In this session, Andrew has a sudden private equity interview opportunity. We review changes he made to his resume from the first session and then focus on his prep for his private equity internship opportunity.

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WSO Podcast (Episode 2) Transcript:

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:04] Well. 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're inspired to dream big. Remember, these are real people, and this is their true story. Let's get to it in this session, Andrew has a sudden private equity interview opportunity. We reviewed changes he made to his resume from the first session and then focus on his prep for his private equity internship opportunity. We don't want to miss this one, but first, take a listen from Andrew himself from the weeks leading up to this session. Last week, I applied to multiple jobs spanning from pension funds to a few of the big five Canadian banks. So can I just run you through that? I applied for investment banking roles with two of the big banks, specifically Toronto-Dominion and CIBC. The director of my investment fund in my school actually told me that I would likely be getting an interview with CIBC because they specifically would target like East Coast students. So I would have a leg up there, especially having a real estate private equity job on my resume would be pretty highly to that. So that would likely be coming next week, starting next week. So in order to prep for that, I've just had a few friends at the position. I'm in now agree to do a few mock interviews, so I'll likely be running through two or three mock interviews by the start of next week. So that's a little bit on the investment banking side, kind of moving towards the pension funds. I applied to a few alternative investment classes as well as private equity, and these would be at pension funds where I would already have a lot of traction just due to the name that's already on my resume. From there, I did have a few coffee chats over the last week and a few phone calls. I had a coffee chat with a guy from Bank of Montreal who was actually a VP for their investment banking side. It's pretty good. It was just kind of get a little more in-depth on what they actually do here at the Montreal office, as well as I had had a few phone calls, one with another pension funds real estate team and another with an equity research analyst who used to be in Toronto is now in New York. And he gave me a few job tips like he was telling me to basically start putting a fake New York address. And then if I end up actually ever getting any interviews there just to take a red eye and do that overnight flight. So that's a little bit on that side moving towards just like my week in general, it's been pretty, pretty busy, probably like eight to eight to nine would normally be the workday. So it kind of from there. I do like some investment proposals or some draft a lot of reports and just do a lot of meetings. I can't really do go into too many specifics because I haven't really gone into like a great length of detail on them. But yeah, that's kind of its kind of been about it. If, like anything changed for maybe the next update, I'd be glad to do that. But that's kind of a little high level overview as well. I also did update my resume and got a lot of critique on that from some of my friends who've broken into investment banking. So I will be saying that your way. So you had an unexpected emergency private equity interview coming up. So, yeah, it's happening a lot earlier than we expected to try and get you some, some reps in terms of answering private equity interview type questions. So I'm pretty experienced in this type of interview setting, although for a co-op internship, I bet you it's going to be very similar to an entry level banking interview. So anyways, we can get started by first. Let's just go through your resume because I know you updated that. And then from there, we can kind of dive into the mock intercepts. So I see you put your cumulative up there, as I mentioned before, like if you're sending this to U.S. firms, definitely put it on a foreign scale. Yeah. The rest looks pretty good, I mean, you definitely quantified a lot more here and you didn't highlight as much real estate stuff, which is good for the general positions. And yeah, you got some more quantification here, DCF, I think. Honestly, I think you're good to go here, only little minor thing. I don't know if you need the bullets down here, when you have the colon to take them right out. Yeah, you can bring it over a little bit because it looks like a little odd with the gap here, but. Ok. But yeah, it looks good, looks like you've got some good keywords here. And then, yeah, I think you're good to go, man, for the resume. So let's talk a little bit about this firm and what's going on this weekend. Tell me like how this came about, is this A.? I'd love to learn more because I don't know too much about them. Ok, so I kind of literally just applied to two positions there for the winter. They're both eight month, eight-month terms with the firm. So it's with British Columbia Investment Management Corp. Yeah. So it's their private equity arm. So I kind of literally just applied. I didn't know too much about it. I know a few guys that I'm doing my internship with now have either

Andrew: [00:06:34] Interviewed there or worked there before, so

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:37] They specialize in any specific industry. I think they're pretty

Andrew: [00:06:42] Allocated just through alternative investments. Or you mean for private equity specific?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:47] Yeah. Like, are they like in energy or are they in like real estate or are they? I think they're pretty, pretty diversified. I know they looked up to their past deals that were public. I think one was health care and one was tech. Ok, so they're like a general private equity fund. Like any, you'd see a general buyout fund or whatever. Yeah. Do you know how many people work there? Have you done your research fully yet? Are you still doing that? Not fully. That's still underway, but it's a relatively small firm. It's so it's in

