WSO Podcast | E188: Google PM from JPM IB in Hong Kong and Accenture Strategy Consulting
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In this episode, Bryan shares his winding path while attending Berkeley and his first few years out of school. From landing a VC internship his sophomore year, to a junior year internship in the cross-border M&A group of JP Morgan in Hong Kong to a jump to strategy consulting full time, learn some of his secrets to success during recruiting as well as why he decided to join Google as an Associate Product Manager.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 188) Transcript:
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:06] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me! As I talked to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. In this episode, Brian shares his winding path while attending Berkeley and his first few years out of school from landing a VC internship his sophomore year to a junior year internship in the cross-border M&A group of JP Morgan in Hong Kong, to a jump to strategy consulting full time, learn some of his secrets to success during recruiting, as well as why he decided to join Google as an associate product manager. Enjoy. Ok, Brian, thanks so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast. It's great to be here. So I'd love to just give the listeners a short summary of your bio. Yeah, of
Bryan: [00:01:04] Course. Well, I'm currently at Google, where I'm a PM. I'm it's actually an interesting mix between PM and strategy and ops, so kind of straddling a bit between the product organization and then strategy and operations. A bit of that is because, before Google, I spent my time at Accenture as a strategy consultant and then before that worked in Hong Kong as a tech investment banker. So have kind of ping pong around different roles made my way into Big Tech where I am right now, but super, super excited to sit down and chat with you and help some of the folks on the pod and on YouTube and whoever is tuning in to learn a bit more about my journey and hopefully how that could help them.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:39] Awesome. Yeah, let's start at undergrad. So you were at Berkeley, right?
Bryan: [00:01:42] That's correct.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:43] Did you're in the school of business. Did you always know that you wanted to be a business major? When did that kind of come up?
Bryan: [00:01:49] Yeah, I got this question a lot. And what's funny enough is when I entered Cal, I was an intended political science major. I interned previously with the mayor of San Francisco, did a lot of work with community groups, local senators, state senators, soon realizing taking my first couple of Poli sci classes that this was not for me. We could get into the money later, but I was more interested in actually problem solving neat, challenging problems that could make the world a better place and figured that poly sci probably wasn't the best place to do that. Kept that in as a double major in public policy. But after meeting some friends and new mentors in the business space specifically and consulting clubs and business frats, they very persuasively convinced me that there is a future business specifically in investment banking and consulting, and to be perfectly frank. It's not like those spaces aren't full of social impact. Plenty of people in those spaces do plenty of fantastic work, but yeah, a really quickly dug myself into that rabbit hole. But yeah, to answer your question originally poli sci, but quickly got wrapped up in the business world.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:01] So by fresh and freshman year, would you say that you were like, OK, I'm going to go be a strategy consultant
Bryan: [00:03:07] Or really drank the Kool-Aid because you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:10] Said you did banking in Hong Kong? I did. Yes, right? That was that right out of school because I'm looking at your LinkedIn. It was. Yeah. So was it was banking on the radar. Like, was banking the first thing that kind of was like, Oh, this go.
Bryan: [00:03:23] One thing for anybody listening to this, if you're from Berkeley, then you definitely know what I'm talking about. But if you're not, and I would imagine this is the case for many, for many competitive schools is you have a lot of bright, talented kids cooped up in one corner of the world and a very limited supply of what people deign as prestigious opportunities or like career building opportunities. Right. And so everybody in their mom is trying to rush to the best spots. And so you have these student clubs, consulting clubs, business routes really congregate and cluster around investment banking consulting now, more recently, product and product management. And so because of this, when you get so caught up in the zeitgeist and kind of the fervor of trying to land a prestigious internship, landing a prestigious career, really getting your job, you know, off the feet. Yeah. I mean, for the most part, I kind of got sucked into investment banking first. It was always really ping pong between either investment banking and consulting. So I figured because investment banking recruiting was accelerated, it was probably the best bet to start with that first. And if that didn't work out, move into consulting, but did get an offer with JP Morgan did decide to take the risk averse option and take that. Yeah, but yeah, that's how
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:44] About like about the timing? You said it was accelerated recruiting. This is just typical for an office kind of banking or what is a specific division. And was this end of freshman year or like software really sophomore
Bryan: [00:04:56] For this was junior summer. So this was in there across borders, tech M&A practice in Hong Kong.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:02] Ok, cool. So you're you were interviewing for this when like in sophomore year, this is like sophomore
Bryan: [00:05:08] Spring. Yeah, sophomore, you come back in.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:10] Tell me a little bit about like, you know, everyone's like running around like resume drops like,
