Monkey to Millions | Grace (Session 8) - Remote Finals and Investment Banking Internship - May 6, 2020
About
In this short session with Grace, we just touch base quickly as she is in the middle of finals and we talk about how to succeed at her internship now that it has moved remotely. We talk about contingency plans in case there is a lower workload and how she can build out her resume in this important summer.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 8) 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 and 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 short session with grace, we just touch base quickly as she's in the middle of finals. We talk about how to succeed at her internship now that it has moved remotely. We talk about contingency plans in case there's a lower workload and how she can build out her resume in this important summer. Enjoy. All right, Grace, I think this is like session number nine, maybe or eight or something. It's a crazy thing like that. But yeah, it'd be great to just get an update and hear how things have been going over the last. What is it? Five weeks or so,
Grace: [00:01:41] Five or six weeks? Yeah, about that. So I've just been finishing up online classes and going through all of that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:48] When are you done the next week?
Grace: [00:01:49] Basically, yeah. So my classes are officially finished. And then right now I'm just catching up on final papers and projects, and then I have a few more final exams and about a week from now, I'll be completely finished.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:01] So it's really busy right now. Kind of, yeah. Thank you for taking the time to do this. So I won't keep you too long because I'm sure you have a ton of work, as do I. But let's talk a little bit about so-like classes. You feel like you're going to finish, OK? Do you feel like you're set up to do to kind of do well?
Grace: [00:02:20] Mm hmm. Yeah. And since we have the pass-fail option for any classes we chose, that was good. So hopefully that'll help me to sense I could choose to pass-fail classes where I thought I might, where I wouldn't get an A necessarily.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:37] Are you doing that in a few?
Grace: [00:02:39] Mm. Yeah, for a few of them.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:40] Ok, cool. Great. So then can you hear me OK? Mm hmm. So I guess that's wrapping up this week and then any other kind of notices. I know all the spring weeks got canceled and all that stuff, which is kind of a bummer. Have you been talking to any of your contacts, anything new there or how's that? Have you been able to keep up with the internship remotely or like, how is that going? I know I talked to I talked with John yesterday, one of the other mentees, and he was like, Yeah, he's he started a part-time remote ivy internship and he's been doing like about 10 to 20 hours and then another 20 hours with another real estate firm to try and pick up some paid work since the internships unpaid. But yeah, I'd love to hear. Are you have you been able to kind of pick up anything from that for them or you just kind of been pretty slow?
Grace: [00:03:31] It's been pretty slow. So I'm still doing the guys part-time technically since I'm still doing classes. So just the same as it's been all semester, but it's definitely been less work remotely that I've been able to do. But I'm hoping that once I finish classes and I'm available basically the entire week, maybe I'll be able to get a little more involved in some things.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:54] But I told you, like this summer, they'll be able to potentially give you work over the summer.
Grace: [00:03:59] Yeah, I think it's just a lot of uncertainty about when people are going back up to the office.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:04] So, yeah, that probably won't happen.
Grace: [00:04:08] Yeah. So it's just a matter I think no one really knows yet.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:13] In your home in Maryland, right?
Grace: [00:04:14] Yes. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:15] Ok. So yeah, I mean, it'd be great if you could. I told this, John. It'd be great if you could. Try to advocate for yourself and don't be too quiet over the summer, right, in terms of trying to get some work just for the resume. Just for a few bullets, even if it's like a few research projects or any modeling you can do right would be excellent because. I think that that would be huge. The other thing is we have to be announced next month we have a bunch of new financial modeling courses that we're releasing on Wall Street Oasis. So I don't know if we've given you access to the Excel modelling course. Have we done that?
Grace: [00:04:52] I know I have. Is it part of the interview?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:54] Course No, it's totally fine.
Grace: [00:04:56] I don't think
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:57] So. The Excel Modeling Financial Statement Modeling can get you access to those. Now that's another thing that would be great over the summer, especially the Excel modeling, just trying to get the foundations built with your so I told John, it's kind of like an instrument, and you should think of it as like learning how to play an instrument. I'm using that program. So when you first start out in like on the piano, you're playing like hot cross buns with two or two fingers, you know, eventually you can get to a point where you're like a concert pianist and you're using all 10 fingers and very fast. And I think that is well worth the time to get extremely efficient in Excel. Building financial models, linking up to three statements understanding how to balance your balance sheet. All that stuff is time well spent, even if the internships not giving you that putting in a good one hundred hours this summer or even a couple of hundred hours drilling with that stuff can go a long way toward making you super-efficient kind of sophomore during either a sophomore year internship or your sophomore summer. Okay. It'll make it that much easier just to understand the financial concepts, understand the valuation, understand DCF modeling all that good stuff so that you're just extremely well versed on the theory, but also can, in practice, put together the analysis really fast. Okay, so you basically want to become a machine because, you know, at the analyst level, at the junior level where you bring a lot of values, just your efficiency and how fast you can whip up analysis. And so, you know, not ask one hundred of the same 100 questions at the same time, right, have some thought processes of, OK, why are we making these certain adjustments to this company and not others, that type of thing? So the more you can kind of spend time in those courses, I think the better you're going to be in terms of setup for your internship and eventually for your full-time job. If you come into your full-time job having, let's say you do this training, then you do a couple of internships and you keep training and keep training for three summers. By the time you can see your full-time job, you're going to be leaps and bounds ahead of where a lot of other kids are. If they've only done one internship and maybe only kind of touched on financial modeling for like 20 hours and kind of maybe on a Mac, they kind of do you have a Mac, by the way?
