Hello, all. As you might have noticed, my output of entries has been pretty light in 2009, which I feel bad about. I usually take some time on the weekends to work on responses to reader emails, but I’ve been pretty swamped with work and other stuff so far this month, which has caused the delays. I finally got some free time this weekend, so I figured I’d use this time to make a dent in my Inbox backlog.
The message below is from a reader who has been following my blog for years…since waaaaaaaay back when I used to actually write about myself
He has a blog of his own and goes by the Internet handle “ForrestGump”. This kid has one of the best “down but not out” stories that I’ve encountered in the business school game. I hope he doesn’t mind me running through it, but the down parts are described in his blog so he should be OK with it. So, FG first applied to several business schools a few years ago and, after getting a few interview invites, he was ultimately dinged by all of them. He was upset about it, but he didn’t let it get him down for the count. He applied again the following year and had much more success, eventually ending up at a top B-school. His short-term career goal was to earn a position at a top consulting firm and, recently, I learned that he’d received and accepted an offer to work for BCG. Now, that’s what I call a great story!!! Anyways, I’ll let you read his email and then we’ll move along to my response…
——
FG wrote:
“Hey Marquis,
Read your recent blog post, and wanted to congratulate you and wish you the very best in your upcoming job. And since you will be in Chicago, I hope we get to meet once before I leave the US next June. I was also hoping if you could write a post on your blog about a) what you learned in consulting and b) how can one be a successful consultant – things to do and things to be cautious about. None of this is urgent since I have quite some time before I join BCG, but it will be very valuable to get your thoughts whenever you have the time.
Have a great Thanksgiving,
FG”
——
So, since I go waaaaay back with FG, I wanted to respond to his requests, but I wanted to do so efficiently since they’re somewhat close to entries I’ve written before. I’m pretty sure that I’ve written an entry in response to his Request (a), but I couldn’t find it while searching through my archived entries…I’ll have to write up a fresh entry in response to that one. And, I wrote an entry that addresses his Request (b), so I’ve copied an excerpt from that old entry along with a link to the original post below. You’re going to have to bear with me on the format of this entry…just read it straight down and it’ll all make sense.
First, the following is a general summary of consulting that I wrote a couple of years ago at the request of a reader. It doesn’t directly address my man FG’s question on what I learned in consulting, but I thought it might be useful for those of you who are considering it as an option.
——
From my March 13, 2007 entry:
“Gary, I wish I could go into extreme details for you on this one because there’s a lot that can be said about being a Consultant. Since I can’t do that, I’ll try to give you some good general information about the industry that can help you make a decision about whether you’d be interested in it:
The job: When people ask me what I do as a Consultant, I always tell them “I help diagnose business problems and come up with a way to cure them.” That’s probably a huge oversimplification of the job, but it does cover a lot of the bases involved. A consulting team will work with the client to figure out exactly what a given problem is and how it is affecting their organization. Then, it will do a bunch of analysis to find out the roots causes of the problem so that a solution can be developed. Finally, the team does additional analysis to develop a set of potential solutions and presents the best to the client organization in the form of recommendations for moving ahead.
Who would be interested in it: Just about anyone who like solving difficult problems would probably enjoy working in Consulting…on a basic level. There are some parts of the job, like crunching Excel models, participating in client meetings, writing out decks, etc, that might bore some people, so I won’t say that all strong problem solvers would like it. But, for people who like a good mental challenge and an environment where you can (READ: must) learn a lot in a short amount of time, this is the perfect sort of job to help strengthen their core analytical and problem solving skills.
The hours: It’s hard to say how many hours someone would work each week in Consultant because a lot of it is based on a number of factors, such as topic and duration of the study, project manager’s style, and efficiency of your own work. A consulting study can range from a private equity focus (usually longer hours and shorter duration) to operations management (somewhat shorter hours and longer duration), so the focus of the study can introduce big swings in the expected work daily work schedule. Also, much of a team’s daily work lifestyle depends on how the manager runs things. Some managers are efficient in their planning and project scoping and their teams end up with manageable lifestyles. Other managers may not keep tight reins on the scope of work early on and, as time passes, their teams may have to work into the late hours just to get everything done. Finally, if you and/or your team work slowly, then you’re pretty much destined to be working long hours in an attempt to get all of your work completed (you can’t make a turtle run a 4.2-second 40-yard dash). On average, you should expect something in the 50 to 80 hours per week range…I know that’s a large range, but there’s so much variability involved that I didn’t want to go with a small range and set incorrect expectations for people.
