Monkey to Millions | Andrew (Session 1) Introduction and Resume Review - 12/17/2019
In the first ever episode of Monkey to Millions, we get introduced to Andrew who is a dual-citizen at a small non-target school up in Canada. We cover his current situation including his current Fall internship, his target careers, his current networking strategy and dive into a detailed resume review. Learn what I want him to do most to improve his resume as well as a challenge I have for him before we start our 2nd session in 1 month.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 1) Transcript:
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:23] Hello and welcome, I'm Patrick Curtis, chief monkey of Wall Street Oasis, and this is monkey to millions. A show where you get a front row seat as I mentor young students and professionals to try and help them break into their dream jobs in the first cohort. You'll meet four students, all preparing for intense job interviews while trying to also balance a personal life in schoolwork. The goal of this show is to shine a light on the struggles of trying to break into competitive positions with a non-traditional background and to give you a roadmap for your own success. My hope is that as you get to know these four impressive students, you were inspired to dream big. Remember, these are real people, and this is their true story. Let's get to it in this first ever episode of Monkey to Millions. We get introduced to Andrew, who is a dual citizen at a small, non target school up in Canada. We cover his current situation, including his fall internship, his target careers, his current networking strategy, and dive into a detailed resume review. Learn what I want him to do most to improve his resume, as well as a challenge I have for him before we start our second session in one month. Enjoy. You're actually number one monkey to millions. No pressure. Awesome. So I think today, I think just for the plan for today will be kind of just give everybody a little background about kind of where you're at. I want a refresher just for myself before we kind of start getting into your resume. And I actually wanted to go through your resume kind of line by line with you. Okay, perfect. As part of this, because I think that's obviously the most important document that's going to that's kind of going to lead this whole process. So just give me a quick summary and give everyone a quick summary, just specifically about what you've been doing the last couple of years and where you're at and stuff. Awesome. Yeah. So I actually went to high school in Ontario. So did grades 10, 11 and 12 there.
Andrew: [00:02:26] My high school was pretty like heavily into like business clubs and like a few like basic micro and macro econ courses and a few like financial accounting courses. But I wasn't really like exposed to like target schools or didn't really know too much about, Like choosing the right school. So I basically chose the school that my dad went to kind of for its strong accounting program because I originally thought that I was going to go to like a big four firm, and I thought that was kind of like as high as I could go. Mm hmm. So right after high school, I actually got a scholarship to a school in the Maritimes in Atlantic Canada. The first year wasn't really heavy and like any like single class, and I wasn't really like exposed to like start like looking for summer internships or anything like that. So actually, my first job that summer after first year was in the steel warehouse and I was hauling steel for like 10 12 hours a day.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:29] But I've been in good shape after that. So yeah, it was crazy too, because I was actually going to the gym better headset or headphones by any chance because I can hear a little echo. I don't know. Maybe you don't. Ok, well, we'll keep going. I don't think it's that bad, but so OK, so you were doing the freshman summer. This was like at your first school. You were lifting heavy equipment or heavy steel for most of the time. Exactly. And then kind of you transferred and what was the impetus for that? Oh, no, I didn't transfer, but I was so it's still at the same school, and I just started to get more involved with like commerce societies like accounting societies, things like that just try to get like might throw my network basically. And I kind of like, so I got into the commerce society. I was pretty heavily involved with that. Like, I almost had like an executive position there, I guess, quote unquote. And then I actually met a guy who was in the school's investment fund through that, and he said he could introduce me to a few people after I started researching that.
Andrew: [00:04:38] Like more and more, I saw that, like people who are in this program got like really good placements for this school because like, there's only probably maybe 20, 30 people who made it into like the financial institutions, anything like that, like in the past maybe 20 years. So it's pretty scarce.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:56] So you have a lot of alumni to lean on. Basically, you're an ultimate target. But so you're up, you're up in Europe, in Canada, you're up in Nova Scotia for school, correct? But you're a dual citizen. Yeah. How are you? How are you dual citizenship because you're born in the U.S. and you kind of before you moved up? I was actually in I was born in Canada, and then I lived in Texas for about 10 years. It's just my dad was traveling a lot for sales, so I kind of led me there.
