Communication is Key
This is my third post for my summer internship at Mid-Market Securities in New York City. I am a rising senior and my ideal career path is to pursue in the investment banking industry now and further on after my graduation.
In the previous post, I briefly introduced our company, talked about the company culture and our CEO, Bob. In this post, I would like to talk more about our company culture in terms of how the interns of my group communicate with each other, how we communicate with our boss and how we perform professionally as a team.
Before my starting date in the mid-June, all three other interns in my group had joined the company and started to help out on a complicated deal. As I mentioned in the previous blog post, I am shadowing a VP in Boston and also trying to help the team in New York on the deal they had started before I came. Therefore, I have to follow up with multiple deals at the same time and make sure to deliver my work as required before the deadlines. Communications became really important in this case.
First, I would like to talk about how I communicate with my peer colleagues. In the corporate world, especially in New York City, professional conversations happen a lot and help us achieve the results that we are looking for directly. It is different from school projects as our conversations are mostly about the progress of our deal or the updated requirement from our boss instead of casual chattings. Also, in the investment banking world, it is always our top priority to finish the work on hand and send the deliverable to our boss as soon as possible. So time coordination happens a lot in the group conversation as we need to know who is most available to help our boss when certain work needs to be done. Moreover, we would update frequently on what we have done on required materials so that other members won’t accidentally do overlapping work. It is really efficient and I am glad that my teammates here in New York are all very responsive and reliable.
Other than messaging constantly with my peer colleagues, my boss — the VP in Boston would like to make phone calls and send emails to communicate. Sending emails is not easy to get an instant response comparing with messaging but I have to adapt with the communication style of my boss. So typically, I send him an email every week to update my progress and he will reply and schedule a quick call with me usually every Monday. Although I missed some calls since I did not check my email frequently enough, I get used to the communication style and become ready for phone calls every week. Rather than long conversations in emails, my boss usually goes through everything pretty quickly in phone calls and it becomes a challenge for me to record what he has mentioned and understand what I have to do in the following week. When my boss only has minutes to speak with me, it is critical that I have to ask smart questions regarding the deals and what my specific role is in the process.
In the end, it is a challenging task to coordinate between different communication styles and tasks in both teams in Boston and New York. Nevertheless, it becomes a very rewarding learning experience because these skillsets are all necessary for the future working environment.
Please contact me if you have resonating experiences when communicating with your boss and your colleagues and I am happy to discuss, share and learn.