PE at 17 - advice?

Please for the love of god tell me you are a troll.

No, sorry.

I can't believe this troll got you. Unless you have a 99.9% overall, why the f*** would any rational person hire a 17 yr old when there's an influx of 22 year olds with bacs in fin who would work for free?

It all depends on what segment you're going to be working in. A good place to start is the WSO interview guide. It's a great crash course. I'm also going to be doing an internship in P/E this summer and I'm a junior in college. Interview guide was a huge help on understanding the basics.

My best guess is you won't be doing any modeling, but more due dilligence/research type stuff. Good luck!

PM me, I'd be interested in having a discussion on this stuff with you. I'm not a fan of publicly talking about internships/jobs

Well I'm genuinely interested in PE/IB, and I'm going to be learning some basic skills that'll be useful later on in life. I'll be doing something challenging over the summer too, as opposed to working at Abercrombie folding clothes, or Shop Rite bagging groceries (no offense to anyone who may have worked there).

This'll also spruce up both my college transcript and resume as a bonus. I'm additionally pretty sure this internship will something interesting that I can talk about in future interviews.

Now, do you have any advice that you might be able to offer me?

He's serious

http://www.razume.com/documents/19890

I should also mention: -The job is in REAL ESTATE PRIVATE EQUITY -I'm working with A SMALL 5 MAN TEAM -The Internship is a NON PAID one -My main job will be PRO FORMA MODELING and putting 50+ page packets of info into excel documents

I'm honestly not trolling.

And thank you very much for the input FrattymcBrofrat

Guys he is not a troll

Considering I started working at a trading firm earlier than him its not so outlandish.

For technicals> Get the WSO guide for overview. You should learn basic accounting, I particularly like this book for its straightforward explanation: http://www.amazon.com/Accounting-Game-Basic-Fresh-Lemonade/dp/140221186…

But don't get too bogged down on technicals. You are young and your job at this place will be to learn as much as you possibly can. If they ask you to photocopy, do it. Filing, do it. Do the best job you can in these grunt tasks while also connecting with the PE guys and learning from them. I didn't do PE but I started off doing grunt work while spending an hour or so a day learning from the traders. Eventually, I stopped doing grunt work and transitioned into an internship at a desk. That is your best case scenario.

Good luck and crush it.

Lol, hope I didn't embarrass you too much if that is your resume, which I'm almost sure it is. I think reading over the vault guide for finance interviews would be helpful. That'll put you on par with most college kids.

Like people said, do what you're told, be enthusiastic (but not annoying) and learn.

Make sure you have some fun at some point before you're doing this full time. Go to some parties in college and talk to girls. It's great you are so focussed -- I wish I was at that age -- but you need to have fun, too. For one thing, if you ignore everything except school and internships, you'll be a dull person and people will have reservations about working with you for 16 hours a day.

I did some tangible consulting work (meeting with the clients, writing reports, etc.) at a top accounting firm back in high school. But I found that at an interview, backpacking in Australia is much more attractive than the consulting experience. Yes, it might look good on your resume, but building relationships with the interviewer is more important. And once you get some internships in college, they don't care if you did that in high school. Also, if you want to get an internship during the freshman year, it's not about what you've done; it's all about who you know. I'm not saying you shouldn't go for that PE firm. All I'm saying is that it's not as appealing as you think it is.

I would barely trust a 17 year old with data entry. So I guess that means the bar is set pretty low for you. Just don't do anything stupid and you will probably exceed expectations.

What does his daddy do? That's the most important question.

Thank you all for the feedback, it is very much appreciated.

baddebt88- Thanks for the encouragement and book reconomendation, I'll have to see if I can pick it up from Amazon/a local bookstore. My main job will be technical though, as I'll be running a simple model/poring over figures to make an excel doc. I'll try my best to connect to the other members of the firm too, which shouldn't be too hard considering my "desk" is basicaly 5 feet away from the person I'll be directly reporting to lol.

