Former VP @ Morgan Stanley Shares Her Story (Part 1 of 2) | WSO Podcast E44
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Member @mledyard shares her path from working in corporate development at International Paper and moving up the ranks to her eventual transition to investment banking. In this first part of a 2 part episode, Megan gives us a detailed look at her thought process of why she started in corp dev at such a large firm and how she continually got promoted. We also explore how she had to hustle to land an investment banking associate offer out of Booth since she was in the night program.
Part 2
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WSO Podcast (Episode 44) Transcript:
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:05] 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, member Mledyard shares her path from working in corporate development at international paper and moving up the ranks to her eventual transition to investment banking. In this first part of a two part episode, Meghan gives us a detailed look at her thought process of why she started in Corp Dev, et cetera. Such a large firm and how she continually got promoted. We also explore how she had to hustle to land an investment banking associate offer out of Booth since she was in the night program. Enjoy. And Mledyard, thank you so much for joining the podcast.
Mledyard: [00:01:07] We're happy to be here today, thanks so much for having me.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:10] So it'd be great if you could give the listeners just a short summary of your background to start.
Mledyard: [00:01:16] Yeah, I'm absolutely happy to do so. I graduated from Ohio State back in 2004 with a concentration in accounting. I moved on to a company called International Paper that was headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee. I spent about eight years with international paper, predominantly in a finance management rotational program. I spent about half my time in corporate development and strategy and the other half of my time out in the field in various operations and financial management roles during my time in corporate development and strategy. I worked on the acquisitions of Weyerhaeuser, which is a $6.3 billion carve out of their packaging business and then the hostile takeover of Temple Inland, but a four point one billion hostile takeover. It's a big one. I also did what I also did the industrial packaging first acquisition in Mexico, which allowed us to grow our platform and get comfortable operating in that country during the time period. I also started my MBA at Chicago Booth and it was a wonderful experience and. The combination of both International Paper and Chicago Booth led me to pursue a career in investment banking, so I joined Morgan Stanley in August of 2013. Within the investment banking practice, specifically in their consumer retail group, I had a wonderful six years at Morgan Stanley, but I chose to move actually this year as a third year VP as I wanted to get back to the corporate side of the world. I joined Ingredion as director of M&A to lead the global M&A efforts. Also, very happy to be back home in Chicago.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:05] And can you give me a little background in terms of what is ingredient do?
Mledyard: [00:03:10] Or what interests you? Yeah, it's actually the smallest companies I ever worked for, and I did that by strategy. It's a six to seven billion dollar revenue business globally. I'm actually most of the revenues are earned outside of the U.S., and it focuses on ingredients, starches and sweeteners. For most of your major food and beverage companies, including also including pharmaceuticals and some household and personal care businesses.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:45] Very cool. Thank you for that quick rundown. There's a lot to unpack here, but I think maybe let's start all the way now, all the way back. But all the way back at Ohio State, I guess, you know, the decision to major in accounting and kind of was what was on your radar as you're going through undergrad. Did you have some internships in accounting? Was it always like accounting or bust or what kind of led you down that path?
