Peer Career Consultant Blogs

So, you’ve landed your first internship – yay! While celebrations are certainly in order, here are some tips to keep in mind as your start date approaches so you can maximize your time as an intern. Whether “maximize your time” means learning a lot, gaining a strong network, or securing a full-time return offer, these five pointers should be useful toward any of those goals!

1. Build genuine connections across your firm. During your time as an intern, you possess something of incredible value; something I refer to as “the intern card.” As an intern, many will view you as an eager, doe-eyed, “cute” individual who could use any amount of mentorship that they can offer. Use this to your advantage. I found it astonishingly easy to set up coffee chats with folks from across the firm, both on and off my immediate team, simply by expressing that as an intern, I’m interested in learning more about them and their work. Whenever I saw there was a free block of time on my calendar, I would be sure to fill it with coffee chats. With folks in my office, that meant literally walking the streets of SF to their go-to coffee spot. With colleagues in different offices, a warm Zoom conversation was always great, too. Of course, making a solid first impression is key to turning these conversations into lasting connections. Do your research, curate tailored questions, and make the conversation natural (never robotic). Before closing each chat, I would always end by asking this one question: “Is there anyone else at the firm you’d recommend I speak to?” From there, my connections snowballed. For every conversation I had, it ended with at least two more people to reach out to for my next coffee chat. Thanks to this, I ended up meeting so many people I wouldn’t have come across otherwise. And, in the process, I not only learned about so many facets of the company, but I built myself a strong system of mentors and advocates.

2. Communicate proactively. Whenever you're assigned any task, keep your boss or manager updated on your progress. Something I would do, as advised by a mentor of mine, is respond to tasks requiring more involvement with: “I’ll work on this for the next 30 minutes, then can I have you [my manager or coach] check if I’m going in the right direction?” Of course, be smart about when to ask this (e.g., if the task is simple, maybe you don’t need a check-in). Communicating like this always seemed to bode well. I think it proves you’re thoughtful and intentional about your work and allows you to course-correct if you find yourself moving in the wrong direction. Also, in team meetings, it can always benefit you to ask questions and understand the “why” behind what is being discussed. Or, if you’re in a position to provide helpful input, put yourself out there and say something in the meeting! More often than not, my input was heavily appreciated by my team – even if it was just for the simple fact that it proved I was thinking deeply about the project and wanted to be involved.

3. Seek and apply feedback. This one is rather obvious. Even though feedback is usually baked into internships, it helps to actively check in with your manager or boss. Similarly to the previous point, ask for feedback while you’re working on something so you have time to adjust anything if needed. Outside of that, I also found it extremely helpful to set up a midway feedback meeting with my coach halfway through my internship to get some clarity about what I’d done well and where I could improve. Sometimes, internship programs include these feedback sessions automatically, but in the case that yours doesn’t (like mine), it shows a level of initiative to set one up yourself. And it goes without saying that once you receive a piece of feedback, apply it so that you don’t need to be told the same thing twice.

4. Take initiative and experiment. Whenever I was assigned a task that I didn’t completely know how to do, I would make an active effort to do a first pass by myself. My coach would always appreciate it when I presented her with a first draft of something so that she actually had something to critique and give feedback on, as opposed to me reaching out for guidance from square one. It’s completely acceptable to ask questions if you feel stuck, but showing you gave a task a first go demonstrates you’re willing to put in the effort to try.

5. Get involved beyond your role. It never hurts to ask! This was a mantra that I kept in mind throughout my entire internship. Is there a meeting you’d want to listen in on but weren’t scheduled to attend? Ask to sit in! Is there another project or team you want to learn more about? Ask to join the next meeting! Though the answer may be “no,” even one “yes” can lead to an illuminating experience about a new aspect of the business you weren’t previously exposed to. For instance, I told my coach and manager that I wanted to experience what it would be like to attend a client call. In consulting, these are the higher-stakes meetings where we present our findings and progress on the engagement to the client themselves. It was typical for me to attend internal team meetings, but client calls were not something an intern was usually able to attend. However, eventually, I was given the opportunity to attend one – and it was easily one of the biggest highlights of my entire internship experience. I even got to present to the VP client (yes, as a 20-year-old intern)! Outside of my client work, and given the time and approval, I got involved in some internal pitch initiatives our firm was engaging in. This gave me exposure to a totally new side of the firm, a new industry, and new people, and showed that I was motivated to learn and contribute beyond my assigned tasks, which fared well when performance evaluations came around.

Whether you’ve actually secured an internship already or not, I hope you find these tips useful as you anticipate getting into the corporate world!