RiskyBizness- You're right, it's mine. And It's ok, I guess the resume lends some more legitimacy to my situation, so I don't mind. And no need to worry, I'm set on enjoying the best years of my life, I just also like to challenge myself now and then/be productive.

hot1590- Thanks for the feedback, I'd definitely be interested in doing something like backbacking in Europe/Australia/New Zealand. I don't really have enough money at the moment though, and my parents wouldn't be willing to fork over the $$ needed. I'll look into it more during college though, I really want to spend a semester abroad.

buybuybuy- Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try not to mess it up. I do think they're going to be trusting me with some mildly important data though, my boss seems to have confidence in me.

JamesHetfield- My dad works in risk management. He didn't help me in any way to get the job, I got introduced via a close relative, and had to do the rest of the legwork from there myself (back-and-forth e-mails for close to a month, Creating a Resume, and Interviewing).

As was said before, your best bet is to get the WSO guide.

Other than that dont listen to the guys mercking you for your age, it makes you miles ahead of other candidates entering college and puts you in good position to be one of those kids that gets a top IB group/buyside out of university

PE > Sandles Resorts with Family

you're a rock star - whatever firm sees potential in you means you are a bright individual who rivals college students in terms of maturity and acumen

Also interning at an ibanking shop, same situation as you, 17 but graduated HS.

The MD of the ibanking boutique (mostly middle-market TMT) i'm working at is also starting out an RE PE arm and most of the work that he requires is RE modeling and honestly there's a lot of grunt work like preparing presentations and what not to pitch the fund to potential investors etc. Honestly, I'd recommend doing/learning shit on your own as much as you can and try not to burden your boss too much.

I got lucky because the MD who hired me just started out his own boutique and needed some help with it. He was pretty well connected from his prev position as MD at an elite boutique so he managed to get several deals just as he started out but he had no staff to work on them, so most of the work I get is modeling/presentation making. Find out what sort of work will be given to you first, then think about reading books/doing courses on valuation etc.

If you find out that it'll require modeling etc. then I recommend getting BIWS. I used it, and it's great. Always dress as professionally as you can but don't overdo it. Don't wear a Hermes tie when people above you are wearing something less. But I think you should be okay in this aspect if you managed to get the gig in the first place. Get a few nice shirts etc. tho. I come from a middle class family so I just used some of my dad's shirts instead of buying new ones. That's another option.

Other ways to get him to like you is ask relevant questions about his career, how he got interested in it and what not. It's also a good idea to engage in conversations that aren't related to ibanking/PE/finance. Be honest with him, if you don't know something it's okay to ask instead of nodding away and acting like you know it all. Always look/act interested and enthusiastic. Make sure that you form a good relationship w/ the people that you'll be working with. I'm trying to do that and I'm sure it'll help later on in college when applying for SA/FT positions. It's a very good opportunity to network early.

Lastly, a lot of people are going to give you shit for this, especially on WSO. Ignore it, and just do your stuff. Keep at it. A lot of people here assume that it's impossible to be a normal teenager who has fun and is ambitious at the same time. I went through the whole "oh this guy is a troll, wtf go get laid" etc. shit too but I still kept at it and I think it was a good choice.

Good luck for the summer! You could PM me if you have any more questions about this.

Congrats dude. It's great to see you have your head screwed on at such a young age. Just don't forget to bang shit loads of chicks and keep your grades up.

When talking to these guys, you don't want to sound like a journalist. Make sure that you have done your background reading to the max and use the conversations to tidy up your understanding. You need a genuine curiosity, but it also needs to come across that you have attempted to satisfy this curiosity by doing your homework on the industry. Be sincere and don't appear like you're asking generic questions just for the sake of it. The answers to the questions you should ask shouldn't be available from a five minute google search.

Whilst you're there, try and get the details of Bankers from the firm's contact data base in prep for future networking.

I'll second the Breaking Into Wall Street recommendation. They have a real estate modeling module now that should help you out.

I had an internship my junior year summer, and I have an internship this summer. To be honest, almost all I did included a copy/scan machine. Your boss can't expect you to know how to do everything a college kid would. Fortunately, for this years internship, I will be allowed to sit in on meetings and such. So maybe I'll begin to pick up what really goes on in the office.

Do a good job and it's possible you can work at this place all through college. A buddy of mine did this with a small HF years ago and success snowballed over time.

WOW, I wish I was as focused as you are at 17.