Mledyard: [00:04:09] Yeah, well, I like probably most Democrats. I switched my major probably a dozen times. And what I learned about myself is I love economics and accounting for me was economic replied. But I still needed to think through what I was going to do after undergrad? So to your point and your question, I did do a variety of different internships. My first internship was with an off Wall Street bank down in Memphis, Tennessee, called Morgan Keegan. It has since been acquired by a couple of different things that I worked on the fixed income trading floor back in research. And what I learned is I left the service in capital markets. I did not want to be a broker or trader. Tell me why I worked on home.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:52] Tell me why you
Mledyard: [00:04:53] Felt like it wasn't a good fit for you. Yeah. I think for me as a trader, what I really saw was there's a learning curve to understand the markets and then a game between the market. But then I saw them as just kind of doing the same thing every day, OK? And I wanted a little bit more actually done it. A lot more of an intellectual challenge. The brokers were really focused on building the relationships with their clients and going out into the market, but they're selling the same products and got it. And the solutions that I saw for this product, we were very much commodity driven. And so again, I didn't see as much of an intellectual challenge on the sales and trading side.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:38] That's fair, OK? And so you
Mledyard: [00:05:41] Did that, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:42] Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, no. Then what? So what other internships you did an accounting internship, I assume at some point or
Mledyard: [00:05:47] No, I did. I worked. I really liked what was going on in the corporate desk at Morgan Keegan when I said, I really want to see how financial statements get put together. Mm hmm. So I did. A busy users audit internship with PricewaterhouseCoopers out in San Francisco specifically focused on financial services. Wonderful, sir. It's fantastic experience, but I didn't like the audit function, and it's expressed as a way to really engage your clients and help give advice. But what I felt was, you know, you're kind of second-rate into the most horrible conference room and it's checked the numbers. Don't ask too many questions and try not to stir the pot too much.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:33] Got it! Did you feel like it was? Yeah, you were checking it. You feel like it just wasn't allowing you again, similar type of thing. It's you're kind of an entry level intern role. You're getting a taste of it, but it's super repetitive. Is that what the feeling was
Mledyard: [00:06:46] There in Canada? Yeah, yeah. And the partners were phenomenal. Doors are open. You could come in and ask questions about what they do, and seeing what goes on in the park level could be really interesting. But that 10 to 15 years to make partner just kind of felt was not my cup of tea.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:04] Ok, so that's what your junior year or your sophomore year internship.
Mledyard: [00:07:09] Yeah, it was a junior going into senior year. Correct.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:12] And so did you feel lost a little bit like, what am I going to do or how did you have an offer coming out of your junior year internship to join TWC and you're like, I can't do this? Or what was the kind of thought process?
Mledyard: [00:07:24] Maybe I could do it. And I and I think also I was really excited about San Francisco. But then I also got very homesick when I was out there. So I was born and raised in the Midwest. And so coming back to Ohio State, I was like, OK, I'm going to interview for everything. Got it. And that allowed me to really understand what different kinds of jobs were out there. There are different kind of accounting jobs that are out there, accounting students from Ohio State. While not at school, it does not get into investment banking. Mm hmm. It does have a very strong accounting program, so it did attract a lot of employers from that perspective.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:04] And so were you. Were you mostly just doing interviews with like the Big Four or were you branching out to smaller companies as well or just everything?
Mledyard: [00:08:13] I opened, I opened up everything. So my dad had worked in business, so there were a variety of people that he knew in different companies that were just willing to have what I now know is called an informational interview.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:27] You didn't even realize back then
Mledyard: [00:08:30] I didn't realize it. That's funny. And then there's a variety of different companies that came on campus to Ohio State for interviews. So if it's something that even sounded even the least bit interesting to me, I applied for it and was fortunate enough to do lots of interviews that spring.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:49] Ok, and then what made you sorry, Sarah? Go ahead. Go ahead. No, I'm just going to say, so what? What kind of direct you towards international paper?
Mledyard: [00:08:58] I had figured out during that spring semester taking a call, a senior seminar course in accounting and it focused on, you know. Companies that had merged and how did the financial statements change? I've always looked at accounting and financial statements. I love the story that it tells me. No, and I thought, this is it. I want to work even around whatever this is because it can be very telling. And I realized in class I could see through it really quickly where a lot of my peers, it just it didn't make sense to them. Mm hmm. So in sharing that with international paper that I wanted to have a career in M&A, they were excited. Oh, that's great. We just bought this private company, Box USA, that it throws it off.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:46] Okay, so it's perfect because I had somewhere they had somewhere for you to work right away. It was like, OK, yeah, this is perfect. We can know where to put you. You have had actually some direction, which for an undergrad is pretty impressive.