Andrew: [00:05:30] I really only went to just my first year of high school there, so I didn't really keep too many connections and my family wasn't really like, too connected with, Like many people there. So I didn't have a lot of people to reach out to. Yep. So, yeah, kind of like, do you want me to kind of go back to the second year, I guess? And then from there, like kind
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:49] Of where you're at now? Yeah, that'd be great. Ok, then we'll dive into so yeah, and I get a little more tactical. Awesome. Yeah. So like last literally like last fall, I started recruiting just for winter internships
Andrew: [00:06:04] Actually landed just a role with the government wasn't really what I was expecting, and I ended up putting a lot more time and effort into my school's investment club that I had the actual job. And kind of from that, I'd started reaching out to a ton of alone. Well, all 20 or 30 of them, and it was pretty a pretty good hit rate, I'd say. I got a lot like kind of like all but like two or three that I was wanting to get. So they were really receptive and kind of from there, I like honed my job search. One 111 specific really helped me out. He kind of connected me with a few like asset management firms and pension funds. We're actually starting to get these interviews.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:49] Were those Montreal, Toronto? Where were they mostly located? Yeah, I'd say scattered between Toronto and Montreal. So yeah, like all those interviews would have been just over the phone and Skype. So it wasn't I didn't get flown out to do any like super days or anything like that. So, yeah, I actually ended up landing position with real estate private equity within a pension fund in Montreal. So that's kind of where I am now and kind of like basing like my job search around investment banking. So our analyst roles for 2020, as well as real estate private equity rules for summer 2020 and on. So yeah, going back to that, so where would you say you are in terms of schooling? Like credit wise, you're basically finished your sophomore year credits because it's a little confusing looking at your resume in terms of like where you're at. And so I think it's important to I think it'd be good to just make sure I understand like your timing because you're kind of now at an internship and it's September, right? I guess you're still going to school there when you plan on going back, all that stuff could you can you share that? Sure. Yeah. So like right now, I'm at 90 credits out of one hundred and twenty, but I plan on taking a few more, so it'd be like one hundred and twenty six or so. Yeah. So the with the fall
Andrew: [00:08:09] Internship, I'd be heading back to school in the winter where I'd be completing another, I think, 15, 15 or so the credits. So then I end up coming right on time for a summer internship and then going back to school the following fall before graduating that January.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:25] So you're really kind of this is this internship right now is really almost more like almost like a between a sophomore in a junior internship, can we call it? Yeah, yeah. And then OK. So I think have you had any people like when you're reaching out to people, has it mostly been alum only or like, have you? Are you looking in the U.S. at all like you? Have you tried reaching out to people in New York? Not, not really. New York, I'd say more like Texas heavy, because that's where I grew up. But the hit rate there is not it's not very good. It's kind of like because whenever I'd throw out like a cold email or something like that, yeah, I don't think they'd even recognize the school name or kind of any of the firms that I've worked with. Yeah. So I think there's definitely that there's probably confused when they kind of see someone, it's like, Oh, I went to high school for one year in Texas. That's what kind of what I would lead with or something. It would be in the body of the message, but I don't think they're too receptive to taking calls with Canadians from undergrad non target schools. Fair. That's fair. Ok, so let's just jump in a little bit. That's a good kind of background about VR. It's it gives me a good kind of framework of, OK, so you're getting some you have a good internship. One thing I noticed, and I'm going to share my screen now, so you can kind of follow along with me and tell me if you can see my screen and I have a little plan for our purpose here. So like, we just went through that intro and like where you're at in your process. So looking through your resume overall, awesome job. I think it's very clear you have you're obviously very much involved, very much like. With the Accounting Society Accountants Association, all that good stuff, so the only thing I'd say is like, let's just go line by line and little things. So you have like four finance major GPA. Is there a reason you left your come off? Is it significantly less than a four point? Oh, I know, four point looks great, but it could actually. Well, my school actually pays. Sorry, go ahead. She said it would hurt myself. Yeah, so it would be. I actually converted that it was from like a four. It's most of my school does like a four point three scale, so I converted that. So that would be a four point three out of four point three, but my I converted it to four. 4.0 not to I know. But is that is that just your finance major GPA, what's your cumulative GPA across your full all your classes? It would be a three point eight of out of four point three.
Andrew: [00:11:12] So just around like a like an eighty eight,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:15] Eighty nine, like a three, six or so. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think we should put that on there. Ok. Yeah. So like, I just take a little take a few notes as I go through because I think if you if you hide that, that could be scared. You have like a three. I don't know how you'd have a four off when your finance major and have a three. But like, you know, it could be a little scary when I just see the. Just see the major GPA. Sometimes people can think it's like you're either over, you want to, you want to sell yourself well, but you don't want to oversell it, right? So I think that's good to like. Just there's three. Six is fine. It's three six two three seven, whatever it comes out to be. But do that calculation and make it accurate based on the scale, right? And then OK. Enrolled in a co-op education program. What is that line at? How what does that mean to me like co-op education program? What is that? Ok, yeah. So I don't know. I think it might be Canadian school specific, but
Andrew: [00:12:13] Saying that you're involved in like a cooperative education program means that like a school can receive funding from the government so that they'd be able to pay you like half the wage and the government would subsidize the other half, essentially so they wouldn't be paying college
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:29] Then. Sure, I think of it that way. I don't know. I'd say more of like a government incentive to hire like interns. How is that selling you? Oh, how is it selling me? Is it making you look good on here? Ah, that's a good question, I probably should take that out. No, I'm just asking, I'm not, I don't know, is it something special about the school specifically that you think might connect with people or do you feel like? I'd say it's more of just so that the like a recruiter or someone in HR are doing like an initial screening would be able to tell if you're like, actually, you've done like internships before in the past
Andrew: [00:13:11] And that they would be eligible to, like, apply for like a subsidy or anything like that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:17] Ok, so it's something around internships. It's like something on internships. And for that reason, it's in Canada. It helps them kind of get information. It's like an informational thing. Ok, so maybe on your U.S. applications, maybe just strike that bullet just like but on the other ones like, yeah, totally leave it. If it's a normal thing there and something where people know, think CFA level, that's great. Shows, interest and drive. That's awesome. Spacing and aesthetics. Let's talk about it here because it's a little crunch to work. Experience feels really close to the thing. So on the S. Education, work, experience and leadership, we definitely want some extra space in between those main sections. And that's going to be easy to get because you have several bullets that are kind of just reaching an additional line. Mm hmm. So that will be really simple. So just make that note that increase the space on the on those guys. Let's jump into. Psp, so like your real estate investment analyst, so the only thing that concerns me about a lot of your background and your work experience in your internships so far, it's good you have like financial modelling and all this other stuff. Is this a very real estate heavy? Yeah. And so you don't you kind of run the risk of pigeonholing yourself a little early. So where