Secret Sauce

Yesterday was a good day for me. One of the four guys from my school that are at Lehman Brothers working full-time called me up and asked me to have lunch with him. He said that HR had called him and said that my reviews were really great, that he had $50 dollars, and that he should take me out to lunch and "sell the firm." Sounds good to me!

We went to an awesome Chinese restaurant and just talked about a lot of different things. He gave me a lot of great advice and answered a lot of "off the record" questions I had about the firm and what to do if/when I got an offer.

Later on last night, we had a meeting with all of the summer interns. They had us sit five or six to a table, with two or three empty chairs as well. Then they had two or three people from every industry (coverage) group just spend about 8 minutes at each table to tell us about their group and why it was the best at the firm. It was a lot like I imagine speed dating to be. I really liked hearing about different groups in the firm. I was really interested in the private equity groups, as well as real estate and retail/consumer. In the end though, I'm really glad that I ended up in the natural resources group.

At the end of the meeting they told us that instead of waiting until the end of the summer, they will tell us if we have an offer or not in our final interview next Friday! That was a big surprise, but it was also a relief. I don't want to have to wait all summer to find out. So on my last day I'll get my final review, then find out if I have an offer to come back. It's pretty much an open offer without a specific time frame, which is also really nice. The offer won't be for a specific group, but just to come back to IBD.

In the fall the incoming analysts will visit different groups for about a week trying to figure out what group they want to be in. Then, similar to how you get a group as an intern, you put your top choices. The group also lists their top choices, and then HR does the match making. Obviously if you were in a group as an intern and you did well, you have a very good chance of getting back in. If I come back, I will most definitely be in this group again. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

So the past few days I have been really busy with a few projects. I feel like I'm really "getting" it now. The analysts and associates I work for don't have to walk me through everything any more. They just fill me in on what's going on, give me an assignment, and expect me to go get it done. It's cool to feel like I'm adding value and am putting out good work without having to be walked through it. If we need to spread 10 comps, I can do it. If we need to put together some valuations for a football field, I can do it. Of course I have a TON to learn and pick up, but it just feels good to actually know what's going on in a small way and to be able to contribute instead of always being a liability to the group.

Today was a lot of wait, then jam, then wait kind of stuff. We had to wait for markets to close because we wanted our book to be as of today's stock prices. So as soon as markets closed we started to update the book. Because a lot of things in the book depend on stock prices, it took a really long time to make sure that all the numbers in the entire book "footed" and that multiples were the same on page 10 as they were on 85. We worked through the process and fixed things that a summer associate had screwed up, and finally we got it done. One of the analysts took me to Starbucks to thank me for doing a good job this summer. It's weird for everybody to be saying goodbye when we still have a week left.

One last cool thing I did today. I went out and got my shoes shined. If you've never done it, try it! You walk away feeling like you are an MD. It's crazy how much a $2.50 shoe shine can do for your confidence. I should have done that in week 1 so that I would have just killed the internship from the start. Seriously before my next interview I'm getting a shoe shine. It's my new secret sauce.