Free time: Much like the average hours per week, the answer for the amount of free time is “it depends”. If you’re on a good lifestyle study, then you’ll probably have plenty of free time on the evenings and weekends to do whatever you might want to do. If the study requires longer hours, then you might have to work until your standard bedtime (or later) during the week or on the weekends. This sort of variability in lounge time often keeps candidates from considering a career in Consulting because they place high value on having time to kick it. As for myself, I don’t mind working late as long as I’m learning and producing some interesting work products and analysis, so the occasional shortage of free time doesn’t bother me much.
Pros/Cons: I can’t really say if a characteristic of Consulting is a pro or a con because that depends on what a given person’s preferences are. I can state a few general things about it and then let people decide on their own:
- At some point, Consultants will have to travel for work. This could be good for folks like me who don’t mind flying several times per month, but it would be a killer for someone who would rather stay local
- There is uncertainty in staffing because you never know what sort of projects will be available when you roll off of a study. Some people try to time their roll-off dates to coincide with the start dates of studies they’re interested in, but I haven’t heard about too many successes with this tactic.
- You will be working in teams in almost all instances. This is great for people like me who enjoy working with others, but others are “loners” and do better working independently.
- You will work with a wide variety of people from project to project. Consulting firms often have an overarching corporate culture, but individual office cultures can mean that you could get staffed with people that are very different from folks in your home office…keep that in mind
- In most cases, you will be expected to hit the ground running and contribute almost immediately at the start of your time on a study. This can be difficult when you know nothing about the industry and topic area, but it can also be a “stretch” challenge that will make your problem solving game stronger in the long-run.”
——
The following is an excerpt from an entry where I laid out some tips for being successful in a summer internship (I’d originally created the list to help a friend who was entering her internship at BCG). The list was more geared toward Consulting, but the tips could be applied to interns in many other industries. Now, that FG has asked for advice on how one can be a successful consultant, I thought I’d bring it back to answer his question.
——
From my June 8, 2008 entry
“(Possibly) Helpful tips for entering a summer MBA internship:
1. Be confident, but humble –> From the first day of your internship, you should exhibit confidence in your skills, intellect, and ability to perform the job for which you were hired. Displaying a lack of self-confidence in a professional environment can lead those around you to also lose confidence in your abilities, which can be catastrophic in a position that only lasts a few short weeks. With that said, being confident does not mean to give off the impression that you’re stuck on yourself or believe that you’re better than others. Granted, you might feel that way, but you’ve got to balance that with a healthy dose of humility to keep from turning off those around you. The key word there is “balance”…you want to make sure your colleagues know that you are a great addition to the team/company, but you also want them to know that you’ve got the humility to be coached, taught, and guided.
2. Get really good at Excel modeling (or any other core skill to your internship) as early as possible –> Depending on the industry/function/role of your internship, there will likely be some core skills that you’ll have to use over the course of the experience. For example, a core skill during a consulting internship could be building models in Excel. During your background research on the job, you should be able to determine what these core skills are and, once determine, you should immediately work to develop some understanding/ability in these areas. Building on the consulting example just given, you could build your Excel modeling skills by developing models in your spare time and making them more complex as you get comfortable with Excel. You might start off with a simple model to determine your monthly budget with manual inputs for budget entries…then, you could expand it into a basic 12-month budget with manual inputs…finally, you could add to the complexity of the 12-month budget by making it dynamic and incorporating growth rates and other features. This isn’t “THE” way to get good at a particular skill, but it’s one that I found helpful as I was going into my own summer internship.
3. Always present the best “you” as possible –> OK, this one is basic, right?…well, it isn’t exactly as basic as one might think. Of course, people should have their “game faces” on when they’re in the office, but many forget about maintaining that sort of professional presence outside of the office during the internship period. Many internship programs include activities for the intern group and, while these are good for getting to know one’s cohort and/or co-workers, they can cause interns to take it a little too easy, with sometimes disastrous results. An example of these kind of events are intern happy hours, where the alcohol is paid for and there is seemingly no limit to how many drinks one can get…once you mix in limitless alcohol, things can go really badly. I’ve heard stories about so many different ways that interns hurt their own reputations and credibility in “non-work” settings that I just had to add this one to the list. Keep in mind is that an internship is essentially a several-weeks-long job interview and, as such, you need to present yourself well at all times during those weeks. This tip is an especially important one, which I recognize because I lived it myself…
4. Be prepared to be pushed –> I’m sure that we’ve all either worked in or heard about internships that were a breeze and offered little challenge. In these cases, the intern might find it nice to earn money without having to do much, but he/she may not learn much during the time, which should be the most important value-add. The best kind of internship is one where the intern learns a ton because he/she is challenged repeatedly from the first day and can’t help but grow in the process. In these best-case situations, the intern is constantly pushed toward maximum performance by his/her team in several ways, such as having his/her opinions and analyses challenged and pressure-tested, being asked to perform tasks beyond his/her experience level, and essentially being “thrown into the fire” all around. This can be difficult to handle if one isn’t ready and requires a bit of a mindset change. Just remember that, if internships were always easy, you probably wouldn’t get as much from the experiences, so be ready to be pushed to perform, learn, and grow.
