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The Smart Intern – 9 Tips for a Successful MBA Internship

If you think that you can relax after getting that fabulous MBA internship offer from your dream company, then you are partly right. While it’s important to relax after your internship hunt marathon, the smartness doesn’t lie in dealing with things as they come. It lies in planning in advance and dealing with deviations from your plan, if any.

Planning for your internship is a crucial step, and so it is worth spending some time to prepare. Here is a list of nine powerful things to think about before you dive into your internship.

1. What is your vision for your internship?

You probably know the company by now and understand what the internship will entail after speaking with current employees and people who interned there in the past.

Make sure you have a vision of what you want to achieve from your internship. If your aim is to test a new career, then you will take different actions than if you are merely aiming to take whatever job follows from the MBA internship. Having a vision for your internship will help you in making good decisions and taking the right action at the right time during your internship.

2. What does the company expect from me and what do I expect in return?

Expectations are a two-way process. Before joining the organization, have conversations with people who have already worked at the company to get a rough idea about the organization’s expectations. Use this information to prepare well for your internship. The preparation may involve taking a specific course (for example on excel skills or valuation) or extensive reading about a new product-line which the company has just launched.

Once you join the organization, have a conversation with your manager to confirm your understanding about their expectations. Equally important here is to share your expectations. It’s like setting up the scope and success factors for your internship.

3. When should I start networking within the company?

The decision about which interns to hire full-time is not made by the one or two people who you are working with. It is made by collating feedback from a group of people, the entire department in some cases.

An MBA internship typically lasts for 8-12 weeks and your full-time hiring discussion will start happening almost a month before your last day. Hence, it is crucial to have a plan in place to start creating a network within the company.

Setting up lunches and coffee chats with people will give you the opportunity to interact in an informal environment. This will give you visibility within the organization. If people know you and can say good things about you (rather than not saying bad things), the company will be more willing to hire you, and this may also give you some bargaining power in some cases. Talking to people is also a good way to collect insights about the company, key decision makers, and important aspects to keep in mind for your internship.

4. What should I wear to work?

This question may seem purely logistical, but it is crucially important. Personality is one of the criteria that an intern is judged on, especially in consulting. Dressing a notch up, from day one, is an easy way to let your personality shine through.

Understand your company’s dress-code in advance and get the shopping out of the way before starting your internship. In some cases, the dress code differs by the office location. Be sure to speak to people from your intended office location. Strike a fine balance; do not underdress or overdo it.

By keeping the above four points in mind, you will be launching your internship on the best possible footing. However, not everything can be planned. There are five more steps that you can take during your internship to make it successful.

5. Request feedback

An internship is a short journey during which you can learn a lot. One of the best ways to learn is to seek feedback and work on it fast. Seek feedback not only from your seniors but also from your peers.

How often should you seek feedback? There is no real rule of thumb. It depends on the person you are dealing with. On the one hand, you need to improve as fast as possible. On the other hand, you don’t want to nag people for feedback and create a bad impression. Talk to your boss about how they prefer to give feedback during the first expectation setting meeting.

6. Practice self-observant leadership

This is probably the most powerful exercise that you can do to get things right. As humans, we are bound to make errors. But we have the power to improve. An MBA internship only lasts for 8-12 weeks. In case things go wrong, it is important to take quick corrective steps rather than letting problems linger.

I call this the “power exercise”. Spend 15 minutes at the end of every day to reflect on how your day went and judge whether things are going according to plan. This will help you to identify deviations and plan ways to deal with them. After taking a corrective action, carry out a quick review. Did you do well? If so, continue to do those activities. More importantly, reflect on situations in which you could have performed better. What could you do to correct the damage? How will you take care of similar situations in future? Think about these powerful questions and take action, as quickly as possible.

7. Offer help

Offering to help is the easiest proactive way of making new friends and creating advocacy for a full-time job. This shows your desire to provide value, learn new things, and build your network.  However, be aware of your workload as you don’t want to over promise and under deliver.

8. Over deliver

Part of the reason for doing an internship is to learn a new set of professional skills. As a result, it is fair to assume that an intern will not perform the work exactly the way that the manager would like.  Your boss will be expecting to make changes to your draft report. However, whether those changes involve adding new points or deleting existing points lies in your hands.

Always try to deliver more than expected. It’s easier, less time consuming, and less frustrating for your boss to cut than to add. Give that choice to your boss and remember to set expectations accordingly in the beginning.

9. Show genuine gratitude

As an intern, you will need assistance from various people in the organization. Let’s admit it; firms put in extra effort to make sure interns feel comfortable. It is important to recognize those efforts and appreciate them at the right time.

Set up coffee chats with people in your organization to thank them. Show your gratitude for the help and guidance you have received.  Not only is this the right thing to do, but it will also help you build the network that you wish to create within the organization.

Conclusion

These nine tips are a well-thought out recipe for a successful internship. Many of the them are conventional wisdom. However, they still work wonders. At the same time, there are certain new methods such as self-observant leadership, which are powerful enough to enhance your internship performance.

Remember, what you get out of your internship depends on what you put in to it.

Vishal Agarwal is currently undergoing his MBA from Kelley School of Business, Indiana University and is a consulting enthusiast. He interned this summer with EY in their San Jose office. Before Kelley, he was working with EY and he carries 7 years of experience with EY’s International Taxation and Transfer Pricing Consulting practice.

Image: Pexels

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