What Makes a Company Interesting and Challenging Enough to Retain Top Talent? (Part I)

I am interested in finding out what it is that drives young professionals to join a company and what key traits do those firms need to have to keep talented individuals to stay at the same firm. It's clear the firm must offer competitive compensation and keep the performers engaged and challenged enough to forgo alternatives to and stay but how much do the intangibles factor in? When I interviewed for 3 times with the same firm (undergrad, internship and post MBA), which was a top 3 bulge bracket firm and each I time failed miserably I still somehow convinced myself that was where I needed to work. The interviews were humiliating, the questions ranged from indifferent (e.g. discussing basketball) to highly detailed finance questions that I would have picked a few weeks after I'd been on the job but the goal seemed to be to show their superiority over us mere mortals. Despite my challenging path to Investment Banking, which included a 2 year stint at a foreign bank in a glorified internship that was practically unpaid, I persevered and ended up at a boutique in an area of IB I didn't even know existed (Cross-Border and Domestic Structured Tax Leasing). I arranged the interview through a friend of a friend and met with 40 people out of the firms 60 professionals globally before I was hired and was the first hire they made out of graduate school without experience in the industry.

This was all a lead in to my point regarding the X factor that isn't quantifiable and hard sometimes to identify when you have limited exposure to the inner workings of a company that you're interviewing with. The firm ended up becoming one of the leaders in global Cross Border finance and anyone (sans a few entitled MBAs that are the exception not the rule) would appreciate in terms of limited egos and massive brain power all flying under the radar. What set this firm apart was it's culture and willingness to try new ideas and hire unconventional people and let them do what they were good at and passionate about. The result was incredible it like working for a dot com before they existed and walking down the art laden hallways in our business casual attire (in NY no less) the energy and sheer brilliance of most of these hand picked professionals was palpable....you could literally hear us making money. As an Associate I had tremendous responsibility, worked more hours than I thought humanly possible and traveled the world on business in just the first 2 years. We had a keg on tap in the West Coast office, a Chef in London, two offices in Tokyo, etc etc but we all worked extremely hard and it paid off. I watched my mentors bring home bonuses from $1MM to $10MM and some as much as $30MM in a year and this was a large group of people not limited to stuffed shirts.

Where did this put me? I received offers from every bulge bracket I'd interviewed with in the first year I was there and I was finally offered such an incredible package that I left for 2 years and came back where I closed the largest advisory fee of the year, which was well in excess of $20MM. I would have never been able to accomplish such things without the intelligence and street smart combination of impromptu groups that formed as soon as marketing turned into a mandate, execution and closing. I should mention that I didn't go to a top 25 school and I didn't graduate at the top of my class but I did find a way into a good graduate school and more importantly to show that I could do the job before I started and if there's interest I'll share more.

I would like to hear what it is that interests you (top 5 things you look for in a company) and what sort of culture is the most intriguing? Also, what interviews (questions, type of interview, in office or more relaxed setting...) did you find the most useful where you really got a sense of the firm and the people before you started?