5. Don’t be afraid to seek help when needed –> This tip may cause some people to do a double-take because human nature often dictates that one should show little vulnerability in a professional setting. n particular, during an internship, you’d never want your co-workers to think that you can’t handle the rigors of the job, right??? Well, I’d say that this is “almost” right, but adhering strictly to this mindset can cause many problems when you’re truly stuck and need help to resolve a situation. This can range from figuring out how to complete a task to deciding on how to deal with a difficult client, but proceeding without help when you need it can be a recipe for disaster. When you face these types of situations, I’d advise you to spend some time trying to figure it out yourself and then ask your peers for their perspective. If the advice from your peers doesn’t clear things up, move on to your manager and explain your confusion and/or need for guidance. I’m sure the manager would MUCH rather have you ask him/her for healp early on than have to deal with the effects of a problematic outcome because you were afraid to seek help.
6. Build a support network within your office as early as possible –> When I say “support network”, I’m not referring to making a bunch of friends. Rather, you will need to find key people that you can rely on for REAL support (i.e. honest and direct feedback, advice, tips, etc.) during and after your internship. The friends you make could add to the “fun factor” of the internship, but the support network will add to the “learning factor” of the internship and provide much needed counsel during your time at the company. You’ll want to start building these relationships early on and develop them through periodic contact during the summer. If you are able to get a full-time offer after the internship, the members of your support network should be very helpful in getting yourself re-acclimated to the company environment when you return.
7. Show enthusiasm and interest –> Over the course of your internship, there may be times when your energy fades a bit and the rigor of the work starts to wear on you. In these instances, it is important for you to fight through these feelings and show a high level of enthusiam for the position and interest in the work that you’re doing. Similar to being in an interview setting, you’ll want the people working with you to leave the summer seeing you as a positive presence who is energized by the work being done.
8. Always execute on deliverables –> This one is pretty basic, but I believe that it is worth mentioning. The biggest part of any internship experience is showing the ability to do the job and executing on deliverables is how one would do that. When assigned a task, ask several key questions upfront to ensure that you understand what is needed, what method you should take in completing the task, any interim or final deadlines, and anything else that might be important. As you make progress on the task, check in with your manager regularly and review that progress to verify that you’re on the right track, ask key questions, and determine whether the directive has changed. Finally, you HAVE to make sure you deliver the final output on time, if not early…falling behind and not meeting deadlines are not what you want to display during your internship.
9. Don’t be afraid to be active/vocal in team settings –> In any internship (particularly in consulting), one is hired for his/her intellect and, as such, the intern is expected to contribute to the work environment to the best of his/her abilities. That won’t happen if the person is so shy/quiet/reserved in team or work settings that their “impact” is never felt. As an intern, you’ve got to go in there and make sure you voice is heard in team problem solving sessions, in meetings, and in exchanges with your coworkers. By virtue of hiring you, your employer will have demonstrated a belief in your potential contribution, so it is up to you to turn that “potential contribution” into an “actual contribution”. Remember, as I said above, the summer is basically an 8-12 week long job interview and this is an important opportunity to prove that you’re worth bringing back for a full-time position.