Bryan: [00:05:15] Oh, exactly. And I think looking back now, it was so ridiculous how much I cared about this and how much Sony people cared about this because I'm not even doing this anymore. I'm doing something what people would call wildly different. I don't regret my time. I think I learned so many things, met so many awesome people. But I think especially for college students listening to this, we consider internships, the end, all, be all. And we kind of pen ourselves into thinking, I have to land this awesome internship, land the conversion. And then from there do my two-three years lateral into private equity or a VC or what have you? Or maybe even stick around and see what happens. Yeah, but I think a lot of people think that this is the way and that there is no other way except kind of this one path. But hopefully, as we kind of go through my whining experiences ping pong between different roles, I hope people can understand that. I think number one, I don't regret a single thing I did. I loved each and every single one of my experiences, the good and the bad. What I love doing, what I didn't like doing. And I hope people can recognize that there are so many paths to meeting awesome people, making good money and solving genuinely awesome, but also challenging problems. And it doesn't require a specific skill set for, say, or a specific pedigree, background or even blue chip label on your resume.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:38] Yeah, for sure. I mean, you see that from all the talks I've had with people from various walks of life and people who didn't even graduate high school, other ones who were homeless actually make it. It's just pretty incredible people, you know, if they if they're driven enough. So but you're coming out of freshman year, you're kind of going into the summer freshman year, you're thinking, OK, banking's for I want to do banking. So were you starting like that whole summer or what were you doing like freshman summer? Were you networking? What were you? What was the goal? Kind of coming up knowing that there are resume drops soon
Bryan: [00:07:10] Coming in?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:11] So what does that even look like? Give me like, give the listeners like stats. If you have and if you remember, like, hey, I reached out to two hundred people or hey, I didn't do any of it and I just kept my Gpa high and whatever. Yeah, I know for sure.
Bryan: [00:07:25] I think my freshman year I interned in San Francisco. I snagged an internship with Wells Fargo in corporate banking. So not quite investment banking, but the advice I got was, oh, like, do something as close as possible to investment banking. So at Berkeley, for instance, there are a number of folks who snagged internships with, like other banks, some boutique funds. That traditionally was the way I'm actually noticing. Now a lot of students have more, like I would say, alternative internships, and I think banks are picking up and realizing that honestly, like, you don't need folks with direct finance expertise or experience. Yeah, if anything, I think banks are diversifying their candidate pools, which I think is a step in the right direction. And looking beyond like business and stem, but also to like the humanities and to other areas, especially for like non-target schools, especially. Yeah. Tell me about those
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:16] Alternative internships you mentioned, like any in mind that come to mind, like in terms of what you see?
Bryan: [00:08:21] Yeah. Well, I would say, you know, Berkeley is very tech-focused and what I've seen a lot is students interning at like NYC back start-ups. So like very early-stage start-ups. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:29] Hungry for new talent, they probably learn a lot more there than Wells Fargo.
Bryan: [00:08:33] You also get paid a lot less, but that doesn't matter because you're being paid an experience. Am I right? But I've seen a lot of like students like reach out to like y see start-ups. I actually know that y c has they actually have a great site where it's like you could actually search for jobs and even internships for see-backed companies and could filter by vertical, really filter by placement into y c into the tracks, et cetera? I know a lot of schools have very robust like VC scene, so Berkeley has Berkeley Sky deck, Hoss Incubator has accelerator free ventures. A lot of their portfolio start-ups and companies also have internships, so I think the university has something similar to that. Also a great way, and I think this is these are great because like, like you mentioned, Patrick, you learn a lot when you're put up in a Start-up and you have to be a jack of all trades. Yeah, you learn a lot of technical skills, but also like grit, stamina, endurance, all things that banks value. But especially if you're applying to, let's say, like a fintech or like TMT at a bulge bracket or a boutique, right? Having like operator experience, having experience like with boots on the ground in the trenches with the start-ups is very valuable and having that operator expertise, I would say, is a pretty big plus. Yeah, but in addition to that, I've seen, like I've seen a lot of folks like do classes there, their summer freshmen into sophomore year and they still land banking gigs for internships and for full-time roles. So I would really say it's not just about internship, it's about fully applying yourself. So make sure that this summer you are doing something. Yeah, whether that's an internship, taking summer classes or networking, to your point, I chatted with, I think, two hundred people over LinkedIn that summer. It was a lot. There's a lot of coffee chats, virtual.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:23] How many like, how many messages do you send? I assume didn't get a hundred percent hit rate, right? But maybe like a 20 percent hit rate,
Bryan: [00:10:28] It was like a five percent hit rate. It was something atrocious.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:32] But to get on the phone, you mean from just taking on the phone? Yeah, that's about right. That's actually not bad.
