comment and I'll respond. Thanks for reading!