possible, especially like since you're going be applying to much more generalist places, I assume, like investment banking, I wouldn't put real estate investment analysts. I would just call it investment analysts or investment analysts intern just to make it clear it's an internship. Ok. I don't think they care. Like what your exact title is, right? They don't even have it. They probably call you intern or something. I don't know. So they probably don't care. So investment analysts intern instead of real instead of leading with real estate? Right? Definitely. And then that flowing into the first bullet responsible for building and maintaining financial models for a global portfolio of real estate assets, that's fine. But instead of saying using Argus and driving that home, you can just say using Excel and just leave it at that, OK? If you are applying to another real estate type of thing and you end up going to private equity real estate, then sure you can keep that in, but you might want to have kind of two separate. Resumes a US based kind of more investment banking heavy one and then one more kind of real estate in Canadian. And then this the second part of this second bullet continued honing financial modeming knowledge, of course, administered through the Market Group. I think for their financial modeling training, it's great. I think you should do that. But rather than specifically like, say, continue honing and all the stuff, I think it's more important that we get the specific keywords in there that they're going to be looking for. So I want to see your resume. I want to see a bullet. It's like financial modeling, training self, two hundred hours financial modeling, training self or whatever it is, hundred hour, one hundred and ten or 100 hours plus. And in that in that specifically, say, DCF trading comparables, transaction comparables specifically like just getting all those keywords like in that second bullet, right? In that experience. So people, they'll be like, Wait, did you do that there? It doesn't really matter. The key is you're getting it up high up in your resume. That's why I assume that's why you did that, which is smart. I just really want to hit the buzzwords harder there. So they see all those things early on in your resume. Gotcha. So that's great. The quantification? Is something I think that could be improved, you do it a little bit here and there on the resume of quantification, I mean, like literally put a number anywhere you can possibly put a number like literally anywhere and everywhere. So you have you actively managed more than twenty three point five billion of net assets? You can say a U.N. people will know what that is with other analysts and team members on the real estate team. That's great. It would be great if you could like. Let me give you an example. So I know you're just started this internship, so some of this will you won't be able to put too much here in terms of like filling it in, and I like that you had it in when you applied. So that's good. Like, you're you know, you're being aggressive, which is smart because you're trying to get, you know, get more traction in your networking. But just. As you as you get more things to like assist analysts, how many analysts assist three analysts, two analysts give me a little more sense. Analyzing data on global real estate markets, which ones in particular, which regions support analysts through the due diligence process and the introduction in case portfolio? How many transactions do you have any transaction experience you could actually list if you actually had one or two transactions? I would actually tell you to cut two or three of these bullets and actually have a transaction experience section. Ok. I think I think I'm getting staffed on a transaction pretty, pretty soon. So could do that plus one more. I think that's enough to go ahead and have that little section because it's very powerful in terms of how it looks to a banker or how it looks to somebody in the industry. Because then it's like, Oh, he actively was managing specific transactions. He gets how that whole due diligence process works. Where you're at now is fine based on what you've done, and I think these bullets are overall good. But like again, if real estate isn't almost every single bullet, so like I might want to remove the third or the fourth bullet. Ok, because like global real estate, global urban real estate, real estate. So just maybe those aren't adding too much more and it gives you a little extra space. And then that final bullet under PSP, I think you can definitely get it up into one line pretty easily. You could just say support analysts during the dealers process. And in BP's investment formula, I don't think commercial properties funds is important. Just move that in parentheses. Ok. Fund manager. I think it's important that weren't you promoted here? Yeah, from research associate. Do you highlight that here anywhere? I don't think so. But where would I? I think you should. I think you should brag about that. I think that should be your first bullet. Well, actually, you have a lot of good stuff, DCF, any of the comparables, which is good. But again, you're going to be hitting it again here, right? So maybe you have that. And again, you did. You're again hitting real estate. Did you look at other stuff besides real estate and energy? Was there other stuff at all that was
Andrew: [00:19:35] Pretty much just energy and real estate. So why is that?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:38] Why is it? Is that specifically like the fund is only looking at those types of deals or what it would be like the other, like other research associates in my year would be like assigned various sectors and I was assigned real estate energy. It's a little bit of a bummer. Yeah, only because only because it's like it. Just it just hits it harder. Exactly. That's fine. You might want just to shorten it, conducted a financial and strategic analysis of various ways you can say rates and energy company instead of real estate. You'd have to spell it out, okay. And energy companies using multiple methods of financial modeling, it's really multiple methods of valuation. Yeah, you're talking about DCF and you know, the evaluation you say DCF, any of TDM comparables to buy, hold and sell recommendations for the fund, that's good. Anything you can do in terms of. You said for various real estate, various rates, how many? To two or three? Ok, so just say of three of two, even when you said energy companies too, right? Yeah. How many total was it two or three? Like two? So just say of a real estate investment trust and an energy company, you know? Yeah, I guess that's not really getting a number on your resume. I'm looking for ways to like literally pick numbers and quantify as much as possible. The reason you do that is because it basically when I'm when I get your resume, I'm looking at it for six seconds when I see no, no, no, no. It says to me, you're delivering results, you're delivering actions. There's very you're being very specific about what you did. You want to get away from generic statements of like strategic advice, assisted with strategic plan of blah. Like everything, because people know it's B.S. but if you're very like I analyzed three reads and two energy companies, then it becomes very tangible and it gives credibility to the internship or to the to the experience. So. So he's definitely purchased an apartment for seven position of the trust, so successfully pitched Killam apartment rate for seventy seven twenty five unit position. What does that mean? Like the seven twenty five unit position was the right or seven? Twenty five unit means like twenty seven twenty five shares. Yeah, OK. Wouldn't that be more important instead of saying like seven twenty five? Because I have no idea what the cap, how much each unit, how much that's worth. Ok. Yeah, I think so. Certainly pitched kill apartment rate for a $20000 position. I don't know how much you guys put in each. Each is about fifteen thousand. Yeah, just say,
Andrew: [00:22:26] Yeah, OK,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:28] Yes. Yeah. Twenty five units last fifteen thousand position of trust of your presentations and reports. It's part of our financial models, governance evaluation and strategic evaluation. Ok. John Kwashiorkor, OK, you kind of. Ok, Bloomberg, training, so like in your in your bottom area under interest, extracurriculars, I think you just have another one called skills. Ok. And I think this bullet should be removed and you should be rather than putting, you know, honed and all this stuff, I think you should just literally list out Bloomberg training, cap IQ, financial modeling, training. You know, you can list Market Group if you want. That doesn't really matter if any Shamali training self study, then you could put. Or just purchasable PowerPoint, if you're not an expert, I would still list it and to start studying up on it. Does that make sense? Yeah, definitely. Ok, cool. And then I'm borderline Cat Canada Revenue Agency tax, don't I'm borderline thinking of even removing that, although it's somewhat it's pretty recent.
