Students on the Blog: Internship Perspectives Fall 2018 - Part 1 of 2

This is Part 1 of a two-part post.

Every day, there are numerous Zicklin grad students interning in various companies throughout New York City. Each of them have different experiences, learn new skills and come away with new ideas and goals from the work they do.

These Zicklin students shared with the GCMC their thoughts on their fall 2018 internships:

• Yenaxika Bolate (MS Statistics '18), Data Scientist Intern at a data and insights communications agency
• Xinyue Chen (MS Accountancy '18), Financial Reporting Intern at a banking and financial services holding company
• Lingfeng He (MS Quantitative Methods and Modeling '19), Financial/Quantitative Analyst Intern at a global RegTech platform
• Meng Huang (MS Statistics '19), Supply Chain Finance Intern at a global CPG firm
• Jing Yan (MS Accountancy '18), Accounting Intern at an investment management firm
• Jing Zhu (MS Information Systems with Concentration in Data Analytics '19)

We asked each of them the same four questions, but their answers were hardly the same.

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• Yenaxika Bolate (MS Statistics '18)

What has been one of the most important things you’ve learned at your internship?

One of the most important things I've learned at my current internship was effective communication. Prior to this internship, I assume as many STEM majored students do, that communication was an easy thing to do as long as you have solid technical skills. But then I realized communication is actually an art, and good communication skills will not only be beneficial to work but also to life. It requires strategy and lots of practice.

How have you approached networking at your internship? Share any one specific example that has been impactful for you.

I would say during my internship, the way I approached networking is by being prepared and take opportunities to talk to people. For example, there will be some in-company social events, or just generally when people sit together during lunchtime, I would just talk to other colleagues and get to know them better.

What has been the biggest contribution you have made to your team at your internship? Why?

My biggest contribution would be applying a quantitative problem-solving strategy to building out the company product. Our product is to quantify cultural signals through news-article analysis, and I developed simple but informative metrics in collaboration with my supervisor, and approached the metrics through a mathematical structure.

After this experience, what would you like to learn next?

I hope to continue working at my current employer after graduation. I like what I'm currently doing, and wish to gain more experience in the data science field. There are still some interesting ideas that I'm hoping to try out and apply.

For students having a difficult time finding an internship, what is one piece of advice you would give them?

I would say that the most important thing is, make sure to be good at what you have learned. Although networking and applying to jobs are also very important, a solid and proper understanding of your professional knowledge is one of the keys to a successful interview and to your work. Also, be planned and strategic in terms of networking and job application instead of being anxious.

• Xinyue Chen (MS Accountancy '18)

What has been one of the most important things you’ve learned at your internship?

From this internship, I learned a lot from my colleagues. My colleagues gave me an important tip that you should talk to as many people as possible. The quickest way to adapt yourself to an environment and get familiar with your daily tasks is to ask questions. You should feel free to ask questions of your coworkers, supervisor, etc. Talking to them will give you at the very least a broad view of your job and a sense of the contributions that you can make to your team. Also, talking to people outside of your team will give you an understanding of the industry you are working in and help you learn how several teams coordinate to achieve a goal.

How have you networking at your internship? Share any one specific example that has been impactful for you.

I think the easiest way to approach networking is to attend some networking events. You get an opportunity to meet different professionals and peers at events, which give you a chance to learn from others. For me, in my current internship, I attended an event that gathered managers from different departments together, where they shared their management style and skills. During the event, I met our department manager and she shared more with me about her experience in leading our team. I got a much deeper understanding about our team and what my role was in it.

What has been the biggest contribution you have made to your team at your internship? Why?

The biggest contribution I have made has been helping the team build our fee database. Before I joined, we didn’t have our own fee database. When we need to analyze our fee structure, we had to ask the billing department for information or go to the file room to find contracts. It can be a cumbersome process since the fee we are charge what contracts state can sometime not always match. I spent several weeks talking to the billing and operation teams, and finally built our database. It’s much more user friendly and easier for us to do analysis for our fee structure, revenue, performance and so on.

After this experience, what would you like to learn next?

In my current internship, one part of my job is to compare and report the difference with our actual revenue and what is planned. One day I asked my supervisor where we got our planned revenue number and how we calculate it. She told me they come from the financial department, but she had no idea how it was calculated. Then I talked to a director in the finance department and he introduced me to the procedures involved in planning, budgeting and forecasting. I have become more interested in corporate finance and would love to get into this area next.

