Most of the methods so far aren’t hard to understand. But what I run into most often with students is the long distance between knowing what you should do and actually doing it.
Take practicing interviews for fifteen minutes a day. I’ve said it many times. How many people will actually set aside those fifteen minutes today after sending their applications? Then the interview invitation arrives, they find they can’t even get through their self-introduction smoothly, and now they’re dealing with the pressure of preparing and interviewing at the same time.
I stress following through because many students don’t need another guide to read. They need to put the methods they already know to use, get real feedback, and keep adjusting. If you haven’t tried something, it’s hard to judge how hard it is for you, where you’ll get stuck, and who you’ll need help from.
Two Stories That Have Stayed with Me
A managing director (MD) at an investment bank once told a story about getting a networking email from a college freshman. She didn’t reply. The student went on to send eight emails over time, and after graduating, ended up joining her group.
Another student wanted to go into VC, but undergraduates have very limited access to those opportunities. She kept sending her target VCs companies she thought were worth investing in, along with her analysis, and kept it up for two years. Later she started a podcast interviewing people in the industry.
I tell these two stories to show you what sustained action can grow into. If you decide “there’s no chance” after one unanswered message, you end up somewhere very different from someone who keeps researching, preparing, and trying to make contact.
But the eight emails in the story don’t mean you should chase every contact exactly eight times, and two years of investment analysis doesn’t mean that sticking with something for the same amount of time will get you the same result. There’s a lot about those situations we don’t know. What you can take from them is that each of them kept doing things connected to the goal, and gradually built up something to show other people.
An ordinary student doesn’t need to start at that intensity. Practicing one answer a day counts as following through. So does sending one well-targeted message, or actually improving after you take one piece of feedback.
During Your Internship: Turning the Work into Your Next Step
My own internship path went like this: I interned at Deloitte my freshman year, then got return offers for the summer after sophomore year, the spring of junior year, and full-time after graduation. The summer after junior year, I also interned at Goldman Sachs and got a full-time return offer there. Four return offers in all.
Along the way, I gradually learned how to work with managers, how to say what I needed, and how to make sure people knew what I’d done. Later, during my MBA, I also negotiated a volunteer role into a paid programme manager position. The setting was different, but speaking up and showing your contribution kept working.
Your work won’t always speak for itself. The person who assigns your tasks may not be the person who decides whether you stay, and your manager can’t possibly know what you did every hour. Without regular updates, you can easily end up in the “I did so much, but nobody saw it” situation.
Here are eight things I did again and again during my internships.
1. Ask When You Don’t Understand, and Say What You’ve Already Tried
When you first get a task, check any terms or requirements you don’t understand right then. A lot of them are just internal usage. Everyone else says them every day, but you’re hearing them for the first time, so it’s normal not to know.
Once you’ve started, look for relevant guidance, policies, or files from previous years first, or ask your manager whether there’s reference material. If you’ve tried for a while and still don’t know which way to go, tell her: “I’ve looked at X and Y, and what I’m not sure about is Z. Could you point me in the right direction?”
I used to give interns a rough window of ten to thirty minutes, as a reminder not to sit alone for a long time without any idea how to proceed. That’s not a hard rule for every task; how you handle it depends on how urgent things are. What you need to avoid is making no progress for ages without letting anyone know.
Write down the questions you’ve asked. Asking about the same thing from scratch again and again, when nothing has changed, makes people wonder whether you’re really taking it in. When the situation has changed and you need to check again, say clearly what’s different.
2. Understand the Big Picture, and Check the Details of What You Deliver
A good manager will tell you why a task matters and what role it plays in the overall process. If yours doesn’t, you can ask:
How does this task fit into the overall process? What happens after this step?
Knowing the big picture makes it easier to judge which details matter, how far to take the work, and what to ask first when something changes. Later, it also makes it easier to explain on your resume what the work was for.
But understanding the big picture doesn’t replace checking your files. During my freshman-year internship, I fixed an Excel file full of broken formula references and #VALUE errors, and it turned out a grad student had made it. That intern didn’t get a return offer. I can’t explain everything about her outcome with one file, but deliverables like that really do affect whether people feel comfortable handing work to you.
