Coffee meeting gone wrong - Can I bounce back?
Hi monkeys,
I met up with an MD at a BB for coffee today and it didn't really go well. Some preface: this was my first time meeting someone above an analyst in the industry so the nerves were definitely a factor in this.
We meet up and its going great but then I essentially blank out when he asks me why Investment Banking. I had a whole response written out prior about why I chose to study finance, why my background led me to where I am and where I want to go. That all went out the window and I said some shit about client interactions. I think. Anyways it went down hill from here. He followed that up with a question on whether I like chess or blackjack more. I played blackjack last weekend so I went with that without much hesitation. He said no wrong answers but boy I was wrong. He then went on for around 5 minutes on why an Investment Banker would pick chess. Whoops. So the conversation wasn't really the best and he suggested I apply to more than just his BB and to not forget about middle market and boutique firms. Also he highly stressed I should apply to junior analyst programs upon graduation as I come from a non target and its my best bet in.
How do you all feel this went and how should I try to recover from my mess ups?
Just follow up with a thank you email and ask if there are any colleagues or alums he would recommend you reach out to.
That's about all you can do. Chances are he won't remember the bad parts and the more chances you have to get somebody else to stand up for you if he makes a stink about it the better.
Might not be the best move to admit you panicked in what should be a low stress situation when you're expected to be precise/put togethered in actual high stress situations. I'd just move on tbh
Probably a no go with this MD and the bank - not sure why the hell he lectured you about chess/checkers...who the F*ck cares.
It's a behavioral/informational interview, guys...no shit the MD is going to have something prepackaged like this that is nonetheless a decent metric of how people think. I highly doubt OP's answer to the chess question did him in...
That being said, blackjack is a deterministic game where the player exerts zero agency on their odds of winning aside from counting cards/understanding combinatoric statistics. Every move is a simple odds calculation - that's it.
Chess is a game that involves recognizing and knowing the strengths/weaknesses in your opponent's strategy, being able to juggle lots of interrelated loose ends, set traps, capitalize on structure of the piece deployments, understand where and how this game was played before, and by whom, and to do all of this while sticking to a time limit.
It's a pretty fucking obvious question to answer correctly if you've ever played chess and blackjack. Probably even if you only have a passing knowledge of the two games.
If you haven't heard of chess or blackjack, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Also, for anyone thinking that the correct answer to this question has to do with something two-dimensional like which has the better odds of a victory, do you really think the MD gives much of a shit about your theorization re: the odds?
For anyone thinking the correct answer has to do with what you actually like to do in your spare time, do you think the MD gives a shit about this?
Clearly a not-so-subtle "how do you like to think?" sort of question.
Do you have any shared interests with the MD? For example, if you are pretty good at golf and the MD likes golf, then ask him to play a game with you.
That way you'd be doing something in your wheel house and you can try to set a more positive tone.
Don't do this. No MD is going to spend anymore time than a coffee meeting.
Asking to play golf with him is just weird.
Just make sure that you sign off as "-Rain Man" in your email. Seriously though, do it. What do you have to lose at this point? It will be fucking hilarious...
MD sounds full of himself (what a shocker), but his intuition was sensible in one thing...
You should have strong reasons for what you want to do in life. I don't just mean you OP, but rather every person
You shouldn't need to rehearse an answer of why you want to pursue a particular career - it should flow out of you with mad excitement, burst through your veins with thunderbolts of enthusiasm, and be so fully internalized that no thought at all is required to string together the words to answer that question. Maybe I'm exaggerating slightly, but if you actually need to rehearse the answer to such a question, then I would seriously reevaluate your future plans
Every time I've interviewed someone, my primary goal was to figure out their why. What drives them, what inspires them. Because ultimately, that's what will make the difference in the long run. All those late nights, and inconsiderate assholes, and brutal office politics, and frequent disappointments - it's not easy. And it will be very difficult to keep persevering through all of that if your only motivation is dollars and some arbitrary notion of status. You need something more, in order to be able to power through all of the challenges and struggles that await you
Sure, it's nice to hear correct answers to a bunch of technical questions that you can find in some book or canned responses to generic interview style fit nonsense that you can rehearse, but none of that ever dominated my final impression of someone. What I always look for is that offhand remark, that quirky way in which a sentence was phrased, the brief glimmer or acceleration of their voice, which gives me a small window into the inner world of their dreams
Imagine this. You get down on one knee to propose to a woman you've known for many years, and right after you pop the question, she looks straight into your eyes and asks, "Why do you want to marry me?" And you pause for a bit, and then respond, "Hold on, I just froze up. So much pressure. Let me reach into my pocket and grab my notes"