Bryan: [00:10:38] No, I was actually pretty proud of myself. And the way I tell a lot of folks who coffee chat me is, it really is a numbers game. You reach out to as many folks as possible. Start with the alumni because you have the closest connection to them and then work your way. Up the pipeline, yeah, but for every one hundred people you meet, maybe like 10, get back to you. Maybe five. And of those five of those 10, like maybe half is just a bust and you don't really resonate with them. But then of that half, I found friends for a lifetime mentors, coaches, people who are still in the field and I am not, but I still look up to for guidance and for support. Awesome.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:17] So you kind of like you did work pretty hard that summer, you know, doing Wells Fargo corporate banking, your networking pretty heavily, getting on phone calls every week or several every week. It sounds like as you're kind of going into sophomore year and you finish up that internship, are you thinking to yourself like, I got this in the bag? Are you nervous because it's super competitive at Berkeley? What's your thought process? Were you like me? Or you're like, overly confident and should have been?
Bryan: [00:11:44] It's interesting because I think there are times when I definitely did lean a bit too much and was a bit too overconfident. But I think to be perfectly candid, my principles are always has always been like, you can never be too prepared. Yeah, this could be good. This could also be bad. But I think in addition to recruiting for investment banking, there are also other concerns on the horizon. For Berkeley, for instance, you're not automatically in the business school, you have to actually apply. So if sophomore spring was the hurdle for investment banking, recruiting sophomore fall was a hurdle to actually get into the school of business. And for a lot of us, we consider this kind of the holy grail kind. The big push to work towards securing investment banking offers full disclosure. There's an equal amount of kids in cost. They get into making offers as like anywhere else at Berkeley. There's like engineering kids.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:38] So why is it such a big push? Honestly, is it just does it increase your odds or something like that?
Bryan: [00:12:45] I mean, you would think so, but honestly, like if you look at the numbers and my friends and I did, we actually like looked at like the incoming class across like the bulge brackets and even across like boutiques like Moelle as Perella Weinberg coming in from Berkeley, from Econ, from other schools. Yeah, and it's pretty much evenly split. There might be a slight bias to horse because a lot of these bankers do come from horse, but honestly, over the years.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:10] Yeah, pretty,
Bryan: [00:13:11] Pretty equal split. And I think it's the way horse brands itself is very similar to the way like investment banks or DNB or Google brands itself. Yeah, it's just
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:20] It's not game over if you don't get into hospitals.
Bryan: [00:13:23] But if that's the Tldr, essentially, yes.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:26] Ok, so you're basically getting through that hurdle, then you get in. Right. So you're like, OK, check mark. And then as recruiting is approaching, how many resume drops do you do, and then how many interviews does that convert to?
Bryan: [00:13:39] Oh, I think like every light, is there only 30, 30? I think it's like, yeah, around 30. And then of like of callbacks. Let me try to remember this feels like ages ago.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:56] Not that long ago,
Bryan: [00:13:57] I was like, Oh, years ago. Let's see JPMorgan, Morgan, of course, Wells Fargo. Morgan Stanley Goldman, this is your
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:06] First rounds
Bryan: [00:14:07] Or first round, so it was like five.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:09] Yeah. And so out of those first rounds, how many did you make the super days?
Bryan: [00:14:13] Jp Morgan and Wells Fargo.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:14] Ok, so you made it to super days. So good you can burn it about 40 percent and then they fly you. Or was it out here or West Coast or did you go East Coast?
Bryan: [00:14:25] I got flown over to New York for four JB and then for Wells Fargo is in San Francisco.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:31] Nice. Ok, so tell me how that went. What was it like? Just, you know, the usual stories of did you have to do a higher view and all that stuff? And then, yeah, it was.
Bryan: [00:14:39] I think it was the classic right where it's like you go through the higher view recycled through like the three like calling questions, telling you about yourself, yada had a phone screen as kind of like the first official round. I remember at this time I was also interviewing with some other companies, but for like a sophomore internship, not even for like the junior internship, because they kind of collided at the same time. Yeah. And so I actually remember being flown out for another final round for a software internship with a VC fund. And my flight got delayed in Salt Lake City in Utah, so I'd take my phone screen with JP Morgan at the airport there. Oh, that was pretty fun, and we actually had a good laugh about that. But yeah, I mean, besides the phone screen to phone screens, you know, classic pics of technical, especially with the junior bankers into the final round. The Wells Fargo final round was pretty. It was pretty. It was much simpler than I expected, and it was like actually a really good first final round or first Super Day to have. Yeah, it was basically three forty-five-minute interviews back to back. That's it. Ok. Two peas in one MD. And then with JP Morgan, I was expecting the same thing, but instead got like five forty-five-minute interviews back to back. And one of my interviews, like went a bit too over. So I didn't even get lunch break and just had to like zip on to the next. Oh my God, those were all white. So a little bit more nerve racking, a little more
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:09] Intense where they did the MDS. Was it more like good cop, bad cop like some of them were trying to be like, kind of tough on you and other ones were super nice and that kind of thing.
