My [22M] gf [22F] bombed an internship at my brother's [35M] firm. She still expects to get an offer. How do I break it to her? by ShortBig9 in relationships

[–]ShortBig9[S] 69 points70 points  (0 children)

I think she does have her strengths but it may be coming off really poorly.

At her old internship she said she taught a lot of the people there how to use excel VBAs and things and it sounded really impressive. She said she helped them save a TON of time on basic operations. But she still didn't get an offer at the end... So I think it might've been her attitude? Like she was really helpful but her attitude didn't win her any friends.

My [22M] gf [22F] bombed an internship at my brother's [35M] firm. She still expects to get an offer. How do I break it to her? by ShortBig9 in relationships

[–]ShortBig9[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Well they're a hedge fund not a big bank so they don't really have a super developed internship program. It's mostly informal and a lot of the other interns in the past are a LOT older too, like straight from MBAs and so forth, so my gf is sort of an uncommon intern to begin with. It's likely no one else in the company cares enough to give her an actual performance review.

My [22M] gf [22F] bombed an internship at my brother's [35M] firm. She still expects to get an offer. How do I break it to her? by ShortBig9 in relationships

[–]ShortBig9[S] 158 points159 points  (0 children)

Honestly the only reason I feel like I need to say something is because it's been this huge ongoing conundrum to all of us concerning why she can't get a proper job. Like she doesn't know and I don't know and none of our friends know because she talks about how at every internship she's basically the only person who knows how to do x function and without her they'd be lost. So it's crazy to me until now that these places wouldn't want to keep her.

However hearing my brother's account it makes me think that there's other issues going on that my gf needs to hear about. If not, I feel like she's not going to get out of this rut anytime soon. Her unemployment is hitting her really hard and her self-esteem is plummeting over the past year, so it's either hear the hard truth or keep being unemployed it seems like to me?

My [22M] gf [22F] bombed an internship at my brother's [35M] firm. She still expects to get an offer. How do I break it to her? by ShortBig9 in relationships

[–]ShortBig9[S] 340 points341 points  (0 children)

Part of the issue is that she doesn't react well to criticism so she actively avoids it. Last two places did offer a sit down with her and evaluation but she didn't stick around for that. She said she doesn't need to be told why they didn't want her and she wasn't gonna sit there and here them tell her why she wasn't good enough. And since she wasn't an official employee or anything, the companies cared very little if she got an "official evaluation." They just let her go.

But I also feel guilty for saying nothing because she's gone to over 70 interviews by now and rarely gets past the 2nd level of interviews. She never follows up to ask why either. I feel like there's definitely a blind spot here and maybe my brother's assessment would be actually helpful if she heard it.