I have a new intern this week. He has little investment background, and is building up on his investment knowledge. None of my current work is passable down to him, and I don’t want him to sit there and do nothing. Need suggestions on some investment-related tasks that I can hand down to him to give him a good foundation?
venti redeye special non dairy creamer with no sugar research paper on CFA vs MBA on the real thought if he is fresh out of school then just a primer on even the structure of an Investment bank works the different fields the responsibilities the different revenue generating areas etc etc
give him CFA L1 accounting book and tell him to study it?
This is a story someone at another office told me. At their office, you have to dial “9” to get an outside phone line. So, if you want to dial 212-555-5555, you have to dial 9-212-555-5555. So anyway, these guys got a new intern and they told him that the Tech Support quick dial is “9911”, i.e. 9-911. Anyway, that prank ended in a predictable manner… As for your current intern… I don’t know, what job do you do?
tell good stories and better jokes. pics are always good…
depends if its a M or F we clearly need Assetmanager’s input here
Ask him to skim “Seeking Alpha” or some other source (IBD, Barron’s, etc.) and identify what he thinks are 5 relevant articles for you and what you do. Have him write a one paragraph summary of what the argument is and why it might be relevant to what you do. This is as much to focus his mind as to give you a brief you can use. Then have a chat with him about what the articles are and why he chose them. If he picks good stuff, give him that feedback and ask him to do more or dig deeper; if he picks irrelevant stuff, explain to him why it isn’t as relevant as it sounds, and what kinds of stuff would be more helpful. The goal would be to have him help you identify good ideas for your work and learn how to find them for you.
lets do another AF coin toss challenge. teach basic excel skills
Depends on what you do, what kind of information you regularly look at. How about teach him how one of your models works, then ask him to learn VBA or something and try to improve it so that it takes less work to update?
Send him to Yonkers raceway with $1,000 and see how much he comes back with.
I like some of the ideas (the serious ones) that we’ve heard, but I think I’d honestly just give a few reading assignments. I think Seth Klarman did that with his interns - he’d just tell them to read books and they’d discuss them once or twice a week over lunch. I would give the intern probably 20 or so books with the assignment to read them and then discuss with me as they went through. Yeah, I’m serious.
I agree with the book/newsletter assignments. At his current level of knowledge, that is probably the most beneficial in helping him establishing a framework of thought. In fact, when we were introduced 2 weeks ago, I gave him a couple of books to read up, so that will be a good start. Beyond reading, what other assignments do you think I should give him? Some thoughts of mine is maybe developing a spreadsheet of historic macroeconomic indicators (global and domestic), finding out the correlation of the various sectors and markets, and writing up on the issues pressuring growth in North America, Europe, Asia, etc.
crease123, can you give us an idea of what your role and tasks are… it’s easier to think of things with a context like that. No need for identifying details, just give us a general idea…
Send them to Tiajuana with 1/8 of tequila and 30 Pesos. Say if they don’t come back with two mamacitas, a chimichanga and a donkey that they won’t get a FT offer
ASSet_MANagement Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Send them to Tiajuana with 1/8 of tequila and 30 > Pesos. > > Say if they don’t come back with two mamacitas, a > chimichanga and a donkey that they won’t get a FT > offer Sh*t son you make that sound hard… As for the reading idea, I think that would be the best learning experience for the both of you.
bodhisattva Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ASSet_MANagement Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Send them to Tiajuana with 1/8 of tequila and > 30 > > Pesos. > > > > Say if they don’t come back with two mamacitas, > a > > chimichanga and a donkey that they won’t get a > FT > > offer > > > Sh*t son you make that sound hard… > > As for the reading idea, I think that would be the > best learning experience for the both of you. Gotta start em off small so they feel like they’re doing something useful. ha ha ha
Give him to analyse/appraise a company/asset. Set the frame for him to allocate max N days and provide the arguments on max 2 pages. Tell them to do their best. My interns loved this kind of assignments.