Bryan: [00:16:20] I remember I came out of a room and I saw a candidate walk out very calmly and then like, cry and then like, wipe away their tears and then move to the next room. I just determined it was just like, Oh, it's like, I'm rooting for you. But also it's like. I remember like the Wells Fargo one, in contrast, was a lot more. How do I put this? Not smooth. That's not the word I'm looking for, but definitely like easier. And if you actually like one, one thing I recognize is looking when I actually entered my interview data into the Wall Street Oasis database, which is a huge resource. I remember looking at other Wells Fargo interviews, and they also the same thing. It's like, Oh, it's like, OK, it's a. It wasn't just me. Like, it wasn't. It wasn't easy. It was just like everybody thought it was.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:07] The interview difficulties much higher for JPMorgan, I think.
Bryan: [00:17:11] Yeah, and Goldman and especially Morgan Stanley, I heard.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:14] Yeah. So tell me, OK, so you get the internship, you obviously get the offer. You're super excited. Tell me about kind of how you approach coming back to school and you know, you get the VC internship as well for this. I did. I did. Nice. So that's what you ended up doing that summer, which is good. Did. Were you worried at all like doing the VC internship that the bank wouldn't like?
Bryan: [00:17:37] So that was really that was a really momentous summer. Before that, I actually got the offer to go to either New York or Hong Kong. Because I could speak, I could speak Mandarin and Cantonese, and I express interest in cross-border M&A. Yeah, I chose Hong Kong because I'd worked in New York the summer previously and I wanted to see like, Oh, like this could be interesting and let's see here. And I think it's a lot easier to go from Hong Kong to New York than New York to Hong Kong for an American like me. Ok. And that summer was pretty momentous. On top of work and working eighty-one hundred hours and working not just Hong Kong hours, but also like San Francisco, New York City and London hours, because it was a cross-border team and doing some pretty cool deals. There are also the protests and twenty nineteen. Yeah. Like, you'd come back from work at two a.m. and you'd see the protesters going crazy at MTR in the Hong Kong subways and you would see like tear gas seeping into the subway. So me and my intern friends would like have to bike to where we lived instead. Hong Kong So JP Morgan's Hong Kong office is located in Central, which is actually where a large portion of the protests took place. The central is the finance hub. It's like the hub of like wealth and capital. It also tends to be where most of the politicians both. Hong Kong, but also like Chinese Communist Party's officials, tend to sit. So that's like the hot spot. Yeah, it's funny because all my friends at Morgan and Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong are like on the other side of the bay. They're like in Kowloon side, which is like, it was a lot more like chill, really like more commercial, not as political. You were in a war zone.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:20] You're like,
Bryan: [00:19:21] There are war zones in the office. Ours was in the office, but also in the streets. Oh my
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:25] Gosh, it's crazy, but you're like biking to and from your apartment or whatever whenever you got home, which wasn't too often, but.
Bryan: [00:19:33] That is also true, but so I think in terms of light, I think that also added a new element of stress where I was like, Oh my God, like, do I want to work in Hong Kong for the next two years when the economic and political future is uncertain? Yeah. A lot of us actually filed requests to like, go to like New York or go to London for me, mostly in New York, maybe even San Francisco. Yeah, the West Coast. But one of those requests weren't filled. And also, too, I also began to quickly realize that invest in banking. While I greatly enjoyed the rigor of the work, I actually was more interested in, like in the strategy of building a business and when companies like iPod, when they went public understanding like the fundamentals of like running a business, building a business and growing it, understanding what really drives the business and what makes it tick. Yeah, I realize that that really resonated with me more than simply like term sheets. I'm doing most of like financial modeling work, which was still interesting, but to me, I wanted to build up my strategy chops a bit more. So when I came back, I had a really long talk with some of my close friends and mentors, the ones I coffee chatted with, in fact. And ultimately, the consensus I reached both of them. But also, like just kind of soul searching on my own was that with this experience, it's possible. Like I could go into like Corp Dev or Corp Strat, which is always an option. Yeah, right. I knew I didn't want to do investment banking full time.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:09] Well, yeah, you had a pretty. It sounds like you had a pretty intense summer.
