http://www.princeofwallstreet.com/2008/01/29/so-y…
The Prince has always said that hardest thing about cracking into banking is getting the interview. Getting an interview as a result of the recommendation of a previous manager is even more difficult but far more valuable. The first section of this post is going to deal with how to get the interview. The second will offer some advice from my interview experience and that of my friends. This guide is a little bit late considering summer analyst recruiting is quickly coming to a close but the advice offered here will be applicable to subsequent years.
Getting the Interview and Creating Advocates: "Press Some Flesh and Get on the Phone"
The Prince and my friends have always tried to network extensively throughout our summer analyst jobs with our co-workers and employees in different groups. There is nothing like the head of desk walking up to you after you have become friends and telling you that if there is anything you need in the future or you want to work for them next summer to just pick up the phone. An unsolicited plug by your superior to the head of a group you would like to work for is invaluable. Your boss setting up a lunch, dinner, or golf outing with the head of the group you would like to work for will put you way above the other applicants. This isn’t to say that recommendations alone are going to get you a job. They are going to give you an advantage and they are going to help you get an interview. Considering, that the majority of people will not even get a first round interview, creating your own luck through networking is a must. Some institutions won’t give you a first round if you don’t have a contact that knows you inside the firm. Apply to as many banks as you want to work at. Many times, just like college admissions or dating (according to some of my friends), banking job hunting is a contact sport. You have to play the odds. If you apply to ten places you may get three interviews. In the process I describe below put extra work into your top three employers.
For those of you that have never had a finance related job and are therefore unable to build a network of supporters inside a given firm, all is not lost. The Prince is constantly asked by younger college students about where to begin. All too often, students ask this question way to late, i.e. once the recruiting season has begun. At least a year before you plan to start applying through the regular process for full-time or summer analyst jobs you need to start laying the groundwork. Now I’m not talking about just reading the Vault Guide or the reading list I put forward, The Prince is talking about pressing some flesh and getting on the phone. Start by sitting down and making a list of everyone you know in the financial industry. Prioritize them by how close they are to the bank or team you want to work for. Consider your relationship with them and what you know of their personality. Try to pick a half dozen family friends, school friends, alumni, etc. that work in the industry and you believe would serve as your advocate in the application process. They don’t need to be from the firm you want to work for or even necessarily working in the same area of business you are interested in. For example, if you want to work in banking an introduction from a family friend in sales and trading, prime brokerage, and possibly even private wealth will still get you credibility. Speak with professors that still keep in touch with their students that went into finance. A professor picking up the phone to a past student to recommend you has worked wonders for some of my friends. Talk to your school’s investment club and maybe talk to a development officer at your school to get up-to-date ideas on alums in the industry who would be willing to help students break into the industry. If you have no one you can think of off the top of your head ask your parents if they have any friends that they could setup lunches with. If that is also fruitless just pick up the phone and call recruiting at a hand full of banks where you will be applying. Get the numbers, emails, etc. of a few junior analysts in the groups you want to work in. Then setup phone calls or if possible coffee meetings to pick their brains and put a personality behind your application. The junior people are going to read the applications and grant interviews so just chatting with them will give you an advantage. You are never going to make an impression meeting analysts at an information session at your school. Picking up the phone and getting it done will make you stand out. In fact, skip the information sessions since they really don’t add any value to your search if you already know the basics of where you are applying. Yet, we want to go beyond just meeting the analysts.