Andrew: [00:23:42] Um, yeah, I was also thinking about removing it if I had more to talk about for the PSP.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:49] Yeah, for peace. So I mean, I would almost remove it because it's not unless you can quantify a little bit more. So, like you said, manage audit risk for various corporations. How many? Four three four one four two. Through diligent screening processes in the analyzation of financial documents relative to corporate relevant to the corporation, that's a super vague. I'd prefer ultimately exceeding targets for tax earned by audit during Kohout place. By how much? What does that mean? Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So like people quantify that, that would be better. Yeah. If you can quantify it, I might consider keeping it if you have this space. Otherwise, I'm really kind of indifferent. Whether you remove it or not, it might actually be good to have kind of a third internship on there if you can bring that space. If you can get that spacing above leadership and work experience, I think you might be able to because we already slashed one bullet from PSP and we already potentially wrapped one onto two lines instead of three. That first bullet under PSP, I think, too. So, um, overall solid, though, like you have, you have good internship experience. You're hitting on some of the good keywords. I just think quantify more and specifically try to hit those buzzwords a little bit earlier on with the financial model. Like, I think you were trying to do that, I think you just didn't deliver it as well as you did on the Impact Fund one. Mm hmm. Gotcha. And then hit it again on skills at the bottom. Ok. Ok. Ok, leadership, business accounting, awesome, your president, that's great assisted society members with recruiting advice. How many? How many society members are there? Tours are not 250, but like one hundred and fifty. So how many did you personally help? I don't know, maybe like 20 that actually like they would be like they come to me and ask, What do you think I should do for like this recruiting cycle? Or How should I approach X firm? Ok, so I would just be conservative, say, assisted, assisted 15 society members with recruiting advice. You know, OK, you don't have to oversell that. And you can talk about it. Let me ask, what did you what advice would you give them and get it right? So again, just quantifying it, making it a little more tangible. The second bullet collaborate with local organizations for recruitment opportunities, accounting and finance. Can you say how many local organizations you did? Did you specifically? Yeah, there's like it was like me and like a panel of like directors that are at the school. So like there's like graduate career services and myself and like one or two other students would like kind of reach out to these firms to get them off campus. So I think, yeah, if you could just quantify that a little bit more, I think that's pretty good. Yeah, I think it looks really good, the tutor I like, I just the hard part is it's a little bit it's for one bullet. It's kind of a lot. So it developed an administrative educational content for the commerce student body and the subjects of accounting and finance to the offering, a mid-term and final exam issue tutorials. I want to know how many people you actually tutored. I want to know, did you present in front of anybody? Um, does that make sense? I think you got out there, were you asking how many I presented to. Yeah, or like how many like I took on individually? Yeah, OK. Yeah, so it would it would have been
Andrew: [00:27:26] Like one, Like a section of like an accounting course and then probably like 10 or ten or so students per semester. So just to quantify that, what are you doing it since first semester, my second year. So.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:43] Well, you just do that math and you figure it out, just quantify there as well. Women in capital markets volunteered the champion for women pursuing capital markets careers through event specific promotions discussion with panelists to provoke ideas. Was there a conference of some sort? Yeah, it was. It was a small conference at my school and the women. The women at capital markets is actually a pretty huge organization in Canada, at least from what I know. Yeah. And so. Event specific promotions, can you be more specific about what you did for that? I would just be like marketing material and even have that as a whole. I would almost put it under extracurriculars. If you if it wasn't super impressive what you did there, that's a lot of space to give that. And you could get under extracurriculars as well, like it's much more present that impressive that you are president and tutor, that it was that you were a volunteer for a conference. Does that make sense? Yeah. So I consider for the space because you want to have that skill section there to either move it into extracurriculars, but and or quantify it better to make it look like be more tangible what you did. Ok. Like, how many people did you reach, what did you use to actually do those promotions? Was it LinkedIn? Was it Facebook? Was it? What did you? What tools did you use? I love your interests. I love your interests, but I think we can do. I think we can make them better. Labrador retrievers, podcasts, powerlifting, reading, squash, triathlons, any specific types of podcasts. But I like the like the Jocko podcast, I'm pretty into that. What's that? I've heard of it, but I can't remember. It's like Jocko Willink, like an ex navy seal who does like much of the leadership podcast, basically, and he brings on a bunch of hosts. I would say it's almost like leadership podcast or something like that. And if somebody asks you, What do you mean? Have that example and maybe one more? Definitely, because it's a little more specific. It helps see that like, OK, you're trying to be a leader. It kind of ties in with you being a president in your in a society power lifting. Very cool reading specifically. Is there a certain type non-fiction fiction, certain genre that you like better? Yeah, probably. Probably nonfiction. Ok, so I would say that, OK, you know, fiction and have two or three books, at least. To be able to talk about because oftentimes people don't realize this intersection is like the most important on the resume, because sometimes you get down into an interview, the person sits down. They haven't looked at your resume. They're really kind of bored. They don't want to go talk about your, your internship and hear about your financial model. They look down and they say, Oh, you're into podcasts. What kind of podcasts are? They're into dogs, and they don't want to talk about dogs the whole time or they're into powerlifting or triathlons, you know what I mean? Yeah. Gotcha. Anything