Bryan: [00:21:12] It was also a pretty intense summer
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:14] At the end of the summer. Were they giving you? Did they give you a full-time offer or are they? They did. And so you were just like, give me a few weeks to think about it kind of thing.
Bryan: [00:21:22] I said that I think around three times until they until like until an MD called me, and I remember it was like two a.m. He's like, What's the deal? Pacific Time. But I saw, like I saw the number was from Hong Kong and I was like, Oh, no. Yeah, like, it's from them. So I had to pick up and had a very candid chat with her as well. But yeah,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:44] Yeah. And you just shared that it wasn't for you and. And what made you I mean, that's a tough decision to make at that young age, you know, you're told you're chasing this dream of investment banking, but then you experience it and you're like, Wait a second. Do I really want to do this for two years? So what gave you kind of the strength? I assume it was some of the mentors saying like, Well, you can do consulting or whatnot. It was that that type of conversation around. How did you get comfortable turning down such an incredible offer? I think there were. That's probably why it took you so many weeks.
Bryan: [00:22:17] Yeah, yeah. Three. It took me like it was more than three weeks. It was like, I think, five weeks. I asked them to extend like a full month because usually it's like you, except in two weeks. I asked for a month after that and they did graciously extend that. But I think really, there are three things I incurred on. No one was what I professionally wanted to do. Yeah. Two is what I personally wanted for myself in terms of like. Work-life balance, but also like family and like being close to family. And the third one is a bit personal, and I'll touch upon that last, but I think that was actually the most important one. Mm hmm. Actually speaking, like I mentioned earlier, investment banking, you build a great fundamental skill set as it relates to, let's say, like for cross-border M&A, like financial modeling, M&A modeling. But I think to understanding like the actual levers of building a business, advising a business, taking it from point A to point B, having aspirations of maybe even like joining like an early stage start up or even building one myself with great co-founders, invest in banking is great for, let's say, like raising money, but not maybe not so much for actually building something. And that's where I want to realign my skill set towards personally. Um. Comedy of the hours. What was going on in Hong Kong and the very low visibility and transparency on what transfer requests could meaningfully look like in one or two years time also scared me because I knew I didn't want to return to Hong Kong. I want to at least stay in the United States, which kind of leads me to my third bucket during the summer. One of my close friends passed away and I had realized that I've been chasing. I've been chasing what I wanted, but was what I wanted, what I really wanted. And I realized that being close to family, being close to friends, having time for friends and having time for family and prioritizing them rather than work, especially in a foreign city, in a foreign country suddenly became much, much more meaningful. And it's sad that it takes a tragedy for us to realize, but sometimes it really does take something to hit you in the face for you to recognize what's truly important.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:39] Yeah, it's tough. I mean, it sounds like you had some good reasons to change gears, and so tell me how you went into senior year just started. Case interviews started.
Bryan: [00:24:49] I had this crazy idea start from scratch. But even with those good reasons, I still felt torn making decisions, which kind of goes back to what you said, where it's like you could be given what you could have been chasing for your entire two years of college. Not a long time, but it means a lot to a lot of folks.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:08] Do you feel like you would? You would have done it if you had been in New York if you hadn't done the Hong Kong thing?
Bryan: [00:25:12] Yeah. Honestly, like, I probably would have taken it if it was in New York. Yeah. And now a part of me was like, so grateful that I did go to Hong Kong to see what had happened to had worked there and kind of had everything full the way it is right now. But in terms of senior recruiting, had to start from scratch, I figured though having J.P. on my resume would be a huge boost. And it was, I think, what I tell a lot of folks who reach out to me is it's not that having a brand name is the definitive like what like end will be all. But it does really help. And if you want to reduce risk and optimize your chances of being seen and being heard, Yeah, I'm as fortunate as it is like having a blue chip name does raise your visibility.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:55] Yeah, so pretty much how it increases your conversions of first round interviews, basically.
Bryan: [00:25:58] Oh, absolutely.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:00] You can still bomb it. If you're still bad at the interview, you can't help. But yeah,
Bryan: [00:26:04] And that's that was exactly the case with me. I had never cased up to this point was like very much into the finance grind set and got a little cocky and thought to myself, OK, well, it can't be that hard. Like, I'll just, you know, like I'll slap together like my JP bullet points kind of neatly align everything else. Make sure it's all spick and span. Apply to like NB Deloitte, Accenture E.Y, Parthenon Lake Profit, like all the names and then see from there. What's hilarious? What was hilarious is for consulting. I got interviews with pretty much every consulting company I applied to. I think 10 interviews had back-to-back interviews, which I would not recommend. You get overwhelmed really quickly. Recruiting is definitely a marathon, not a sprint, and you could burn yourself out. And what's funny is the companies I interviews first were the only companies like I needed to kind of like Super Day with and then get the offer. So it's like I have like Accenture and then McKinsey and then like Deloitte C e Parthenon and then BCG and Bain like kind of after that at the time,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:18] You're like, No, I literally it was like a fire.