Once you have your contact list of possible advocates start setting up meetings. Differ to whomever you are trying to contact on times and venue, etc. You are a college student and everything is negotiable. If the head of a group at Goldman wants to meet you in New York and not just do a phone conversation get on the next plane or train to NYC to do that meeting. Every meeting or phone conversation you do should lead to another handful of contacts and recommendations. Genuinely seek the advice of everyone you meet. Be realistic with them and convey to them your attitude about working in the industry. Search for information about the culture of where they work and get as much information about personal interests and hobbies of your contact as possible. if you can get info about the interests of the people your contacts recommend that is also great information. Don’t ask them bullshit questions that get answered at any information session. Avoid asking them things they probably don’t know or would feel uncomfortable talking about. Get your contacts talking about themselves, their accomplishments, and their experiences, good or bad. Some of these initial contacts may become your future coworkers and some may advocate for you in the application process. Getting someone within the firm to "sponsor" you is fantastic. Even if your initial contacts don’t advocate for you the people they lead you to may. From one contact in a bank you could easily speak with nearly 20 people in the bank by asking questions at the end of your meetings like, "Who should I talk to next, or who would you say I need to meet?" I have seen people turn 3 meetings into 30 and multiple offers using this method. Sometimes these informal meetings turn into job interviews or lead to interviews outside of the regular process. If that happens, you know you have followed The Prince’s advice well. At the end of the day financial services are sales jobs and anyone who wants to work in this business has to be able to sell themselves. The book The Prince, and many of his superiors, regularly read to work on sales and influencing people is Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Read it, study it, and apply it and these meetings The Prince has discussed above will be golden. So at this point if you are lucky, you will already be engaged in interviews setup by the contacts you gleaned in the above process and have powerful advocates all over Wall Street. The worse position you could find yourself in after this plan is knowing a lot more about the career you want to work in and being more than a number to those who will read your application. Either way it is worth it. I have rarely met anyone who applied through the regular process without meeting anyone at his or her target firm prior to interviews and got a job. It just doesn’t happen that often. It is just too competitive and your competition is really qualified (and probably pressing flesh using a system similar to what The Prince details above).
Interviewing : No About What You Know, More About Connecting and "Getting It"
To begin, it is inexcusable to miss or stumble on any vaguely technical or lay-up question during an interview. These include questions like "Why this firm?", "Why investment banking?", "How do you calculate WACC?", "What are the ways to value a company?", "What do investment bankers do?", etc. etc. Do your homework and game these questions out in advance. At the very least, know everything in the Vault and WetFeet guides cold. These easy questions are the simplest way to separate out those who have done their homework from those that don’t have a chance. Go to your friends who have been through the process to do mock interviews and seek advice. If you do 15 mock interviews with seniors at your school that have jobs or with alums in the industry you are going to kill the real interviews. Don’t lie or exaggerate anything on your resume. Always be conservative with this rule. If your school has a business school on campus go to the career counselors there or ask a friend in business school to give you the resume guides they use. There is a very specific style of resume used to apply for banking jobs by MBA students and if you use it at the undergrad level it will set you apart. Little things business school resume tips like starting every line with an action verb or conservative formatting will go a long ways. Remember, you only have about 15-30 seconds to be evaluated based on your resume. Plant things in your resume that are going to make people interviewing you want to ask questions. If you won a contest for hunting mushrooms back in Russia, put that on your resumes. Teasers that peak people’s interests always work wonders.
Setting aside the basics of interviewing and resume preparation there are a few subtle techniques that will give you a leg up. First, never forget someone’s name and use their name in conversation. Speak to them on a first name basis during your interview if they introduce themselves that way. Second, the best interviews are those where none of the easy questions get asked. When your interviewers don’t bother to ask you technical questions or the standard questions you know that they are truly sizing you up for a job in their group. The Prince’s best interviewers were about growing up in Europe, fly fishing, skiing, college basketball, etc., not about describing for me the significance of an equity beta. If you interview is purely technical then you have failed to connect with the interviewer and don’t expect an invite to the next round. The people who are interviewing you know that you can do the work. They want to see if you are someone that can work with. Do they like you as a person? Could they see you hanging out with them at a bar? Would they want to be stuck at the office with you on a Saturday night?
If you connect with your interviewer and don’t get a single technical or throwaway question then you have done your job. Ask lots of questions during the interview. Frame the interview and direct it where you want it to go. Take control, the interviewer won’t care so long as you let the interviewer do most of the talking. People love to hear themselves talk and they love to talk about themselves. Ask as many questions about your interviewer and his or her experiences as possible. Have good questions ready for your interviewer. If you are interviewing in sponsors ask the interviewer relevant questions about private equity industry dynamics. Mention buyouts that that group worked on or congratulate them on a buyout they just did the advising or financing on. Demonstrate your awareness of what is going on in their niche without sounding like you know to much. Name drop excessively, especially the names of any advocates you think you have from your networking within the firm.