Mledyard: [00:09:59] Doing the internships really helped. I started to learn a lot about what I didn't like and the self-knowledge and self-awareness of I like members and I like problem solving. It was also very helpful and I think at the end, for something I carry with me, we have to be honest in the interview. And there's a balance of being honest, but when I say honest, I have to be true to yourself. Ok, so I know that there's others that go out in the interview process just to get the job you decide later. Right? I feel like that was the benefit of kind of saying, is this a good spot for me?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:32] That was very much me. I graduated in two thousand two from undergrad and it was like a bloodbath in terms of just no jobs and especially, well, you know, I ended up landing an investment banking job at Rothschild, but it was like one of the last interviews I'd struck out almost everywhere. I knew at that point it was just like, get a job, you know? So I mean, it's interesting that you say that you had a lot of kind of I feel like you had a lot of introspection for four a senior in college to be able to go through all of that. So that was great. I'm looking back at like all the roles you had at. It seems like every year or so you would kind of pivot was that is that by design with them? Was it like an FLD should be considered like a financial leadership development program where they're putting you through rotations? Or is it just it's just you kind of raise your hand like, well, that's wrong.
Mledyard: [00:11:25] Well, you know what? I think all of that senator simply did not have that formalized rotational program. I was, you know, I had I was lucky enough. And some members say the harder you work, the luckier you get. But I was lucky enough to find some really good mentors, and they were the ones that continued to be focused on my early development and pushed me to try different roles. And it goes back to that. I went in and I started at a facility controller and that went well. So then I went in to do this for some money and that went well. And that's kind of how the career progression goes.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:02] But what's interesting to me is that you started kind of you started comptroller. Then you kind of went to that M&A Corp debt or what you might call corporate development and strategy, right? And then your next role was what was called an operations manager. Is that correct? Correct. And what was that pivot? What was that pivot about? Because it sounds like, at least for a lot of the people on Wall Street voices, it would be like Corp Dev. And strategy for them, I think, would be the place they want to be because they think M&A, M&A. Why did you leave the Corp Dev and strategy team? Why don't you just kind of go up the ranks there? Because eventually you ended up back there, right? Eventually. So tell me why all the other stuff with the operations and the plant controller, all the other stuff. I'm just curious about that. Or maybe that's part of it.
Mledyard: [00:12:45] I was no, everything. Everything is interconnected. International paper values general managers, as most companies do. They want someone who can kind of do a tripod, if you will. One of the pauses, finance and accounting, another part of sales and marketing, and the third part is operations in the factory. Got it, and you'll be blacked out in one. They'll be fluent in the second one and then you can kind of operate or understand the third. And so I had that was kind of my third leg to develop its operations. So on the advice of mentors and I got and I got to live in Los Angeles, I got a ton of manufacturing companies. You don't often get to live in L.A.,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:28] So I true, true.
Mledyard: [00:13:31] I learned a lot about myself. I learned that the general management path is just not something that I'm very interested in, and I very much enjoy the finance and accounting side of the world. So instead of being a quote unquote generalist, I wanted to be focused on more quote unquote specialist.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:47] Did you feel like they were grooming you for senior leadership at some point since you were there for so long? Like, was that kind of in the plans?
Mledyard: [00:13:54] Yeah, no. And that was acknowledged that I was. So every company has something they call an HP risk to high potential list. And then there's an HP Plus list, which is usually to be a company officer.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:10] And so tell me how competitive. Give me, give me. Give me some of the numbers around how competitive it is in terms of how many people are just generally in Corp Dev or strategy, how many of you are on that plus list like or the HP list and then HP Plus list? And how what does that do in terms of your career? Like just generally speaking, you know, obviously not exact numbers, but just broadly speaking.
Mledyard: [00:14:32] I'll be honest with you, I actually have this, I don't really know, I know various company to company, I'm going to I'll broadly say that an HP cluster is probably less than 10 percent, OK? And I would say that it's. Once you're on it, there's a certain element of staying on it, because once you fall off of it, as I've seen, it's harder to get back on it. It's weird. It's kind of and I see the same thing in banking. It's someone as is the top bucket. Yeah. And they can say top bucket. But once you fall out of that bucket, it's hard to get back into top bucket.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:11] Interesting. So it's like you've got to keep grinding. You've got to keep grinding.
Mledyard: [00:15:17] You got a good yeah. And part of it's that. But the other part of it is. We can't sacrifice the result. You can't sacrifice the relationship that you have with your peers and that you have with your leadership just for the results. And that's a very fine line to walk. And sometimes that means giving up some of that value creation, if you will, or doing it perfectly. Do you mean example to make sure that you can carry?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:47] Can you give me an example of that like you just to give it a little more? Make it a little more concrete. Like, was there a time that you felt like you had to leave value on the table in terms of your work to appease a relationship of some sort? Right, I don't I don't know in terms of like giving other people work and giving them the spotlight, I don't know.