Bryan: [00:27:21] And then the fire fizzles out to an ember until it becomes non-existent.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:25] Oh, that's odd, I would say. Usually the reverse happens where you get the reps. You just get so much better and better as you can. But maybe you already had the case interview down cold and it was just more like, you're just getting tired. So you're saying you did that many first rounds, like over how many days?
Bryan: [00:27:41] I think it was 10 first rounds over two weeks or like a week and a half, really, it was like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday break Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday kind of deal.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:52] Wow. Yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot of cases.
Bryan: [00:27:55] But yeah, and then from there, it's like I got. They had four final rounds and then all those final rounds, I got offers with Accenture and McKinsey, but the kicker with McKinsey was that it was in Hong Kong. They actually asked me in the middle, in the middle of the first round, it was like, Oh, like if Hong Kong experience like, would you be interested in like interviewing with our Hong Kong team? And I thought if I said no, that would hurt me. And I thought to myself, like, OK, like increase like optionality, make myself like seem flexible. Yeah. No. Because then the Hong Kong partners were really excited to talk with me. And then my final round was with Hong Kong specifically.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:33] That's a great piece of advice right there for anyone.
Bryan: [00:28:35] So that's I think b not it's not that be greedy, but like focus on what you want first, like, do not prioritize what a company wants, like, focus on you. Because even if you don't get the company, you would re-join a team that did not prioritize you or we're not a valued what you want to achieve and what you want to grow into and what you want to develop as an entry-level analyst. So be greedy.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:58] It was probably a lower risk play to say yes, just to make sure you got an offer. Yeah. That is also it's not a
Bryan: [00:29:06] It's like if you were fine, if you were, if you would in that position, if you were fine with going back to Hong Kong and dealing with that, you perfect move. Yeah, if you weren't like me, you should not have.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:17] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Ok, so you're. And through these, you get these offers, you say, no, I'm actually going to stay in the U.S. and be close to family to you, start up with censure and tell me about that whole, that whole kind of stint there and what happened there in terms of like, you know, obviously you graduated. Everyone's happy. Yay. Yeah. And then the real world hits and you're now a consultant. So tell me what was that like kind of going from school to this and then how it evolved for you to kind of even in June and kind of a crazy, crazy time, while it was a crazy time when you joined, so I'd love to just hear about that.
Bryan: [00:29:54] It was the double whammy of graduating and then graduating in a pandemic. So like up to this point, like longest bull market class of twenty nineteen twenty eighteen like had just like stellar like placement rates, graduation rates, like a nice, comfortable professional home to find themselves in. And I was really grateful to have found that before the pandemic hit, and then things really went crazy. But a lot of things are robbed from you and this is advice for any like incoming consultants or anybody who aspires to enter that space, because a lot of things have changed from what my friends call the golden age of consulting, where travel was expensed, hotels were paid for free food, the ability to like travel. The work was intense, not as intense as investment banking, but there's a difference between being able to work with your team and really get to know them and bond with them. Yeah, and travel versus getting drunk in your childhood bedroom and a team social. Having not seen like sunlight in the past two weeks grinding on Excel models and PowerPoint decks, it is a very different vibe.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:04] Yeah, and much more depressing vibe mean it is much more depressing.