Finally, you have to convey to them that you "get it". This is the toughest thing to teach and the toughest thing to describe. You have to show them that you are not naive but you are also not arrogant (i.e. think you know more than you do, i.e act or talk like the Prince writes). You have to have a realistic and positive attitude about the job. A good way for someone to see if you get it is to ask a question like this, "Why on earth would you want to do this job? I mean last night I slept under my desk, my buddy over there slept on the conference table, and my girlfriend isn’t taking my calls because I stood her up three nights last week. How are you going to deal with the unpredictable lifestyle and are you aware of how terrible it is? You’re young, you could do so many other things, why go through this hell?" The correct answer to that steam of questions is not, "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, investment banking, I know all that and I’m ready," because you’re not ready and you really have no idea what it is actually like. You better have a damn good answer to this question and it better be realistic. It better demonstrate your understanding of the less glamorous side of banking because that is the side of the job you will experience most often. Just admit that you won’t really know if banking is for you until you have experienced it. This is especially good to say when you are applying for a summer because it shows that you are willing to walk away if it isn’t for you after working a summer. Displaying a subtle industry knowledge and sense of humility will make the interviewer think you get it.
The Prince wants to close this rather long post with a story that focuses on this very nebulous idea of some interviewees "getting it" when other don’t. Getting it is about not coming off as arrogant, naive, or uncreative. It is conveying a very real and mature understanding of your position within the power structure of the firm and the industry. To the story I was promising. One summer The Prince was playing golf with his boss and a senior MD at Goldman Sachs. This MD was the head of a business at Goldman and had been there his entire career. He was very well respected and a great golfer. After the round, The Prince was asked by the MD about a good friend of The Prince, who had applied to work in the MD’s group. The Prince’s friend had worked at a different bank than the MD’s that summer but in the same group as the MD. The Prince gave a glowing review of his friend and genuinely believed everything he said to the MD. The Prince covered his friend’s sports exploits, interests, affinity for good bullshit, wonderful girlfriend, strong character, stellar academic qualifications, and his great personality. The Prince also expressed the opinion that his friend would fit in really well with the MDs group. The MD looked at The Prince and said, "All that stuff is great but does ——- ‘get it’, you know." I looked at him somewhat perplexed, so he continued, "I don’t want to hire someone to work for me who is just checking off another box. Someone who is just trying to go into sales and trading at Goldman because that’s just what one does after Phillips Andover, to Princeton, to high honors in biochemistry. I want someone who really ‘gets it’ and understands what we do and their place in that. Someone who wants to be in this industry for the right reasons and wants it badly. I am talking about seriously motivated and ambitious individuals." Then he finally said, "Does you friend ‘get it’" I looked at him and said "—- gets it." My friend got the job but ultimately turned it down for another firm, a move which I will never understand (come on its Goldman Sachs, reputation, prestige, and perceptions are everything) but ultimately lead to him being happy. The Prince apologizes for how over dramatic the story above is now that it is in print but I think it illustrates how seriously many people take this quality they are looking for in interviewees. This particular MD certainly isn’t the only person in finance I have run into who is searching for people who ‘get it’ for their team.
To all those who read this entire thing, bravo to you. Finally, To all of you eager college students dying to crack into finance to make your fortune the Prince has two words for you. Happy hunting.
Keep it Humble,
The Prince
Previous Post in the Series: "So You Want to Be An Investment Banker"
Next Post in the Series: "Getting the Offer: Life as a Summer Analyst"
Sorry about the infrequency of posting last week. My girlfriend’s birthday and school related commitments kept me away from the computer.
Some books and resources The Prince recommends for interviews.
Mergers and Inquisitions - This is the most complete and correct investment banking career advice blog I have found.
Previous Reading List from "So You Want to Be An Investment Banker"
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
The Fast Track: The Insider’s Guide to Winning Jobs in Management Consulting, Investment Banking, & Securities Trading by Mariam Naficy
Vault Guide to Finance Interviews
Vault Guide to Top 50 Banking Employers
Vault Career Guide to Investment Banking
Vault Employer Profiles
WelFeet Investment Banking Interview Guides