Mledyard: [00:16:08] Well, I think I think what it comes down to more so, and I think it's quicker to give it an a corporate development context, thinking this kind of a lot of different nuances to banking. Sure. But let's say you're building a business case to do an acquisition and you're sitting in the valuation seat and you're running the numbers and you're like, But if I can do my revenue build and I can have all of these six assumptions and I can get them down to the fine line like then I know that that number is good. We can go to the CFO and say super salad on growth rate. But in order to sometimes get those assumptions, you're grinding your marketing department and your sales team, and they just can't get down to that level of detail. So you can push them and push them and push them. But really, you're starting to get to a margin of error. That's not really material. If I'm going in for a non-binding bid, I want to be negotiating in good faith, right? I don't want to have to come too far off of my values I've been putting on the table. That's fair. So I have to balance my margin of error with how much you really grind your business partners and how precise you really need to be.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:25] So it's really a question of
Mledyard: [00:17:27] Their way of going about it, going to be your way.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:29] Right. So you're saying in the initial like non-binding offer, you don't want to basically burn a lot of the relationships internally to try and get to the exact precision. And it's better to sometimes have just a wider range in terms on the initial indication of interest.
Mledyard: [00:17:46] Exactly. Ok. And it could be things that you're going to include value creation or
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:51] Not, did you struggle with that? Did you struggle because you wanted to get more precise and like letting that go a little bit?
Mledyard: [00:17:57] Yeah, I felt like I had to be super precise. Yeah, I remember my early days at IPI. I never felt like I could put the of good enough in senior vice president in the same sentence. Yeah. So I had to really learn how to manage expectations in a way where people didn't think I was, you know, trying to get out of doing the assignment or get out of doing a detailed analysis, but was really all about what can I give you and how fast can I get it to you with what level of precision and have somebody been saying, OK, she's on my team. She's really trying to help me out. Ok, I get this versus having them view it as I'm fighting them, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:42] Got it! And he'd like tips in terms of how to reach that balance. I mean, it's probably just experience, but is there? Man, it sounds like you had to manage up a little bit more a lot. Absolutely.
Mledyard: [00:18:55] And so you have to do that a lot in banking, a lot.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:58] Can you talk to that a little bit? Let's let's go there just in terms of any advice you have in terms of how to manage up successfully. Obviously, communication's important developing that relationship, but anything specific in terms of. Just, I don't know, maybe tactical and out of succeed in that
Mledyard: [00:19:15] In that avenue. Yeah, of course, a lot of it's going to start with your staffer and that relationship that you build with your staffer, obviously different, you know, different assignments are going to come down and you may be hitting burnout and you're like, Man, I cannot do one more sell side. It is a total grind. So part of it's important to one articulate, am I burnt out and do I need a break? And the second is to be able to go back to your staffer and say, I really want to help out this team on the south side. I currently have x y z on my plate and I don't want to short change them on that project. Mm hmm. And sometimes you have to flag that you're getting burnt out and you just need like a weekend or weekend day off.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:01] But if you what a what a request, a whole weekend, come on.
Mledyard: [00:20:08] Well, I know, I know sometimes that it is brutal. No way about that. So let's let's go.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:14] Yes. Sorry, go ahead.
Mledyard: [00:20:15] I really want to take the assignment, and I also have these other projects that I think are conflicting with it, and I don't want to short change that group, right? Can we move something around or can I pass on this one and I'll take the next one because I've been a staffer? It is a horrendous job. Yeah, and I'm not. I don't know what's going on with everyone's deal, so I do rely on that analyst or that associates tell me, Hey, this is what's going on. They will also tell you, we know not as like a scary thing, but like it's known who tries to back off on work. Yeah. So you have to be.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:55] Oh, even the analysts know. Even the analysts know. I know my class is very obvious who is who was just getting out of work all the time and versus who was, you know, really taking the brunt of it?
