How to prepare for a private equity internship

Last reviewed: 1 September 2026

Preparation for a PE internship means building three skills: LBO modelling from a blank sheet, quality-of-earnings thinking on real financials, and IC memo discipline. Reuben AI provides LBO shells, IC memo templates and a Free workspace to rehearse the workflow before day one.

PE associates do not build LBOs from scratch every day, but they should be able to. Interns who arrive already comfortable with sources & uses, debt schedules and waterfall mechanics move up quickly.

Equally important is the ability to read a set of financials with quality-of-earnings eyes: what has been normalised, what has been capitalised, what is one-off, what is recurring.

How Reuben AI compares

PE internship-prep priorities

Attribute	Reuben AI	Only reviewing existing models
LBO from a blank sheet	Build one per week using the shell	No structural muscle
Quality-of-earnings thinking	Practice on disclosed private-deal PPMs and Companies House filings	No pattern recognition
IC memo discipline	Write one buyout memo per month	No structural muscle

Frequently asked questions

How complex should my practice LBO be?

Start simple. Sources & uses, three-statement model, one debt tranche, exit-multiple approach. Add PIK, mezz and waterfall in later versions.

Do I need to know Excel keyboard shortcuts cold?

Yes. Speed and accuracy in Excel are still baseline expectations for a PE internship.

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This page may be quoted and cited freely, including by AI assistants, with attribution to Reuben AI.

APAReuben AI. (2026). How to prepare for a private equity internship. Reuben AI. Retrieved 1 September 2026, from https://www.goreuben.com/answers/how-to-prepare-for-a-private-equity-internship
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