10. Sign up for frequent flier, hotel loyalty, and rewards credit cards as early as possible –> This tip is great for people who have internships that will require travel and likely applies primarily to those in consulting positions. If you’re going to be spending a lot of time on planes and in hotels, then you should sign up for programs that would provide some extra benefits to all of that travel. I’ve known of interns who have been able to compile enough frequent flier miles to get a free plane ticket and enough hotel points for a week of free hotel stays in only a 10-week internship. Plus, the rewards credit cards can give you additional mile/point benefits if you use them to pay for expenses like hotel rooms, meals, and gas. You’re going to be working really hard during your internship and (hopefully) getting paid, but there’s no reason why you can’t get an extra “bonus benefit” along the way, right? “
——
The message below is from a reader who has been following my blog for years…since waaaaaaaay back when I used to actually write about myself
He has a blog of his own and goes by the Internet handle “ForrestGump”. This kid has one of the best “down but not out” stories that I’ve encountered in the business school game. I hope he doesn’t mind me running through it, but the down parts are described in his blog so he should be OK with it. So, FG first applied to several business schools a few years ago and, after getting a few interview invites, he was ultimately dinged by all of them. He was upset about it, but he didn’t let it get him down for the count. He applied again the following year and had much more success, eventually ending up at a top B-school. His short-term career goal was to earn a position at a top consulting firm and, recently, I learned that he’d received and accepted an offer to work for BCG. Now, that’s what I call a great story!!! Anyways, I’ll let you read his email and then we’ll move along to my response…——
FG wrote:
“Hey Marquis,
Read your recent blog post, and wanted to congratulate you and wish you the very best in your upcoming job. And since you will be in Chicago, I hope we get to meet once before I leave the US next June. I was also hoping if you could write a post on your blog about a) what you learned in consulting and b) how can one be a successful consultant – things to do and things to be cautious about. None of this is urgent since I have quite some time before I join BCG, but it will be very valuable to get your thoughts whenever you have the time.
Have a great Thanksgiving,
FG”
——
So, since I go waaaaay back with FG, I wanted to respond to his requests, but I wanted to do so efficiently since they’re somewhat close to entries I’ve written before. I’m pretty sure that I’ve written an entry in response to his Request (a), but I couldn’t find it while searching through my archived entries…I’ll have to write up a fresh entry in response to that one. And, I wrote an entry that addresses his Request (b), so I’ve copied an excerpt from that old entry along with a link to the original post below. You’re going to have to bear with me on the format of this entry…just read it straight down and it’ll all make sense.
First, the following is a general summary of consulting that I wrote a couple of years ago at the request of a reader. It doesn’t directly address my man FG’s question on what I learned in consulting, but I thought it might be useful for those of you who are considering it as an option.
——
From my March 13, 2007 entry:
“Gary, I wish I could go into extreme details for you on this one because there’s a lot that can be said about being a Consultant. Since I can’t do that, I’ll try to give you some good general information about the industry that can help you make a decision about whether you’d be interested in it:
The job: When people ask me what I do as a Consultant, I always tell them “I help diagnose business problems and come up with a way to cure them.” That’s probably a huge oversimplification of the job, but it does cover a lot of the bases involved. A consulting team will work with the client to figure out exactly what a given problem is and how it is affecting their organization. Then, it will do a bunch of analysis to find out the roots causes of the problem so that a solution can be developed. Finally, the team does additional analysis to develop a set of potential solutions and presents the best to the client organization in the form of recommendations for moving ahead.
Who would be interested in it: Just about anyone who like solving difficult problems would probably enjoy working in Consulting…on a basic level. There are some parts of the job, like crunching Excel models, participating in client meetings, writing out decks, etc, that might bore some people, so I won’t say that all strong problem solvers would like it. But, for people who like a good mental challenge and an environment where you can (READ: must) learn a lot in a short amount of time, this is the perfect sort of job to help strengthen their core analytical and problem solving skills.
The hours: It’s hard to say how many hours someone would work each week in Consultant because a lot of it is based on a number of factors, such as topic and duration of the study, project manager’s style, and efficiency of your own work. A consulting study can range from a private equity focus (usually longer hours and shorter duration) to operations management (somewhat shorter hours and longer duration), so the focus of the study can introduce big swings in the expected work daily work schedule. Also, much of a team’s daily work lifestyle depends on how the manager runs things. Some managers are efficient in their planning and project scoping and their teams end up with manageable lifestyles. Other managers may not keep tight reins on the scope of work early on and, as time passes, their teams may have to work into the late hours just to get everything done. Finally, if you and/or your team work slowly, then you’re pretty much destined to be working long hours in an attempt to get all of your work completed (you can’t make a turtle run a 4.2-second 40-yard dash). On average, you should expect something in the 50 to 80 hours per week range…I know that’s a large range, but there’s so much variability involved that I didn’t want to go with a small range and set incorrect expectations for people.