in triathlons that you've competed on that you're proud of? And it was just been like small, like local triathlons in area. Nothing huge, Not like full on Iron Man or anything crazy. No, no. Okay, cool. Just making sure just in case. Ok, so and then the extracurriculars look good. I think it's good. You got the investment banking competition. I would almost put that first. Mm hmm. Do you have any placements there, case competitor, did you do well there or not? Not anything. It's going to like those are like to occur this year. Like, Hmm. You know what I mean? Like it would be. I see it. Yeah, yeah. Ok, fair enough. And then skills again, I would hit, say, financial modeling. First, Excel, PowerPoint. Word or even USAID's office, whatever, but I think definitely financial modeling valuation hit up, definitely hit those first. Then anything else you have, like any random python coding, anything like that in terms of data analysis and if no, that's fine, don't say it. If you if you don't have it. Yeah, no, no, I don't have that. Ok. Ok. Yeah, just making sure. All right. So I would I would definitely finish with that. It kind of hits it home again. And dude, I'm looking forward to seeing your new resume. Yeah. That's, you know, it's a lot of minor things throughout. But I think overall, on the whole, I think it'll make a big difference just in terms of making it feel more bank horrific budget for when you're playing. I'm going to push you to actually start doing a lot of outreach into New York just because like there's thousands and thousands of bankers there. And the other thing I wanted to say to you is your resume screams Canada. So it's a problem when you're applying to the U.S. like you said, you're getting low hit rates. So I think it's a really when you're applying to the U.S.. Do you have a U.S. address by any chance? It would just be like a Texas address that would you would you argue, put that there? Yeah, my mom still lives in Texas, So I would put when you're applying, I would put the Texas address number one and number two I would have after your name. I would even consider putting U.S. Citizen ok In small font. Maybe we ought to think of how to make it look decent, but it's got to be front and center with your name because everything is Halifax, Montreal, Nova Scotia, so like. And you may just get some clear, but yeah, yeah, you may get thrown out just because they assume you need a visa. Gotcha. So like, that's really important to make sure that that's not that's not hurting you up front. So little social media quick. I checked your Facebook real quick. Couldn't see much, which is good. I would hide your photos. Ok? Nothing egregious there. That's bad. I just I don't see. There's not much upside to being somewhat public, especially on like the more social ones you're linked to. I really like your background on your LinkedIn. It's professional. If you do have a photo where you're smiling and look a little less serious, I would do that. Yeah, I think I think my new work pics are coming up this week, so I'm planning on updating them then. Perfect. And then kind of along with what we said on the resume, you have kind of it's a really long thing. It's like intern analyst, real estate investments that I would just say investment analysts, intern at PSB. Gotcha. Or just say intern at PSP or investment intern. Gotcha. I'm just shoring it up a little bit, and the rest I was, I thought it was really solid. I mean, just kind of continue in your LinkedIn kind of once you rewrite some of those bullets? Kind of bring them. Make sure you bring them over here to your LinkedIn profile. But overall looks good. You're some volunteer experience, which is nice with the tutor and all that stuff. And then let me check the plan. I want to make sure I'm not missing anything. Ok, networking, let's talk a little bit. So now we went over all that. So like you said, what are you primarily using? I assume it's mostly LinkedIn, right for outreach. Yeah. Like, I'll use LinkedIn to kind of figure out where someone works and then I'll go on like Wall Street Oasis to find like their email template and go from there and just shoot them a couple email. All right, so you're getting the email format from what the company database or something like that on. So, yeah, OK. Or it's in the forms or something. Ok, that's good. Because an email I was going to say, if you're dropping emails all the time, you may not get a great hit rate. You should still be trying. You have three hundred and eighteen connections. I want to see this hit five hundred very fast. Yeah, I want your one of your goals in the next month is like for you to literally request connect. It doesn't hurt you to request connections. So I think basically every banker in Toronto that's an analyst or an associate should have a record or a connection request from you. You've got to be a little careful not to go crazy because if you connect to think over one hundred a day, I think LinkedIn can Tim block you, but you should be pushing the outer limits of that because it just doesn't hurt you to get on people's radar. If they've seen your name, they've heard of the school. And if you connect now in a month or two, when you're reaching out, giving them an update on what happened at PSP and what you're looking for, it's just much easier than like you approaching them. Say too much that line. It's your initial connection, you know what I mean? Request? Yeah. So even if you request three hundred people and only 50 people or 20 30 people accept, that's huge because that could lead to two or three coffee chats, which could lead to one interview, which could be your break. Ok. You know what I mean? So I would do that aggressively for Toronto first, Montreal second, and then we'll hit New York hard. Definitely. Toronto, there's just it's just much bigger than Montreal in terms of market for four banks. And I mean, I know you said real estate, private equity, I don't know the real estate private equity universe that, well, how big it is in Canada. Are you familiar with it at all? Are there lessons from like from who I've talked to? It's a pretty small world. Yeah, yeah. So that's going to be like, you can do that alongside it. It's not going to hurt you, but you should be casting a super wide net. I would also not. I would also tell you, like, you shouldn't just assume banking or bust like as a mentor. It would be irresponsible for me to be like, you're going to break into investment banking for sure. It because sometimes you can end up getting a job in quote investment banking, but it's at some tiny little boutique bucket that does one crap deal a year. And it's like they're cutting you. They're there. I actually had a podcast recently with the guy hasn't been released yet, but the guy was working like 80 to 100 hours a week, getting paid