Bryan: [00:31:08] I think it was. It was fun for the first bit, the novelty, and I was really lucky to have been staff on some really kick ass projects. Obviously can't go into too much detail, but in my first six months got staffed on a go to market for a fintech company looking to launch a small business banking product for start-ups got tapped into an internet companies go to market for a new product launch in Indonesia. I may or may not be working for that company now. And that may or may not have been the way that I networks my way. I'm still learning a bit more about the team and about the folks who are part of the team. But I think two things dawned on me. No one remote work sucked. I'm not going to lie. I think remote work is really great for working moms and dads, for people with families and children to take care of with obligations. But I think when you're young, you're exactly right. But I think, you know, when you're fresh out of college, the opportunity for mentorship, coaching, for sponsorship, for visibility and really getting to know who you're working with, It's a lot more limited and something I've actually seen from a lot of engagement managers and like principals I've talked with is that it's not that the quality of analysts have dipped. It's just that it is so much harder to train and up-skill new talent the way that we used to do. And so for me, some quick realizations, I was not getting the face time in the visibility I wanted. I wasn't learning the skills I really wanted to. I had some really great projects, but from there, as kind of a big like ceiling in terms of like, what else could you do? Could you work on those projects or is It another due diligence which was really popular during COVID 19, but not my cup of tea? Yeah. But also, like you mentioned, the summer of Twenty One was crazy for hiring because you have companies like Google, apple, Microsoft, amazon, all the big tech companies and really old many companies in general, just having blowout quarters and just ramping up hiring like crazy. And so of course, the first people that are going to poach our consultants, people who are overworked, really tired, really looking for that nice famed fabled work-life balance, but also like a two X pay check as well. Yeah. And I think it was the perfect storm and it was the right time at the right place where the Google team that I've been working with, spoiler alert, actually reached out to some consultants across the board letting to know that there's some openings at the same time. One of my mentors and actually just moved into Google and was telling me about so many new spots being opened up in the product and strategy and ops org. So I shot my shot applied and now I'm here.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:59] It's amazing. So tell me a little bit about like just the process of, You know, obviously you kind of had inside kind of rode with your mentor and all that stuff. So getting the interview made was that hard. But you know, Google has is pretty famous for being tough in the interview. Maybe more on the engineering side, but tell me it was the PM strategy type interview tough as well. Like, were they really testing you on like any of your financial modeling stuff? Or was it all like geared toward strategy and like cases?
Bryan: [00:34:30] Yeah, great question. Google has a very quantitative process when it comes to recruiting, and hopefully this insight is helpful for you and for any folks listening and tuning into this. What I mean by quantitative is that everything is scored. So your resume your phone screen with a recruiter, the questions they ask, like literally every single question, comes with a score. And so everything is like optimized when it comes to that way. You have to hit a certain threshold to be considered for the next interview. What's most interesting is that the folks who interview you actually don't decide if you get an offer. That honor is reserved for the hiring committee, which is composed of five to seven senior folks or directors, even VIPs, depending on the level or title of the role you're entering. Those are the folks that actually look through your hiring packet, all the scores that we just mentioned, and then they make the decision. So the people who interview you don't actually make the call. They just advocate for you. Got it. That's essentially their role. But in terms of the actual like, the contents of the interview obviously can't speak too much about that. Yeah, but especially for four product managers, it's definitely a lot of it's very case based.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:44] So similar like consulting cases and stuff like that.
Bryan: [00:35:48] Yeah. And I would say the key here is, I think two things that I offered my mentor that really helps me and hopefully it could help you. Number one, consulting cases are very broad and they're not very deep, so they don't test specific expertise. They test your ability to adapt and to essentially abstract generally and solve problems accordingly. Now for a Google or for an Amazon or any specific tech company, their cases will be a lot more focused, a lot more targeted and it will. Command a specific degree of comfort with a subject matter. So in consulting, if you get like an oil and gas client, you don't need to know everything about like, Oh, where are the geographic hot spots for drilling? You don't need to know, like how gasoline is priced per litre or the economics of running a gas chain or vertical versus horizontal integration for Google. If you apply to a specific team, you better. You better know what you're talking about when it comes to that team. So if you're applying to Google Cloud not knowing what the cloud is, you're probably to get screwed in the case. If you apply to like Google next billion users, that's a really exciting team like building products for the next generation of internet users in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia. You better know you better have a working knowledge of those markets. So let's like if you don't know,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:05] Like where did you apply? Like, what groups did you apply to? And I didn't even know you could do that. So, yeah, educate us on just that process of like, OK, I want to apply for, like you said, cloud resample. How did you even, you know, it sounds like they had openings everywhere
Bryan: [00:37:19] Because they'd open everywhere. And for me, I just applied to them all.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:23] Actually, can you back up and tell me like the level you're applying to and let's talk real quick about comps? Essentially, I assume it was close to six figures, if not 90 90 ish base. But like minimal bonus, you don't even stay for the whole year. So is that accurate? Yeah. Six figures. Yeah, six figures. And then question had they bumped it because of all the banks bumping?
Bryan: [00:37:44] They did. That's what I thought. I think Accenture is when I joined, it was 90 K. Now it's one hundred k, I believe.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:51] Yeah. Ok. And then is the base similar as an associate product? So Associate PM is that not a full? Is that below the PM like an assistant almost to the main PM? Or what does that mean?