Mledyard: [00:21:07] Yeah, exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:08] Yeah. So I guess going back to your story, so you're at an international paper for a good seven plus year, almost eight years. Did you feel like you were going to be a lifer at one point at this one company, you know? I had.
Mledyard: [00:21:26] Internally, I had no intention of leaving. I did my MBA at Chicago Blues in the evening weekend program because I wanted to accelerate my career. And I had been in corporate development strategy in the business group and I wanted to make it to the global team and do that. Have that be my career? And I did that on the council of the gentleman who was running the global team at that time. And I made a career switch because I looked at the path forward and my conversations with him, and I wasn't going to have the M&A career that I wanted to have at international paper.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:06] In terms of just they weren't going to be, they weren't going to be as acquisitive as he thought or they or other reasons because you weren't going to get the frontline exposure.
Mledyard: [00:22:14] I think part of it, they weren't going to be as acquisitive after we did the hostile takeover of Tempel one. And then they've continued to do deals. But when you think about corporates, yeah, the corporate development M&A function is very different than when you think about in a bank and specifically in a corporation. If you're not bringing in revenue, your cost center. So you need to keep your teams pretty lean and that is completely understandable. So while he typically had a three person team after the 2009 recession. And then getting the temperamental tongue down a person, he decided that he was not going to go back to a full team who's was going to keep it as himself. And then one of his directors
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:02] Just to keep his costs low. So you felt like the opportunity while you were while you were getting that MBA, that opportunity to kind of go back almost vanished or became much less attractive in terms of
Mledyard: [00:23:14] Became much less attractive because there was certainly a need for that kind of role for these businesses. Yeah, but as I looked at. What the other, what the finance career option was looking like internally, it just was not attractive to me and like I said very early on, I need an intellectual challenge. So when did the M&A provides that for me?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:38] When was banking on the radar? Was it something you had known when you were at international or IP would do? Had you thought about it prior in the prior seven years, investment banking, was it on the radar at all or did it take the MBA to kind of put it on your radar?
Mledyard: [00:23:54] Well, I would say I worked with a lot of bankers when I was at international paper and I partially understood what they did. But what I couldn't face, what I couldn't figure out from the bankers was what do you do when you're not running a spreadsheet? What do you do when you're not putting PowerPoint together? I didn't quite understand it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:15] Nothing. It's just PowerPoint and Excel. No. Just kidding. No, if you're at the VP level, you're doing a lot more. You're doing a lot more. You're doing actual business, Deb.. Right. But sorry, go ahead. So, so you had a summer associate position at a bulge bracket? I did. That gave you a little bit of a taste. Tell me about that summer.
Mledyard: [00:24:34] That's enough for me, it was summer of 2012. So from a deal perspective, is actually pretty quiet. And I had when I was recruiting for internships again, I had to do it on my own because I was not part of the full time program. I only looked at many boutiques and in many groups within the bulge bracket firms. So I landed in the M&A department at a post-Brexit firm and they were fantastic.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:59] Was that tough to land? Was that that summer associate position, given you were in the night program, you weren't full time MBA? Was it tough or did you feel like there was some support where you were just a natural networker? How did you kind of get those interviews onto that cycle?
Mledyard: [00:25:15] And no, that's totally fair. Part of the way I got onto that was one the relationships I had made with bankers when I was at international paper there, and it was kind of going through that process and chatting with them about what they did and if this would make sense and then to the career services team at Chicago, Booth is actually very helpful to me in helping me understand what the recruiting process would look like. And while I couldn't have access to all the on campus events, they were very constructive in saying, If you want to do this the right way and kind of goes back to being very vigilant about actions and words and communication and kind of making sure you keep on the up and up with everything by trying to make sure I understood the rules for the recruiting for the full time student so I could abide by them. Meaning if a bank was hoping hosting an event on campus, that was for the full time students, but it's the environment of the drinks event after. I would go to that and a lot of the full time students and the bankers picked up on that said we didn't see on campus and I had to explain that that was against the rules for me, but I was delighted to come in and have this conversation with them. And then they also realized how long I had to drive to get there. So I actually ended up winning a lot of points, not only with my peers in the Fulton program, but then also with bankers.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:39] How long did you have to drive? Why were you driving so far if you were in the night?
