Congratulations, you have landed a coveted Private Equity or Hedge Fund internship.  Now you need to answer the most important question, what should your goal be to accomplish during this internship?  The politically correct answer is to experience a real life investing situation and to obtain a glimpse into how a professional investor invests.

Unless the internship is for the entire school year and summer you will never learn more about investing than some basic investment principals and modeling skills.  What your real goal should be with an internship is to gain enough respect from your employer that you are offered a position with the firm after graduation.  And if your internship employer can not hire you, gain their respect so that they offer to be a reference for you, or better yet refer you to some of their professional associates.

The respect you gain during an internship from your employer can have lasting professional results.  An internship is an on the job interview, this is your time to shine and show your employer what you are capable of accomplishing.  This is a time to show them how well you effectively communicate and how well you handle and more importantly how you work in a stressful environment 

An internship is an opportunity to network and build relationships with numerous individuals who have an opportunity to see and judge in real life how you work and how you interact with others.  These relationships can help you dearly in the future by identifying investment hypotheses, identifying potential investors and recommending potential employers to name a few. 

In today’s investment world professionals move around a fair amount and for this reason you want to always be thinking about how your previous bosses and peers view you.  Furthermore; with this constant moving comes numerous opportunities which may fast track your career or lead to that ideal role.

Yes, you can build up some solid modeling skills with an internship program, especially with one of the major bulge bracket investment banks in NYC, but remember these internships are just as much of an opportunity for you to show them what you are capable of as it is for them to show you why you would want to work for them.  

To achieve this goal and to earn the respect of the boss from your internship employer can mean different things and can be accomplished many different ways but first and foremost it will require hard work, a very stronger work ethic and the ability to effectively communicate with your peers and bosses.  I would also suggest you show your employer that you have a passion and desires for the investment industry.  Realize that you will not always do fun and exciting work on an internship rather you are doing the same type work every other successful intern before you has completed.

Remember: Your name/reputation is extremely important in this close knit community and you do not want to do anything to negatively affect it. 

Next week: Part 3 – Top Ten Tips to Making the Most of Your Internship