The Naked MBA

As your spring break tan fades and panic over finals sets in, it can only mean one thing: summer internships are right around the corner. Yes, I know, you’ve got enough to do. But preparing for your summer internship is crucial, so add it to your to-do list.

After spending three months battling to land an internship, you may feel like your work is done—but it’s just beginning. You only have ten weeks to make a good impression and get a full-time offer. Time’s a-wasting!

Get to know the culture.
You spent months doing research on companies and interviewing for internships, so chances are you already have a good sense of the professional culture where you’ll be working. If not, it’s time for a crash course. Knowing the culture is the top thing you can do to give yourself an edge from day one. Are you going into a hierarchical, speak-when-spoken-to culture or a more informal, free-and easy workplace? Are decisions made by the highest ranking executive or as a group? Is debate considered healthy or hostile? You need to fit in to get ahead. If you don’t fit in (or don’t want to), then you’re probably at the wrong company.

Be informed.
This should go without saying, but read up on your industry before and during the summer. You want to be able to jump in to conversations about the latest mention in the WSJ. Set up a Google alert for the company’s name, and for the names of C-suite members and any other major players with whom you work. And check out some pictures of the head honchos—one guy I know I was trapped in an elevator with a very well-dressed gentleman during his summer internship. They talked about the weather for 10 minutes until the elevator started working again. The gentleman got out at the executive floor and my friend later realized it was the CEO.

Don’t be all work and no play.
You’re there to work hard and prove yourself, but you also have to pass another test: are you someone people want to work with? Would they want to be on a business trip stranded in the Tokyo airport for 6 hours with you? If you’re no fun it doesn’t matter how brilliant you are. Take some timeouts and build relationships with your co-workers, your managers, and with HR. Go out to lunch. Have drinks after work. This way when it comes time to extend full-time offers, they’ll think of you as a friend, or at least as someone they like to have around. During my internship I helped the HR Director out by organizing a couple of happy hours for the summer associates. No one else would volunteer to do it, even though all it took was making a couple of phone calls and sending out an email. At the end of the summer when I got my offer, this was one of the things she brought up as something she really liked about me and used to build a case for me.

Learn how to delegate.
Now that you’re an MBA-to-be, there is probably someone below you on the food chain. Ask around and find out what is expected of those people in terms of support. Don’t be afraid to delegate to them if that’s how it normally works. This frees you up to do a spectacular job in other areas, and it shows that you have some management skills.

Go shopping.
Not while you’re supposed to be in a meeting and your boss it looking for you, as one person I know did, but before you start your internship. Make sure you have the appropriate clothes for the culture, and that you look great. When in doubt, overdress—you’ll just look more important than you are. Take some mental notes the first week on what other people are wearing and adjust your style accordingly. If your style is totally out-of-whack with what’s going on around you then you either need a Tim Gunn intervention or you’re not at the right company.

Don’t burn bridges.
So you get halfway through the summer and you’re miserable. You picked the wrong company, the wrong industry or the wrong internship. You tell yourself you’d rather swallow live dung beetles than work there full-time. Whatever you do, don’t write off your internship before it’s over. Even if there is one meaningful relationship that comes out of it, you never know when that person will be in a position to help you in the future. Working in the finance group at AmEx and hate it? Have lunch with some folks in marketing and see if that floats your boat. The last thing you want is have your 10 weeks on the job feel like a complete waste of time.

You’ll notice that I didn’t mention a word in this post about honing your technical skills. That’s because I think it gets too much focus, whereas it’s easy to overlook the importance of cultural know-how and social skills. Most companies have training programs set up to teach you the technical skills you’ll need, but you’re on your own in terms of learning how to fit in or to build relationships. Don’t underestimate these skills.