Mledyard: [00:26:44] Oh yeah. I was out of control at a facility outside of Chicago. Oh my god. I was driving an hour and a half one way to get to downtown Chicago. Nice for like an hour and a half cocktail hour and then turn around and drive home and get up and go to work the next day. It worked, OK? It noticed it ended up working out pretty well. But you know, when the bank saw that I was, I was following the rules and I was taking it upon myself to do it the right way. And even though it was. And the amount of commitment that I have in order to do it. It certainly wouldn't be a lot of brownie points. And then in addition to that, I also made some trips to New York on my own again kind of networking through the book network. But I paid, you know, I took myself out there and tried to have the coffee chats. And again, I think that spoke volumes to the bankers and she's really committed to that, right? And having Chicago with my resume helps tremendously. Having corporate development and international paper helps tremendously. Yeah. So a lot of different avenues, a lot of different things that I did.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:53] That makes sense. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't surprise me that you made it. It's just it's a little bit more non-traditional writes. I wanted to hear how you navigated that and makes total sense what you did in terms of just so that summer. Was it something where they wanted you to come back and you said, no, was it something where they didn't get you an offer and you were kind of stuck coming kind of like from ground zero?
Mledyard: [00:28:14] Yeah, actually, it was. It was in between. It was more of the letter. So August of 2012 was the first summer the bulge brackets had done this or putting you on hold situation. So the hold they had, the dreaded hold they hired
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:29] Part of the dreaded hold situation where you're kind of like waiting in limbo.
Mledyard: [00:28:34] Yeah, but the dreaded hold situation? Yeah. So the upside for me was, well, the background is the of six summer associates for the M&A department to received full time offers. I was put on hold. And the other three guys got a flat no. And that's a horrible yield for them. Yeah, that's bad. And so what had happened across Wall Street for the summer of 2012? Again, everyone's trying to figure out how to hire. Coming out of the recession is banks across the street under hired. So what I knew very quickly was there's going to be the horse trading between the middle of August and call it end of September, when those with offers are trying to trade up those who didn't get offers or trying to find a new offer. So Given I had to do this completely on my own before I knew exactly what I was getting into, and none of the MBA programs really get into the middle of this, it's just really student to firm directly. Yeah. And the other benefit that I had was my global head of corporate development tracked along with me. I let them know that I'm leaving and why we had a long conversation about it. Mm hmm. So let me know how it can be helpful. So because I was a non-traditional student, many banks wouldn't speak to me. But now that I had the introduction from a gentleman who had been doing deal making for thirty five years and said she worked for me, she's great. You should talk to her. Along with I had an offer on hold from sitting and people can call them and figure that out. I had a lot of opportunities in the fall. I had a very robust recruiting season.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:19] Great. And so how many places do you think you interviewed with during that fall? Like five six.
Mledyard: [00:30:25] So I had my spreadsheet going because we all do. Yeah. At one point I had 17 tabs, one for each bank in each office. So Morgan Stanley in New York, Morgan Stanley, Chicago, Goldman, New York, Goldman, Chicago, so on and so forth.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:41] And what did you keep in those tabs out of curiosity? Like just contacts, notes, different groups, stuff like that or.
Mledyard: [00:30:48] Exactly is my way to stay organized. So I would keep track of each person, I talk to a high level what we talked about. And then if there was going to be an opportunity to circle back with them or not. And it also kind of helped me remind me of my next to do's with each one of those terms. Great. Without being crass, going through recruiting season on my own. Like that with as many openings as I had, it felt like I was dating six people at the same time. Just like I had to keep, I had to keep everything straight.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:22] Yeah, no. I'm sure you're like in an interview. You forget what bank you're interviewing at or you're like, Remember, I talked to Bob and they're like, Who? Like who? Wrong, bank.
Mledyard: [00:31:33] Yeah, yeah. Actually showed up to the wrong bank for an interview. I was supposed to go to them in the afternoon and I showed up there in the morning. Awesome. Yeah, I made a very good change. Yeah, that's funny.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:48] 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. And till next time.
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