Grace: [00:07:19] No, I don't. I've been doing all windows.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:23] Ok, good because John had a Mac, and I'm like, You have to buy parallels and you have to buy a PC keyboard because he was learning this stuff on the Mac. I'm like, No, no, no, no, no.
Grace: [00:07:31] Shortcuts are different, all different.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:33] I'm like, You're learning to play the wrong instrument. So good. That's good to hear. So I think that would be time really well spent if they're not going to be if they're giving you like a crazy amount of work then great, then do those projects deliberately well. But if, let's say they're only giving you like 10 hours of work a week and you're like, oh, I'm kind of more like just setting aside an hour or two, maybe in the morning this summer of. From eight to nine a.m., I have to be doing this course, if if you set aside that time and you can play a lot of the stuff back at one point five times speed all that stuff if you take the time to do that. I honestly think more than just watching the courses, and it's really doing the exercises and the drills over and over and over again. If you do that, I'm telling you it's going to be an incredible benefit to you down the road. Mm hmm. Okay. For confidence, for confidence too. And for. So what else is going on, how can I help? So like you're it sounds like you don't really miss a little bit up in the air for this summer or you don't know how much work they're going to have for you. I think you're in the same boat as a lot of people.
Grace: [00:08:42] I'm just glad I have something, and I think it will be more. I mean, when I was in the office earlier this semester, I was doing twenty to twenty-five hours a week, so. And that was just like part-time. So I'm thinking full-time. Even if it's remote, I should at least be able to get 20 hours a week something.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:02] Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I would if you can do a lot of evaluation work, that would be great. You can do any sort of modeling work or even if they're not giving you the modeling work if you can shadow the modeling work. Mm hmm. So even if they're not like, Hey, build this model, if you can see what the analysts have done or the associates have done and ask for access or a copy of that. Mm hmm. Try to delete it and rebuild it or build it from scratch like on a blank spreadsheet. Mm hmm. That's a great way to practice because then you have to link up everything and that, you know if you rip out the mouse from your keyboard and you don't let yourself touch the mouse throughout that whole box, you'll get really fast. If you do that a few times, you'll be shocked. You'll be like, This is so easy now. Like, I thought it was all complicated and there's a few like nuances and stuff like that as you depending on the type of model, if it's a merger model, if it's just a three-step and operating model. But yeah, I think doing all those, all that drilling. It's not like super riveting, but it's almost like building just your skill base is like when you're as I was a soccer player, it's almost like doing the juggling and the dribbling skills rather than just like. You know, looking at the final output and just being like, oh yeah, I understand it. You know what I mean?
Grace: [00:10:21] Right, that makes sense.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:22] Sorry about the screaming here that fairly hard in terms of other stuff. What's going on? Have you been talking at all with anybody in your network keeping in touch?
Grace: [00:10:33] Mm hmm. Yeah. Especially some of the younger Fordham alumni. I have a couple of actually reached out to me, people I've talked to a few months ago about applications opening within the next couple of months for summer twenty-one. And I've been interacting a lot, especially with the Fordham Goldman team, so they actually offered to help me out with even maybe doing a mock interview sometime this month or in June before applications open in July. So.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:03] So this is their sophomore summer, they're opening in the next.
Grace: [00:11:07] I think they open July 1st for Goldman at least, and I think
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:11] Family's the same, but that's accelerated. That's for sophomore summer like accelerated recruiting.
Grace: [00:11:16] I think so. I don't. Yeah, I don't know how it works. I think every bank is different and it's just diversity or not.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:24] I think that sounds really early. Well, no, I guess it's within one year ahead of time. That's normal for the sophomore, for the sophomore program. Ok, so that's good. Anything, anything else with the rest of your network, like, do you know or are you still using right in-box? Is it there's stuff popping up?
Grace: [00:11:44] Mm hmm. Yeah, that's been really helpful.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:47] And you can put like a six week lag on it or even an eight week or ten week lag on it. You don't have to be like every three weeks. You don't want to be like bothering people.
Grace: [00:11:57] And that's what I've been doing a lot recently too, because I guess with everyone's schedules are different right now, being stuck at home. So it's been yeah, I haven't been as aggressive
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:08] On that front. That's good. Yeah, you don't want to be like tone deaf to what's going on and everything.
Grace: [00:12:15] Yeah, I would just been reaching out to a few people at some of the boutiques to so like Wallace and Evercore, because not there's not a lot of affordable alumni there. But I found some Baltimore people, like people who went to high school in Baltimore. So I've been reaching out to some of those people trying to, I guess, get some of those connections started, especially since they don't do sophomore interns at all. But I guess just kind of making those connections now, at least trying to with a few of those places.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:42] So yeah, because if you make those connections, you get on the radar, have a few phone calls between now and, you know, your sophomore summer, then you tell them you give them an update, be like, Hey, I have an internet Goldman and sophomore summer or in turn, take whatever, then you may be able to get into some processes for like Evercore or. Which is a great place to be both great. Yeah.
