In case you missed them, here's some of last week's most popular topics:
Google's Head Of Hr Shares His Hiring Secrets
Post By @AndyLouis"
Bock says Google looks for four attributes, which it has figured out will predict whether someone can be successful at the company. They include general cognitive ability—no surprise there, as the company wants the best and brightest—as well as leadership ability, role-related knowledge, and "Googleyness."About that last one, Google tries not to look for people who "look like us," Bock said. Rather, the intent is to find someone different, offbeat, who can push and challenge the status quo.
Interview Science: Slow Talkers Don't Get Hired
Post By @mikesswimn"
Feiler and Powell found that the speed at which someone talks is the only cue that both interviewers and interviewees rate as a sign of nervousness or not. The fewer words per minute people speak, the more nervous they are perceived to be. Also, anxious prospective job candidates are often rated as being less assertive and exuding less interpersonal warmth. This often leads to a rejection from interviewers.How would you monkeys suggest an interviewee go about being assertive and interpersonally warm? Have you ever dealt with a slow talker during an interview? Anyone come across someone who talks too fast?
Leverage and success
Post By @Oddball Stocks"
Leverage is a misunderstood concept. When many investors think of leverage they immediately think of financial leverage as a form of debt financing to purchase an asset. Financial leverage can work in an investors favor, but there are other types of leverage as well.Levered results should be rewarded and credited to the individual because the individual who used leverage successfully managed their risk. For every Warren Buffett there are dozens of investors who levered their portfolios and blew up because they disregarded risk management. While there isn't a formula for success, one thing is clear, abnormal success doesn't occur without some sort of leverage. The trick is finding how to best incorporate leverage as well as manage the risk.
Dealing with Low Interest rates: Investing and Corporate Finance Lessons
Post By @Aswath Damodaran"
- Central banks tweak interest rates. They do not set them. Consequently, I am going to spend less time worrying about what Janet Yellen does in the interest rate room and more on the fundamentals that drive rates. I will also grant short shrift to anyone who uses central banks as either an excuse or looks to them as a savior in their investing.
- When risk free rates are abnormally low or high, it is because there are other components in the market that are abnormal, and I am not sure what is normal. For investors in the US and Europe who yearn for the normality of decades past, I am afraid that normal is not returning. We have to recalibrate our assumptions about what is normal (for interest rates, risk premiums, inflation and economic growth) and pay less heed to rules of thumb that were developed for another market (US in the 1900s) and another time.
- As investors, we can rage against interest rates being too low but it is what it is. We have to value companies in the markets that we are in, not the markets we wished we were in.
An introduction to Shadow Banking in China
Post By @Stalagmite"
The central government has been trying to clamp down on shadow banking since 2013 – for instance banks can now invest only 4% of their total assets in ‘non-standard’ products (these are products not traded on exchanges or interbank markets and include trust loans and entrusted loans).The rapid growth of China’s shadow financing in recent years has created risks of a spiraling systemic crisis if defaults escalate as a result of the slowing property sector. This is because property developers, construction companies and LGFVs are the big borrowers from this source and they are all linked to China’s real estate market. The government has so far taken many steps to curb such activities or make them more transparent. Time will tell whether regulators can successfully mitigate this emerging risk; the upcoming interest rate liberalization will probably deliver the verdict one way or the other.
Business School Running Commentary - Part 2 - Background and Application Process
Post By @EllisBoydRedding"
All About RankingsFor the longest time, I was in the camp of “if you don’t go to a top 10 program, there is really no value in getting an MBA.” My opinion changed slightly when I was no longer primarily interested in the prestige and network, and moreso interested in the coursework itself. By evaluating which companies recruit from which schools, depending on your industry of choice, it can also affect your viewpoint on which programs are your own top 10 instead of relying on rankings from BusinessWeek and the like.
I chose part-time over an executive program because I was more interested in what I consider a “traditional” academic setting with a subject matter expert delivering the content to a class of students rather than a group of established senior level classmates simply debating various topics in a bastardized case study fashion. Unreasonably harsh assessment and likely short-sighted, but that is my impression in comparing the two after numerous conversations with current MBA students, alums, and admissions folks. Networking with senior level individuals during and immediately after the program, while obviously important, is not a top priority for me.
The 48 Laws of Power
Post By @Deconstructing Excellence"
The author views everything through the lens of power, which results in a distinctly uncomfortable degree of honesty about why humans do what they do. He labels as disingenuous anyone who claims that we do what we do for reasons other than power, and illustrates how people who try to “opt out” of the game of power by championing honesty, equality, or naivety are actually leveraging a time-honored law of power themselves.As you might expect, the author has many critics. I found the book to be both unsettling in its unbridled amorality and refreshing in its unabashed honesty. Even if you balk at putting certain laws into practice, it would be folly to ignore any of them. The more you realize how these laws play out in real life, the more you will realize how in the proper time, place, and balance you can and should sometimes use them for your own purposes (which I hope are benevolent).
Who are all the "dumb" investors/analysts?
Post By @MilitaryToFinance"
Being in B School I get to hear from lots of successful investors, guest speakers, and current/former professionals teaching classes. There is a common refrain that gets repeated in different formats by lots of people. I've heard a number of different things like, only model the income statement and don't look at the balance sheet, don't bother reading the 10-k, don't think about Cap Ex and only look at EBITDA, etc.My question is how much of this is just trying to explain success ex-post and how much of this is true? Ignoring algorithmic trading, are there really people out there doing long/short equities (or even sell-side research) that don't even crack the 10-k? And if so how are these people getting hired? Maybe the "dumb" funds just aren't hiring but everywhere I've had interviews the process is grueling and very detailed. I can't imagine pitching a stock and saying, yeah I didn't read the 10-k but the last investor day presentation looked good and the stock is cheap, let's buy!