For students having a difficult time finding an internship, what is one piece of advice you would give them?

I think the most important thing is to keep motivated. Getting a job is not always easy and sometimes your need a little bit of luck. For me, I had two rounds of interviews for this internship and waited for more than three months to get the offer. One of my school friends told me he used to apply for more than 200 positions per month and send more than 20 follow-up emails each day and finally he got a job at JPMorgan. Keep motivated and active in your job search, and never lose heart from rejections and failures.

• Lingfeng He (MS Quantitative Methods and Modeling '19)

What has been one of the most important things you’ve learned at your internship?

One of the most important things I've learned is that building a professional image is important; especially if I want to work in this company for the long term, or if I want a reference in the future. As someone who works in a finance department, building an image of being detail oriented and professional is important to me. Building an image of being good at communication and leadership will also be helpful for potential promotions.

How have you approached networking at your internship? Share any one specific example that has been impactful for you.

I've approached networking at my internship mostly with my colleagues, including the ones working at the same department with me, as well as people from other departments and companies. One example is the President of our company, who used to work in investment banking and has many strong skills. He joined the company not long ago and is very open-minded to talking to employees. I got an opportunity to learn some Excel skills from him, as well as some advice for my future career development.

What has been the biggest contribution you have made to your team at your internship? Why?

The biggest contribution I think I've made is the idea of developing a new report for reporting purposes. In the past, we have all the information for the deals that our company participated in, but we've never combined everything into one source that can be updated on a daily basis. We have a development IT team, so I helped communicate with that team about the logic for building the report, as well as communicated with people from other companies who can provide us with the information we would need. We ended up building a report which can be used internally as well as presented externally that had the information we wanted.

After this experience, what would you like to learn next?

After this experience, there is a lot that I want to learn. I want to gain more leadership skills by dealing more with people inside and outside of the company. I would also like to get into a more professional and well-developed team, so I would have more people to learn from. I would also love to find the opportunity to combine more of what I've learned in school to my daily work.

For students having a difficult time finding an internship, what is one piece of advice you would give them?

There's always a way to find an internship as long as you try. Even if you don't have enough of a network to get referred, don't give up on searching online. And don't forget to get help from the career center. Talk to people to get as much information as you need. The first step is always difficult, but it’s possible.

• Meng Huang (MS Statistics '19)

What has been one of the most important things you’ve learned at your internship?

One of the most important things I have learned has been to keep a diligent and communicative attitude. There was one time I made a mistake, which slowed down the efficiency of our work flow and my boss was really mad initially. After she told me about the mistake, I apologized sincerely and sat with her for four hours working on the issue. I also proposed a few ideas to keep the problem from happening in the future. In the end she was relived, as she saw that I was trying to make up for the mistake. We also made a clearer structure of the problem.

How have you approached networking at your internship? Share any one specific example that has been impactful for you.

Although my internship position is officially off-cycle, I made a meaningful relationship with HR so that that they included me into the Lunch and Learn Series with other interns from the summer program. During the two months of the Lunch and Learn Series, I got to network and speak with senior managers and directors from different departments, such as corporate finance, financial accounting and North America. I even had an opportunity to have sit-down lunches with the company CFO and COO. I have learned a lot about other departments that I would never have known had I not initially connected and networked with HR, and showed my interested in learning more about the company.

What has been the biggest contribution you have made to your team at your internship? Why?

The biggest contribution I have made to the team is reconciling accounting information for a newly launched product. So far we have made sales since beginning of the year, and I have been in charge of reconciling Accounts Receivables, Accounts Payables, and Inventory. Specifically, I communicated with our partner companies and colleagues in different offices, identified duplicate invoices or checks, and corrected inventory management mistakes. Such activities allowed me to demonstrate my value the most, through thorough examination of accounting book entries and inventory management for an actual nuanced product sold worldwide.

After this experience, what would you like to learn next?

After this experience, I would really love to learn the nuts and bolts of supply-chain finance. I had only obtained a degree in general finance but nothing related to supply chain. However, this internship allowed me to broaden my horizons in how networking capital is managed, including cash, inventory, accounts receivables and accounts payables. It also involved tracking and overseeing first-hand sales and shipping processes, which really interested me and could be an area I would love to get into.