Grace: [00:13:05] The only thing is, I guess some of them, since I'm talking to them now, by the time I'm recruiting, they'll have done those few years as an analyst and one of them already told me that he's leaving this June to go to the buy side so we won't even be there anymore.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:18] But the good contact to have maybe went you far thinking if he's still at the buy side, that's true. That could get you into the buy side. Really, that could be a good place to be. So it's you're right, it's so early that in the sense, a lot of them will be gone. But if you're able to talk to any associates to, that might be there a little bit longer.
Grace: [00:13:37] I talked to one end actually and who's been working, who does all the who's been doing interviews for all their non core recruiting for think the past at least five years so.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:50] And that's good. Yeah. Awesome. Perfect. Ok. So yeah, those conversations are super valuable. If they like, see you as a freshman to Congress, was he or she impressed?
Grace: [00:14:01] I think so. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:02] Ok, good. Yeah, I think you're in great shape. I mean, the. It's obviously going to be more competitive with the recession we're heading into and all that stuff. So regardless of what happens this summer, how much experience you get or next summer if you don't get the ideal internship, I think what's more important is that you keep fostering those relationships and keep letting people know you're still around and you're still want to go after it and keep them updated on kind of the progress and the self study. You're doing stuff like that to the point where it's, you know, a couple of times a year, you're paying them. Right. At least so. And, you know, anytime there's like a major milestone, like you get an internship or something like that, that's a good time to kind of refresh and let everybody know what's going on and how you're still you. Thank them for their time and their advice. Stuff like that. Ok. Anything else besides skills, Mark interviews, how do you feel about like interview skill? I know right now your focus on just finishing school, and that's where you should be focused on so that you can get keep the GPA up once that finishes mid-May. Do you want to, I guess in June, do you want to spend some time with like interviews or do you want to spend some time kind of going through anything else for our next session?
Grace: [00:15:27] Yeah, I think our next session is actually later in May and a few weeks from now. So at that point, we can
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:32] Put that up. Yeah, we can. Yeah, I think I think keeping it for weeks, four or five weeks is good for cadence. So there's not like, Oh yeah, I just talk to you. Yeah, OK. So yeah, we'll be like your next one. Yeah, you'll be done. And ideally, at that point, you'll have. You'll be able to see kind of how much work you're getting right from the internship and we can talk a little bit about other things you can do to supplement the resume potentially and to build it out. Although last time I looked, it looks pretty strong already with what you have in their leadership, extracurriculars at Fordham and you're doing the most. You're putting the most work into the most important thing, which is meeting people. And so I feel really confident about where you sit right now, even with everything that's happening because you're starting so early. But yeah, I wouldn't stop. So you've continued, are you starting? Are you keeping the top of the funnel? Are you keeping the top of the pipeline coming where new people, you're still reaching out to new people from time to time?
Grace: [00:16:31] Yeah, it's a lot. Yeah, yeah, a lot less now than, I guess, three months ago, but it's still a little bit.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:39] Ok, yeah. So like maybe during the summer, if the internship does turn out to be a little bit less demanding and let's say you do an hour of financial modeling training in the morning with the stuff I give you and you do an hour of networking. Something like that in the morning, just new outreach or follow up. I think that would be a good cadence just to set aside two hours Monday through Friday, so 10 hours a week, just skill improvement and a network. It's like fostering or network maintenance, I think would be a good, good amount of time to spend on it. But just making sure it's consistent every day. Right? We'll really by the end of the summer, it's going to just be even more impressive and open up a lot more doors down the road for you, even when you do break into banking. Not if we're. Yeah, so. Yeah, the only other thing I'd probably want to do with you again is maybe do more of a technical mock interview with you for like maybe in our July meeting. Okay. Once you have a little more time to go through some of the courses, stuff like that, I think it would be worth it to really just see how far I can push you on your technical questions and see how, how you're coming along and where you feel a little less comfortable versus where you feel like you really know the material. Mm hmm. Okay. Does that sound? Does that sound good in terms of plan? Ok. How else can I be helpful? Anything else?
Grace: [00:18:16] Nothing right now, I think. Ok. I'm just trying to get through this next week. Get everything.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:20] Yeah, I know it's kind of bad timing for this call because you're like school, school, which you should be. This is like crunch time. I remembered finals time back in the day, and it's not easy, so I'll let you run. Good luck with all of that. And then, yeah, I look forward. We'll schedule something for early June. I'll push back the other one and then, yeah, we'll see how it goes. I'm excited, though. I think I think you're going to get at least some good work experience out this summer, and if not, you're at least going to get a lot of time to train. Right? So either way, I feel good about where I am. So going to be good either way. Ok. Awesome, grace, we'll talk to you. Thank you. Thanks. Bye. 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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