like $2000 a month, like barely anything living in the closet. It was just hard. Like, these stores were horrible. And that's not uncommon because there's like there's a whole wide spectrum from the bulge brackets down to the elite boutiques upper middle market all the way down to these little tiny boutiques, one to five man shops. So like, you can break into investment banking and call yourself an investment banking analyst, but typically it can be pretty brutal there if you're willing to put in the time after a year or two. If it's if you actually can get a couple of deals on your resume at a place like that, you can lateral. That's the good news. Typically, lateral, especially if you're if you just hone your networking skills. So I think I don't know how long we how long we've been going, I think. Let me check. It's thirty seven. So, yeah, I think we have a little bit of time, do you? Are you open to like sharing kind of some of the templates? I guess I'm looking at three hundred connections, right? And I see, like huge potential for you of like thousands upon thousands of connection requests. Are you comfortable doing that? Does that make you uncomfortable sharing like the templates that I have? No, no, no. Just sorry. All the connection requests that I said you should do. Oh, yeah, that would be I'd be comfortable sharing that. Like, no, I mean, like actually like requesting connections to a ton of people that you don't know. Yeah, yeah, I'd be fine with that. Are you OK? And like I think, I think we can come up with something that we say they're like in the little message. And I think it's probably smart not to just have the generic message that LinkedIn throws in there, but take the time to write their first name. Yeah, definitely. It'll take five seconds instead of half a second for each one, but it's not like Toronto has, like thousands of bankers, it's like a couple of hundred. So you could probably do it in like a couple afternoons. But I would do something along like James so that you work in the banking industry. I would love to. Would love to connect. Maybe we can chat some, some time down the road or, you know, something like something along those kind of casual. And a lot of people will ignore you do about 50 like that. And then let's talk about actually do like one hundred and let's talk about it right after that. In terms of how I actually accepted you. I'd be curious to see if something casual. Kind of a little bit more personalized would. Would get that, and I think what you can do is after you invite somebody and if they don't accept you after a while, you can actually cancel the invite and then do it again. So again, yeah, It sounds crazy, but like if they keep seeing you pop up with like a new message, they're going to be like, Who is this kid, right? It's like, you'd be surprised. Some people get annoyed, but who cares? It's a small person. Exactly. People understand what's going on. Oh yeah. And then just your yeah. Because like, you have three interconnections, which is not bad coming from a tiny school, but like if you want to like really up your chances, you've got to be going, especially right now because it's like a critical time for you. You're having this, this internship, you're getting on a transaction, which is actually huge. It's actually huge. If you could try to get on one more. That it like changes your whole, it changes your whole CV, changes your whole resume, and you can have a transaction experience section and try even if they're not giving you, if even if they're not giving you the responsibility of doing the model, go in the model. And do the work that the actual analyst is doing, right? Just so you can talk to it so that when they actually drill down and ask you questions, you're not like you're not deer in the headlights, you actually can talk to the model and you understand the numbers, like knowing those two transactions inside out will be the make or break point for you. If you can talk intelligently about them in terms of the merits of the deal, why they were looking in that specific space industry like, you know, the whole SWOT analysis, strength, weaknesses, opportunity, threats, you know, speaking like a true management consultant, but also having the numbers to back it up and convincing them that you know what you're doing in terms of valuation in terms of financial modeling will really go a long way. Definitely. When you do land that like when you do get in that seat and I don't want you to wait to study for that, you know what I mean? Yeah, gotcha. And I know it's super stressful. You're like, Well, you're only doing the internship now, right? You're not in school. No, I'm in school right now. Do you have a ton of time? Are they? Are they? It's not too bad, right? The hours there, I assume it's like I'd say, like my late night, it's been like eight 8:30. Yeah, it's not too bad. If you're in New York, you'd be work until like midnight. 1:00 a.m.. Oh yeah, there was a LinkedIn post going around. It was like, or maybe wasn't. Linkedin is on Reddit or something about in the financial group where it was showing like the interns hours. And it was like there was one night. It was like six a.m., nine a.m. The next morning. So yeah, you have a good man, you have a good guy. So yeah, I think the more you can do in terms of like, it leaves you a lot of time for networking. This is what I'm saying. Do a lot of damage and you can still have fun in this in this fall.
Andrew: [00:43:12] This fall internship.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:14] Ok, so I don't know if you want to do it now, maybe you're not ready for it. But just like I was going to look at specifically messages, it doesn't sound like you've done a ton of networking like you did some alumni networking. It sounds like your hit rate was really good on that. Yeah, like most, most of my messages are over email. I don't know if I'm able to share screen. Yeah, you hit a little double square thing. Ok, gotcha. See if that works, I might have to stop sharing mine. It might kind of. There you go. Now I'm huge on your I can see my. All right. Here we go. Set. Yeah, so, Oh, by the way, quite quick question before you show us that, ah, do you speak Spanish? Like not really at all. Like, not a lot. Are you? Are you Latino at all? No, no. The representative. Too bad. There's a lot of programs. There's a lot of programs that you could if you were underrepresented minority that you could apply to and it would really increase your chances. Got it. They have a lot of resources. Kono, thank you for sharing this. So. Ok. Yeah. So do you want to see? So like, this was one of my first emails. This guy is actually vice president of equity research with RBC, and he was an alum with my school. Perfect. Yeah. So he he's responded to me. I think it was within.