Bryan: [00:38:05] I would say less assistant more. The way a Google, the way we frame it is, there's L three. For the most part, there's L twos, but mostly like four for four engineering product, et cetera. It's like L three to L nine. Ok, well, those al 10. But that's Sundar Pichai, the CEO. But L nine is like VP like you report to like two. Sundar Late is director. L7 is like group product manager. It's like a group. It's like kind of like a principal in that regard. And then from L three have associate product manager for product manager L five senior product manager, then L six, which is essentially just a senior product manager Part two. But yeah, some folks are called product leads. So if you see a product lead and their LinkedIn or the description there and L6, got it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:55] Awesome. Ok, so that's helpful. So is this pretty standard if like you only have a year or so of experience out of school to go for the associate PM role? Is that like are they hiring people out of undergrad for that? Or are they know what's the kind of range?
Bryan: [00:39:10] Yeah. So on one side of the APM program, you have very technical folks honestly act more in an engineering capacity than one would expect. So those are technical PMS. And then on the other side, you have, I think, what most people would think of as PMS to kind of more of like an influencer or a driver for a product roadmap, speaking with users, speaking with other cross-functional stakeholders, especially sales or legal. But yeah, there's kind of like two sides of the coin. Google typically hires for technical PMS, so most of the positions we see are for technical. Yeah. And honestly, the only way you can differentiate the two is just at the off. The job description asks for technical expertise because you're
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:53] Dealing with more developers in that
Bryan: [00:39:55] Working more with developers.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:56] So are you. So you got one of the kind of few PM associate PMS. It's not technical, I assume, because you're doing a comp sci background or anything, but what I can tell unless you did it on the side. And then so I guess you can similarly just keep progressing up through the ranks, even though it's not a technical role, it's still not an issue. So what's the oh? And then I forgot to ask you, so you said the pay is better is that is the cash comp similar and it's mostly through options and stuff like that that that the upside is, is there or how does it work?
Bryan: [00:40:29] Everything is better based. When I saw there was also for the program, there's actually a there's rotations. So if you typically if you were like a new grad or intern, convert into full time your rotation one. If you're an experienced hire level me, you actually get placed into rotation too. So you can have the rotation, but your kind of promotion is also halved. So, OK, I would be promoted this year. It's awesome. So the compensation is just dads. Let's see. They actually I just got a pay bump too, so I could base it off that. But the base is one hundred and thirty-five K and then you get eighty kin. Restricted stock units invested over four years, and then you could get anywhere from a 15 to 20 five percent performance bonus on your base, 15 percent is actually a baseline. So that's not even like, yeah, you're terrible, like. And if you keep this up, you're out of the company. That's actually rare at Google, too. You could we have like performance ratings and you could. I've heard stories of folks getting like the worst possible score for like years and never getting fired. It's like job security is pretty unlike in consulting where you get coached out, like very aggressively sometimes. Big Tech is like very much the opposite.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:51] Awesome. Yeah, thanks for sharing those numbers. So, Brian, before we call the pod any kind of final words of wisdom you'd share based on your winding path?
Bryan: [00:41:58] Yeah, I would say I could kind of segment it for folks who are still in college and then folks who are post-grad for folks in college. I know it seems that you have to get to the next point A to point B, to point C to the next golden internship, converting to a full time offer, get A's, et cetera. Something I wish I had known earlier. Is living and enjoying life and spending it more intentionally with the people I love. Be it friends or be it family, because work will always be there. You work so hard, you grind it out for God's sake. You're like listening to this podcast and like, you're ostensibly what is your free time? So I can only assume that you are an incredibly hard worker and you're serious about this and you're going to kick ass. But I would say it's oftentimes we forget about the more important things in life. So make space, enjoy life because you're going to look back on college as some of the best years of your life and you do not want to have spent it grinding for you. Do not want to remember college as a time when you stressed out about a dumb internship that you probably will forget by the time you're in your thirties and forties for the post grads. I know it can be really stressful, especially when everybody says that this economy is booming and it's a workers market, but still so competitive and you feel like everybody in their mom is gunning for the same spots. My advice is there's only so much an individual can do really lean in on your network and on your community, and if you don't have one, create one. Reach out to me on LinkedIn, which also has a really welcome, open, engaged community that helps each other out. So make the most of the resources available to you and reach out to folks like me, Patrick and anybody else to again build your network. Learn from us. And hopefully from there, find doorways and open whether it could be through referrals through me, or by chatting with other people and learning about entirely new spaces that you've never heard of. Teams that are hiring that no one's heard about, but that be my advice for those two types of people,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:59] Not the prime. Thanks so much for taking the time and think very wise words and hopefully everyone's taking notes. Thank you so much, Patrick, and thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street Oasis. If you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis dot com. And till next time.
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