Check the formulas in Excel, the numbers and formatting in PowerPoint, and the wording and references in Word. When you find one kind of mistake, figure out how to catch it before your next deliverable. Making the same kind of mistake again does more damage to trust than not knowing something the first time.
3. Get the Deadline Straight, and Update People Before They Have to Chase You
Ask when a task is due if no one has told you. If you have several tasks at once and can’t tell which comes first, tell your manager where things stand and ask her to help you prioritize.
Before starting a bigger task, think through the rough steps, what materials you already have, and what support you’re missing. Checking your direction once you’ve gotten started usually saves more time than discovering at the end that you misunderstood.
Updates don’t need to be long: what’s done so far, what’s next, whether anything is blocking you, and when you expect to finish. The moment you realize you might not make it, say so. Don’t wait until the deadline has passed to explain.
If you keep underestimating how long things take, look back at whether you misunderstood the requirements, need to build a skill, or took on too many tasks at once. Feedback should change how you plan the next time, not lead to another round of “Sorry, I didn’t finish.”
4. Send Regular Summaries So Your Manager Sees Your Work and Growth
I suggest interns keep brief daily notes and send a short weekly summary on whatever schedule they’ve agreed on with their manager. It can usually cover what you did this week, what you learned, and what you’d like feedback on.
These notes become material for your resume later, and they also let your manager see work she didn’t assign directly. That matters especially when you’re helping several people at once and she may not know everything on your plate.
Once you’re handling your core tasks well, you can also mention things you’d like exposure to, such as data analysis, financial modeling, or client interviews. Explain why you’re interested, and listen to whether the team has something suitable.
But asking for more exposure and going around your own team to find a new job are two different conversations. If you want to switch teams, learn the company’s process, your manager’s expectations, and the target team’s situation. Don’t carry your team’s work while letting them think you no longer care at all about staying.
When you get feedback, follow up on it. If someone says the logic of your report was unclear, revise it the next time as suggested and ask her whether it’s better. That’s where being coachable shows.
5. Keep Realistic Expectations of Your Speed, and Build In a Buffer
I went through audit busy season as a freshman. I was so exhausted I could fall asleep sitting in a bathroom stall. I’d collapse into bed as soon as I got home, and one morning I was late because I’d switched off my alarm and fallen back asleep.
Back then I worked fast, and new tasks kept coming. Only later did I realize I didn’t have to deliver at the fastest pace I could possibly manage every time, and let people come to expect that pace permanently.
If my boss wanted something Thursday afternoon and I finished Wednesday afternoon, I’d sometimes hold it until Thursday morning. That left time to check it and handle revisions, and kept me from always scheduling myself with no slack.
This only works if you know whether the task is urgent and whether anyone is depending on what you deliver, and if you can reliably get the work done. When someone is waiting on your file to do their part, keep them updated promptly. If you can’t even keep up with the normal pace, deal with the skill and scheduling problems first.
6. Do Your Job Well, and Get to Know the People You Work With
An internship is more than the tasks in front of you. It’s worth making the effort to learn what others on the team are doing and how you can work with them. Set up a short coffee chat to hear about someone’s work and background, and tell them a bit about yourself.
When I interned at Goldman Sachs, the environment encouraged networking, and I had the chance to do five to seven coffee chats a week with people outside my team. But that was my work environment at the time, not a target that applies at every company.
Look at the company’s culture and your own workload first. Talking to people outside your team broadens what you know and can help if you want to change direction later, but not if it means you’re hard to reach for long stretches or can’t deliver what you owe. Things go more smoothly if your own team sees you as reliable first and you expand from there.
7. If You Need Something, Ask. Don’t Say No on Their Behalf.
When my Deloitte internship ended after sophomore year, I already had an offer for a Goldman Sachs summer internship after junior year. I wanted to try Goldman, but I didn’t want to give up my Deloitte return, so I went straight to the recruiter to talk it through.
I asked about three things: whether my next Deloitte internship could be in the spring of junior year, whether I could move from the commercial practice to the financial services line to see what it was like, and whether I could switch my location to New York. Spring was busy season too, and my school schedule allowed it; the New Jersey office I’d been in wasn’t very convenient for me without a car. Each request had a concrete reason.