For students having a difficult time finding an internship, what is one piece of advice you would give them?

I think the most important thing is to believe in yourself, and understand that you are passionate in what you are pursuing for a reason. Do not change yourself so that you can be suitable for a job considered “hot” or “useful” by other people, unless you know for sure that is what you are truly interested in. That being said, owning your hard work and owning your flaws are equally important. Being confident about your strengths, and being open about your weaknesses and working on them is always an appealing trait to employers, and they will stand out in whichever industry or position that you apply for.

• Jing Yan (MS Accountancy '18)

What has been one of the most important things you’ve learned at your internship?

The most important thing I have learned at my internship is to take initiative and get used to learning things by yourself. When I first started my internship, I never used Tableau, which is the data virtualization tool my firm uses to generate financial reports. The consultant who worked on generating the financial reports was leaving within two weeks. He didn't have much time to teach me how to use Tableau, but I needed to understand how he created his reports before he left. Within two weeks, I took an online course for Tableau after work. I looked into his reports, and wrote down all the formulas he created so I could better understand the logistic behind them. By doing so, I was able to replicate the dashboards he created so that I could run them without any disruption to the team after he left.

How have you approached networking at your internship? Share any one specific example that has been impactful for you.

I just started my internship two months ago, so I haven't really started to networking with others. My manager first introduced me to all of my colleagues so that I would be comfortable when I needed to reach out to people. One example I can share is that our firm orders lunch for everyone, so sometimes I just help other people pick up their lunch and chat with people to build connections.

What has been the biggest contribution you have made to your team at your internship? Why?

I think my biggest contribution to my team has been helping my manager stay organized, especially when she has many things to do. One of my team's jobs is to manage our vendors and services, so it's important for us to organize our contract list and make sure none of them will be renewed automatically. I helped my manager create a spreadsheet for all the contracts with start date, renewal date, price, and cost allocation. I remind her whenever we need to reach out to people for new paperwork. By doing so, I have helped my team avoid the risk of spending unnecessary costs and ensure that we always stay organized.

After this experience, what would you like to learn next?

I would like to learn more about data visualization and analytics tools such as Tableau. I found that those data visualization tools are widely used in financial reporting and analysis departments across different industries, so it would be helpful to learn more about them if I want to do financial reporting in the future. Being an international student, I also believe enhancing technical skills is very helpful when applying for jobs. Even after we start to work, being knowledgeable about those analytical tools can help working more efficiently and effectively.

For students having a difficult time finding an internship, what is one piece of advice you would give them?

I think starting with some volunteer work such as VITA so you can put experience on your resume. Then they can start to apply for some small accounting firms or corporations to get internship experience. In the meantime, it can be helpful to improve Excel skills since they are one of the most important skill sets for accountants. Once students have internship experience, they can start to networking with professionals from big firms or corporations with the hope of getting referred into a better internship or full-time job.

• Jing Zhu (MS Information System with Concentration in Data Analytics '19)

What has been one of the most important things you’ve learned at your internship?

Always think how to add value and how to be an asset to the company where you work. I took more responsibility than when I first started it. I learned that employees (and interns) feel good when they have an opportunity to take initiative and contribute to the team.

How have you approached networking at your internship? Share any one specific example that has been impactful for you.

The research is the key to networking. When I apply for jobs or receive an interview, I like to research on LinkedIn first. The search on LinkedIn will let me know someone I’ve met or if someone is working in my target firm. I will try to ask for a referral from people I know if it’s appropriate. If I have no connection in that target firm, I will send cold messages on LinkedIn. I tend to reach out to people that have something in common with my background, such as having attended or is attending Baruch.

What has been the biggest contribution you have made to your team at your internship? Why?

I took the initiative to take on more work. For instance, I was not assigned on a particular project at first, but I was interested in learning the logistic behind that particular project. Also, I discovered that the colleague who was assigned the project had a full plate. I offered help on it, and am taking ownership of that project now.

After this experience, what would you like to learn next?

My current experience is more of an accounting role. Next, I would like to learn the financial analysis piece where my data analysis skill can be applied.

For students having a difficult time finding an internship, what is one piece of advice you would give them?

Never give up applying for jobs. Most people have been through getting no response at all from many applications. Always prepare well for an interview no matter how big or small the company is.