Free time: Much like the average hours per week, the answer for the amount of free time is “it depends”. If you’re on a good lifestyle study, then you’ll probably have plenty of free time on the evenings and weekends to do whatever you might want to do. If the study requires longer hours, then you might have to work until your standard bedtime (or later) during the week or on the weekends. This sort of variability in lounge time often keeps candidates from considering a career in Consulting because they place high value on having time to kick it. As for myself, I don’t mind working late as long as I’m learning and producing some interesting work products and analysis, so the occasional shortage of free time doesn’t bother me much.
Pros/Cons: I can’t really say if a characteristic of Consulting is a pro or a con because that depends on what a given person’s preferences are. I can state a few general things about it and then let people decide on their own:
- At some point, Consultants will have to travel for work. This could be good for folks like me who don’t mind flying several times per month, but it would be a killer for someone who would rather stay local
- There is uncertainty in staffing because you never know what sort of projects will be available when you roll off of a study. Some people try to time their roll-off dates to coincide with the start dates of studies they’re interested in, but I haven’t heard about too many successes with this tactic.
- You will be working in teams in almost all instances. This is great for people like me who enjoy working with others, but others are “loners” and do better working independently.
- You will work with a wide variety of people from project to project. Consulting firms often have an overarching corporate culture, but individual office cultures can mean that you could get staffed with people that are very different from folks in your home office…keep that in mind
- In most cases, you will be expected to hit the ground running and contribute almost immediately at the start of your time on a study. This can be difficult when you know nothing about the industry and topic area, but it can also be a “stretch” challenge that will make your problem solving game stronger in the long-run.”
——
The following is an excerpt from an entry where I laid out some tips for being successful in a summer internship (I’d originally created the list to help a friend who was entering her internship at BCG). The list was more geared toward Consulting, but the tips could be applied to interns in many other industries. Now, that FG has asked for advice on how one can be a successful consultant, I thought I’d bring it back to answer his question.
——
From my June 8, 2008 entry
“(Possibly) Helpful tips for entering a summer MBA internship:
1. Be confident, but humble –> From the first day of your internship, you should exhibit confidence in your skills, intellect, and ability to perform the job for which you were hired. Displaying a lack of self-confidence in a professional environment can lead those around you to also lose confidence in your abilities, which can be catastrophic in a position that only lasts a few short weeks. With that said, being confident does not mean to give off the impression that you’re stuck on yourself or believe that you’re better than others. Granted, you might feel that way, but you’ve got to balance that with a healthy dose of humility to keep from turning off those around you. The key word there is “balance”…you want to make sure your colleagues know that you are a great addition to the team/company, but you also want them to know that you’ve got the humility to be coached, taught, and guided.
2. Get really good at Excel modeling (or any other core skill to your internship) as early as possible –> Depending on the industry/function/role of your internship, there will likely be some core skills that you’ll have to use over the course of the experience. For example, a core skill during a consulting internship could be building models in Excel. During your background research on the job, you should be able to determine what these core skills are and, once determine, you should immediately work to develop some understanding/ability in these areas. Building on the consulting example just given, you could build your Excel modeling skills by developing models in your spare time and making them more complex as you get comfortable with Excel. You might start off with a simple model to determine your monthly budget with manual inputs for budget entries…then, you could expand it into a basic 12-month budget with manual inputs…finally, you could add to the complexity of the 12-month budget by making it dynamic and incorporating growth rates and other features. This isn’t “THE” way to get good at a particular skill, but it’s one that I found helpful as I was going into my own summer internship.
3. Always present the best “you” as possible –> OK, this one is basic, right?…well, it isn’t exactly as basic as one might think. Of course, people should have their “game faces” on when they’re in the office, but many forget about maintaining that sort of professional presence outside of the office during the internship period. Many internship programs include activities for the intern group and, while these are good for getting to know one’s cohort and/or co-workers, they can cause interns to take it a little too easy, with sometimes disastrous results. An example of these kind of events are intern happy hours, where the alcohol is paid for and there is seemingly no limit to how many drinks one can get…once you mix in limitless alcohol, things can go really badly. I’ve heard stories about so many different ways that interns hurt their own reputations and credibility in “non-work” settings that I just had to add this one to the list. Keep in mind is that an internship is essentially a several-weeks-long job interview and, as such, you need to present yourself well at all times during those weeks. This tip is an especially important one, which I recognize because I lived it myself…
4. Be prepared to be pushed –> I’m sure that we’ve all either worked in or heard about internships that were a breeze and offered little challenge. In these cases, the intern might find it nice to earn money without having to do much, but he/she may not learn much during the time, which should be the most important value-add. The best kind of internship is one where the intern learns a ton because he/she is challenged repeatedly from the first day and can’t help but grow in the process. In these best-case situations, the intern is constantly pushed toward maximum performance by his/her team in several ways, such as having his/her opinions and analyses challenged and pressure-tested, being asked to perform tasks beyond his/her experience level, and essentially being “thrown into the fire” all around. This can be difficult to handle if one isn’t ready and requires a bit of a mindset change. Just remember that, if internships were always easy, you probably wouldn’t get as much from the experiences, so be ready to be pushed to perform, learn, and grow.