All three happened, and I also got a full-time return offer. Having switched service lines, I also got a little clearer on what I liked and didn’t like.
I tell this story because many students treat things they haven’t asked about yet as if they’ve already been turned down. You can raise any reasonable request. Being an intern doesn’t mean you have no right to speak up.
When you ask, give real, specific reasons. If location involves family, living arrangements, or transportation, explain that honestly. It’s easier to understand than just “I like this city.” A change of department also means finding out whether the target team is willing to take you, who can support the move, and what HR’s process is.
8. Say Thank You When the Internship Ends, and Keep the Relationships Going
Before you leave, ask people how they’d like to stay in touch, and send each a specific thank-you from your personal email. Mentioning what she specifically taught you and which experience you learned from means more than a group message saying “Thanks, everyone.”
Keep contact information only in ways the person is happy to share and the company allows. What matters is being able to stay in touch. There’s no need to forward the internal directory or work materials to a personal account.
Even if you don’t accept the return offer in the end, you can stay in touch. Later, when I wanted to go from Goldman back to Deloitte, I contacted the partner who had supervised me before. She replied quickly, connected me with HR, and set up interviews, and I got the job. My intern manager at Goldman also reached out after moving to a new firm, asking whether I’d like to join her new team and offering me a role one level up.
All of these relationships started with specific work and conversations, and only later led to new possibilities. The end of an internship doesn’t mean the help you got no longer deserves a response.
Why I Keep Stressing Something Anyone Can Do
Chapter 4 covered thanks and follow-up, but in a chapter about putting things into practice, I want to stress it once more. You don’t need to be sending pitches for two years straight right now. But you can let the people who helped you know how things turned out.
The reason I say doing this puts you ahead of 90% of people is that among the hundreds of people I’ve advised, so few actually did it that it stuck with me. After seeing that, I can’t treat it as a small tip you hear once and forget.
When someone takes the time to edit your resume or help you sort out your direction, the least you can do is tell her whether you used her advice and how your applications went. You don’t have to repay her with something of equal value right away, but you should properly acknowledge help she has already given.
I have my own regret here. In my sophomore year I met an older student who marked up my resume by hand five times and spent an hour and a half talking with me about investment banking and career planning. At the time I didn’t fully understand how much that help was worth, and later, because I felt awkward, I didn’t stay in touch. I’m still grateful to her when I think about it now, and part of why I went on to coach job seekers is that I wanted to pass that kind of help along.
So if reading this reminds you of someone who helped you recently and never heard back from you, go and tell her. Even without a result yet, let her know how you’re moving forward.
When Something Doesn’t Pay Off Right Away, Look at What You Actually Gained
Some students only do things that look like they’ll turn into an offer right away. They make five networking calls, get no referral, and decide every call was wasted.
But those five conversations may have taught you more about the role and given you five rounds of practice introducing yourself and handling follow-up questions. They may not have achieved the original goal, but they may have helped you spot new problems or made later interviews go more smoothly.
This is what I mean by “the usefulness of the useless.” You can’t judge each action only by whether it produced an offer right then, and you also can’t assume you’re improving just because you did something. Look back and ask what information you got, what you learned to do, and what you’ll do differently next.
If you’ve repeated the same approach many times with no results and no new information, it’s time to change something. Keep contacting irrelevant people, applying to roles that don’t fit, or memorizing the same answer that misses the question every day, and the number of attempts won’t solve the problem by itself.
Build the Action into Your Life
Don’t just write “prepare for interviews this week” in your plan. Make it more specific: which experience you’ll practice on which day, who you’ll ask to listen, which question you’ll check. When you’re done, leave something you can see: a recording, a revised document, a message you’ve already sent.
If you still haven’t started, make the first step smaller. When you can’t yet tell a whole project story, start with just the background and your own task. And if you’re not ready to ask a stranger for a call, ask a friend to listen first. Once the first step is done, build on it.
Spend a little time each week looking at the actual feedback: what’s clearer than last week, what you keep putting off, and what needs adjusting next. You don’t have to overturn your plan every day, but let it get more accurate as you put it into practice.