Andrew: [00:44:48] It was within like 20 or 30 minutes, he responded.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:51] This is really solid. This is really solid. I mean, it's an alarm you might have for colder ones where it's not an alarm. I would definitely cut this in half. Yeah, but I think it was good that you were super specific because you knew it was a really highly targeted one. Yeah. Just introduce myself. Yeah, let's talk about this baby in the show notes we can have like a template that we share with the listeners just so they have like something they go off of. I think this is really good. I really love how you talked about listening to him on the Q1 results conference call. That was genius. Really, really, really good. Only thing I would just say, break it up, make it a little more readable, like on iPhone, because a lot of people are just reading their emails on smartphones now. Other than that, really love the tone. Understand you're extremely busy schedule to speak with you. Spend the next few weeks. It's great. I would even say not in the next few weeks, some time, whatever's best for you. And yeah, don't even put pressure on them. And then obviously it worked right. So it's fine. But just in terms of like for the cold ones, it's going to be much more every word. It's a little bit more important because they're more likely to just blow you off if they feel like the tone is a little too pushy or whatever, they're going to use any excuse to just hit delete. Got it. So, but yeah, overall, I think this is very solid. Ok, so let's so that's good. So you've kind of it sounds like you've already kind of. Hit all, whatever, 30 or so total, I'm done in finance from come from your school, so you're are you working those contacts? Are you keeping them up? Are you like actually following up with them every few weeks, like the ones that you have established connections with? Yeah, so with this guy, like specifically, I reached I think I reached because he connected me with another alum who's actually he's
Andrew: [00:46:44] At a different real estate firm. Yeah. And then I had a good chat with him, talked for about an hour, and then I reached back to the guy in this message and I just thanked him again for connecting me with him. And then I asked him if he'd be able to connect me with anyone else, maybe like Rbc or anyone who's who was on his team at like RBC and left to a different fund. So he was really receptive to that, And I asked him like a few more questions just on some of the recovered and kind of what he thought the market was going to do. And yeah, he was really receptive. He hooked me up with a few guys and then he, like, mentioned that RBC in Toronto would be having these two or three applications open for one for IB and one for their global markets program. So what's the global market? I think it's heavily focused in equity research, but I think you'd say it's like a rotational program.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:42] Got it, so like you're going to probably since you're from a non target, they're going to probably push you to that. You can have a very tough time getting to the IBBI position just to be totally free. Yeah, no, I got it. You get that. But it doesn't mean you can't. You shouldn't go for the I.B. position, right? Yeah, it's more like there's absolutely we should absolutely aim for that, and I'm going to try to help you with that. So OK. So did you follow up with that person? They ignored you. Well, I got
Andrew: [00:48:09] It, tried to connect me with two more people and one totally ignored me and one I think I had a call with.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:18] And so I would. Now that he's established, he's helped you out a lot. Your emails to him should be not too frequently. Not every other week or whatever. I'd say every like six to eight weeks, every couple of months, just to give him a short like one or two line update. Maybe send him something that's useful to him or some interesting article you found that's relevant to him, but also just telling him, you know, thanks again for your introduction and just being showing him a lot of gratitude and just kind of giving you an update of the transaction. Maybe you are on a transaction and let them know about it. Stuff like that to give them an update on the internship experience. But yeah, I'd say between six and eight weeks is good. 12 weeks is probably a little too long. Although if they seem, you know, you kind of have to read them a little bit, if they seem like super open and willing to help like this guy, I think he's not going to mind if every couple of months you send him online email, it doesn't have to be every two months, you know what I mean? It could be like two months and then maybe three or four months later at that point, you're almost out of year, you know? So, so yeah, I think in terms of like cadence, that's good. The people that don't respond to you, are you following up with them or have you? Yeah.
Andrew: [00:49:25] So there was this one, there's one alum in specific who I reached out to him once and then I waited like it was like a week or two. Reach out to him again, try to connect with them on LinkedIn. I think he declined to email them again, messaged him on LinkedIn. I saw that he'd seen it so like I, and then he still didn't respond. So I figured, OK, this is a guy definitely doesn't want to talk.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:53] Yes, but it could be something along the lines of timing, so don't take that as a no forever, right? Is there something in your it looks like you're using outlook? Is there something I know Gmail? I have something called right inbox that allows me to kind of. It's yeah. So you can see when someone reads it, right? No, it's so that I can add reminders on emails and it pops it back to the inbox at the top. There's like it. It basically will take an email. I'll say three weeks on something, or I'll say even sometimes 12 months, I'll be like next year. Hit me up on this and I hit a reminder of a month. And then in 12 months, literally at eight am to the day, it'll pop that email to the top and I'm like, Oh, yeah, but it allows us. I don't know if Outlook has some sort of extension that's similar, but something that allows you because otherwise it's be really hard to manage all of this. Like when you go through 30 connections or 20 people, 20 conversations up to one hundred to one hundred, which is ideally what you're going to get to. Um, knowing who hasn't responded and having those automated bumps each morning, so, you know, hey, in the morning, I got to get to my reminder emails, the my five that popped up this morning, I got to follow up with these people because it's been two three months and that guy that hasn't responded, that's three outreaches. Let it cool for a while. Yeah. You know, like I'd say, at least four months when you have more tangible to tell him like an update. After a while, it gets like you're talking to yourself. It's a little embarrassing. So but like, You know, as long as you're doing it respectfully and you can even say something like, I understand you're super busy, so no worries if you can't respond almost like that, like, it's just giving him an easy out, OK? But just giving him an update, it shows a lot of tenacity and passion as long as you're not like hitting him up every month or so. He'd be really pissed eventually. But yeah, maybe. What is it? September maybe hit him up again, like in the new year, early in the new year. You kind of have more something to say. But, yeah, definitely looking to an extension, something to organize yourself, are you using like Google Sheets Excel spreadsheet, anything to organize yourself on this? Yeah, I've got. I think there's one of the WCO templates. I don't know if I have it open. I don't. But it would be like, yeah, the person's name or first name, last name for first time I reached out to them has like columns for basically every time you reach out to them and then like, it would be like highlighted whenever