5. Don’t be afraid to seek help when needed –> This tip may cause some people to do a double-take because human nature often dictates that one should show little vulnerability in a professional setting. n particular, during an internship, you’d never want your co-workers to think that you can’t handle the rigors of the job, right??? Well, I’d say that this is “almost” right, but adhering strictly to this mindset can cause many problems when you’re truly stuck and need help to resolve a situation. This can range from figuring out how to complete a task to deciding on how to deal with a difficult client, but proceeding without help when you need it can be a recipe for disaster. When you face these types of situations, I’d advise you to spend some time trying to figure it out yourself and then ask your peers for their perspective. If the advice from your peers doesn’t clear things up, move on to your manager and explain your confusion and/or need for guidance. I’m sure the manager would MUCH rather have you ask him/her for healp early on than have to deal with the effects of a problematic outcome because you were afraid to seek help.
6. Build a support network within your office as early as possible –> When I say “support network”, I’m not referring to making a bunch of friends. Rather, you will need to find key people that you can rely on for REAL support (i.e. honest and direct feedback, advice, tips, etc.) during and after your internship. The friends you make could add to the “fun factor” of the internship, but the support network will add to the “learning factor” of the internship and provide much needed counsel during your time at the company. You’ll want to start building these relationships early on and develop them through periodic contact during the summer. If you are able to get a full-time offer after the internship, the members of your support network should be very helpful in getting yourself re-acclimated to the company environment when you return.
7. Show enthusiasm and interest –> Over the course of your internship, there may be times when your energy fades a bit and the rigor of the work starts to wear on you. In these instances, it is important for you to fight through these feelings and show a high level of enthusiam for the position and interest in the work that you’re doing. Similar to being in an interview setting, you’ll want the people working with you to leave the summer seeing you as a positive presence who is energized by the work being done.
8. Always execute on deliverables –> This one is pretty basic, but I believe that it is worth mentioning. The biggest part of any internship experience is showing the ability to do the job and executing on deliverables is how one would do that. When assigned a task, ask several key questions upfront to ensure that you understand what is needed, what method you should take in completing the task, any interim or final deadlines, and anything else that might be important. As you make progress on the task, check in with your manager regularly and review that progress to verify that you’re on the right track, ask key questions, and determine whether the directive has changed. Finally, you HAVE to make sure you deliver the final output on time, if not early…falling behind and not meeting deadlines are not what you want to display during your internship.
9. Don’t be afraid to be active/vocal in team settings –> In any internship (particularly in consulting), one is hired for his/her intellect and, as such, the intern is expected to contribute to the work environment to the best of his/her abilities. That won’t happen if the person is so shy/quiet/reserved in team or work settings that their “impact” is never felt. As an intern, you’ve got to go in there and make sure you voice is heard in team problem solving sessions, in meetings, and in exchanges with your coworkers. By virtue of hiring you, your employer will have demonstrated a belief in your potential contribution, so it is up to you to turn that “potential contribution” into an “actual contribution”. Remember, as I said above, the summer is basically an 8-12 week long job interview and this is an important opportunity to prove that you’re worth bringing back for a full-time position.
10. Sign up for frequent flier, hotel loyalty, and rewards credit cards as early as possible –> This tip is great for people who have internships that will require travel and likely applies primarily to those in consulting positions. If you’re going to be spending a lot of time on planes and in hotels, then you should sign up for programs that would provide some extra benefits to all of that travel. I’ve known of interns who have been able to compile enough frequent flier miles to get a free plane ticket and enough hotel points for a week of free hotel stays in only a 10-week internship. Plus, the rewards credit cards can give you additional mile/point benefits if you use them to pay for expenses like hotel rooms, meals, and gas. You’re going to be working really hard during your internship and (hopefully) getting paid, but there’s no reason why you can’t get an extra “bonus benefit” along the way, right? “
——
Thanks for your vote of respect, it made me feel really happy about myself
And thanks for compiling this post; I will keep a close eye for the follow-up post. Hope Chicago is treating you well.