Andrew: [00:52:25] It reaches a certain or the conditional format, whenever it reaches a certain like the time that I haven't reached out.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:31] Ok, well, then that's the same thing as right inbox, OK? As long as you're keeping that updated, I think that's fine and you're actually using it daily. Ok? I think that's OK. Got it. Yeah, just make sure that staying updated, it gets a little hard. When you're using LinkedIn email, you're using different, different channels to keep that organized. But yeah, definitely. Make sure you stay on top of that. That's good to hear. So you are on top of it. I just feel like you have. Why haven't you expanded your reach? Down there, have you started are you being more aggressive lately like you said you reached out to them? I feel like I was. I was more aggressive
Andrew: [00:53:08] In the summer and then now, like since I've got here, I kind of cooled down a little bit, try to learn the job a little bit more. So I'm not totally useless on this internship.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:20] Yeah, yeah. You've got to focus on the internship performance. For one, if you were in school, I'd tell you school number one, internship number two. But yeah, if you feel like the networking is going to hurt you in your performance, yeah, you can cool it a little bit. But I think connection requests are super easy, man. You can spend 20 minutes a day and hit up like 50 people or 100 people got it. And that's super valuable down the road for you. So don't let that like, just find time for that. Yeah. It's all I can say, because people are like, oh, those aren't really useful, but if somebody connects to you and they're in the right seat and they're in a good mood and you hit them up and they see something in your resume that they like their power lifter or their triathlete or their or whatever, you have a lot of interesting things on your resume that may catch somebody at somebody's eye. Then I think, you know you could. You could actually really. Do really well. So, yeah, I'm sharing my screen now. Just going back to my so I talked about social media. Yeah, I talked about LinkedIn de-emphasizing the real estate networking on it. So have you are you having coffee chats and stuff like that? You're in Montreal, right? Yes. So I haven't. I've yet to
Andrew: [00:54:33] Have any in montreal. I think I had one in Halifax, but my plan kind of now just going forward is just, yeah, I reached out in Montreal. I'd say, yes. So you said Toronto first. So like out of the twenty or so, I may focus more on
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:50] If you're in Montreal, maybe you want to hit that first because it's easier. If you say I'm here, it might actually be higher impact. One little thing I noticed. Montreal has a period here.
Andrew: [00:54:59] Oh, okay, got it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:55:01] All right. The rest have commas. Yeah, I just saw that. I just saw the banker detail. Anal, dude, super anal. You would be auto dinged for that auto dinged. Ok, so. Anything else, let's see. So we kind of talked a little bit about the networking, how you're tracking it. Do you have any trips planned to Toronto? Yeah. So my school does a trip in in February, but I kind of want to go up
Andrew: [00:55:30] A bit before that just to kind of solidify more of the routes that I have before I go again and February.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:55:38] How many people are connected to you in Toronto? Do you think that are in the in a seat that you would love to be in or in a firm? Yeah, probably 10. 10. Ok, so that's not bad. It would be great for that to be 20. Exactly. You go 30 and then you can like if you're there for like three days, you just fill. You try to fill up the days as much as you can. Yeah. And it would be buzzing off the coffee. Yeah, just start like really nursing it, fake drinking it. And then how about New York? I would play in New
Andrew: [00:56:12] York, but I know my school select the investment fund they do. They do have a trip to New York in March.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:18] Do you have a preference in terms of where you want to stay after you graduate? No preference. No. You just want the best job possible. Exactly. Yeah. Ok, so start hitting New York up like heavily after. I mean, Toronto makes sense. Montreal makes sense because you're there. But yeah, man, I would even hit up Boston places. I mean, anything you can say to like, tie yourself to I mean, it's going be tough with New York because you don't have any ties there. But it doesn't matter, like you're just hungry, you're young and you want to be, I think New York could be a great place to start your career. You know, there's a lot of times people will start in banking and in Texas and spend a year or two trying to get up to New York or be in Toronto and say, Hey, I really wish I was at a bigger city. So. Yeah, let's plan those. I think you have your Toronto trip start kind of mapping that out a little bit in terms of it's maybe it's December, maybe it's right before the holidays and then maybe New York is a little bit later, like in late January, February. Okay. Is it you said a group goes there with your school? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So maybe you can go with them, but ideally you've put in some legwork ahead of time. Yeah, definitely. And if you have to skip a little bit of classes and just crash on a friend's couch, I would do that. Because you're going to do well in school, you're doing well in school anyways. And this is the time right now that establishing these connections is basically maker is going to make a massive difference in terms of your initial job right out of school. Got it. So, like, it's basically much more important at this point, like, yeah, don't get D's and CS, but if you had to get a couple b's and it brings your GPA to like a three five, that's worth the trips. Yes, definitely worth those connections and meeting people face to face. So obviously don't try to. Don't try to get try to continue to get A's. But, you know, do what? You can do anything else before we call this kind of first session, I think it was good, I think. You have a lot to kind of chew on and work on, obviously. I think. I think it's been good. Any comments or feedback in terms of like what you want to kind of work on next time, maybe we just kind of do an update, figure out where you're at. And I can dive in. We can go a little more specifics in terms of like how that initial outreach is going on, like networking and stuff. Yeah, I feel like that would that would
Andrew: [00:58:49] Be good to have that kind of just to ensure that
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:58:53] Your internship, just to hear how that's going to make sure you're can you do you have somebody there that you can that can advocate for you, like if somebody senior that helped bring you in? Yeah, yeah. I'm in the office right now, actually. Yeah, that's nice. So like, yeah, if somebody can help you out in terms of like, it sounds like you already getting staff an idea which is great, but just try to continue to raise your hand, be like, I'd love to help with that, you know, especially if it's a specific transaction. If it's like database work, really try to hide and let the other intern get it. If there isn't an answer, But there's one other intern in the group. Yeah, yeah. If it's a transaction, really try to jump up and down for it. Definitely. Ok, cool. Thanks so much for taking the time. I'm excited to see your new resume. I'm excited to see kind of your connections explode on LinkedIn. And yeah, we'll take we'll touch base soon, and it's definitely going to be free to shoot me emails and stuff in between. Ok, it's not perfect. It's not like we can only chat this one hour. Ok? Got it! awesome. Thanks for. Yep. Take it easy. 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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