Andrew: [00:07:20] Victoria, B.c. So it's a lot smaller than like Vancouver or anything like that.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:26] It's in Victoria, British Columbia. Oh, the little island. Yeah, it's beautiful there. You know, I've been there a long time ago. Yeah, it's a pretty sweet place. So I guess you would be going there in January through eight months, almost through the summer. Yeah. And then you'd start. You'd be kind of back on cycle for your junior year, going back to SMU. Yeah, exactly. Ok. So I guess for this, we'll kind of treat it as a pretty standard private equity interview, but I still want to just focus a lot on. More the basics, because we know you're going to we know for sure you're going to get certain questions, and then from there we can go a little more technical. But they said it's a 30 minute phone interview. Yeah, like a mix between behavioral and technical. Yes. The other thing we don't want to do is like overly psych yourself out and like, No, I think I've done a drill. But then you can remember it's a phone interview, you know? So this isn't like final round, anything like that. So I think our goal here is to make you prepared enough where you feel confident in terms of telling your story and you kind of have drilled enough or it kind of just comes out naturally rather than being like, Oh, that has to be perfect word, their perfect word, they're like, if we had more time, we could really dig. But obviously, this is in one of the two days, which is weird, just a night interview, which is I've never used before. It's like 9:00 p.m. my time. So, OK, cool. So I guess to start, do you want? Can you see my screen? Yeah, you can. Let me see if I can pull this up. I'm in a section of the course that has like. Technical stuff, I think before we even get into more PE stuff, I kind of want to focus a little bit more on the behavioral, a little bit more on the more standard questions. Ok. And then I'll probably do a couple of questions, then go back and we can. I'll give you kind of feedback as we go. Not like I won't give you feedback after every question. Sure. But I'll probably be taking notes and then just kind of come back to it. In terms of things, I think we could slightly change and stuff like that, for sure. Ok, so let's just start off with the question that you get 90 percent of the time as you need to walk me through your resume or tell me your story. Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Andrew: [00:09:56] Awesome. Yeah. So right now, I'm a third year student at St. Mary's University. I actually entered this school wanting to pursue an accounting degree. But after being involved with a few clubs and speaking with a few guys on the investment club, I really found a passion for finance and kind of from that, it was like a two or three year period later where I ended up joining the school's investment fund. I worked pretty diligently through that, and I actually was promoted from a research associate to a fund manager after I had a successful pitch of an apartment or a local apartment to Halifax. And from there, I started reaching out to a lot of people in the industry, from investment banking to real estate specific and then to a few people in private equity as well. And from there, I really try to narrow down my career trajectory, and I ended up just joining PSP investments real estate team. Just last month, and from what I've seen, it's a great firm. I really love the pension fund atmosphere and kind of where you can ascend from there and what types of deals you're able to look at and speaking with some of the fellow interns on the team. I actually got a lot more interested in the private equity side versus the real estate side, so that really pursued me to apply to BCI for the private equity role this winter.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:25] And what about equity versus real estate? Do you like? I really like private equity. Quick aside, I might be really tough just to be a jerk, just to kind of put pressure on you. But if you do not worry, I would stumble with some of these things. So like, do not feel bad about it. It's just to try and try and put a little bit of pressure on you such that we can improve. That's it. Yeah. So in terms of real estate, private equity, you said like private equity started interest in you a little bit more. What specifically did you find interesting about it? Definitely. So with private equity, I found you're looking at a lot

Andrew:  [00:12:00] More into the actual business itself versus with real estate. You're looking at maybe one or two projects with a partner that it really just ends up being only that one asset and you're not looking at the business as a whole.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:14] Got it, so real estate isn't interesting to you anymore, or you would consider it kind of full time. It's something I definitely consider. I wouldn't want to eliminate myself from anything as of now as I do have a long career ahead of me. And I see you, you have some LBO modelling experience. How comfortable are you with financial modelling? With financial modeling in general, I'd say that my skill level would probably be intermediate, I haven't had I haven't been able to build models from scratch, but I've been able to look at previous models and kind of understand the gist of it. So kind of from that, I've taken a few modeling courses, but I would definitely say that practice is needed. Got it. Ok. And then can you tell me a little bit about specifically one of the deals you worked on at either at PSB? I'm definitely so recently we've been looking at a pretty large transaction. It's actually an office property in

Andrew: [00:13:21] The Boston metro area and kind of from that, I was in charge of creating an investment summary, which was then presented to a director on the team. And we just recently had a call with the broker for that transaction and we decided to add it to an investment pipeline.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:41] So what specifically did you say you put together like the written material for it, did you were you doing any of the financial modeling at all than that? No, not any of the financial modeling in specific, but I was in charge of taking a lot of the qualitative

Andrew: [00:13:53] Characteristics of the property and kind of testing a little bit of the broker assumptions that went into their financial model.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:01] And do you feel like it's a good? Did you feel like it was a good asset to add to the portfolio? Um, overall, I think it would, because we did you agree with the decision?

Andrew: [00:14:10] I did agree with the decision. Kind of from that, we actually do hold a lot of assets in that area. So it would make sense given the returns that we would project for that asset combined or in conjunction with what we already have there.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:27] Tell me a little bit more about. Your interest, what you do for fun. Awesome, so a lot of my time is actually taken up by the gym, and it's actually been a huge crush for me over these past few years after I finished up sports in high school. I never ended up pursuing like intramurals or joining a university team, so I actually got into powerlifting. I think midway through my second year of university. So it was a pretty intense program that I went through was probably spending like two, two and a half hours at the gym every day after class. And it would really just test, test your limits from the squat bench and deadlift. And I ended up improving my lifts immensely. How much? Well, also I my bench press went from two hundred and twenty five pounds to two hundred and seventy five pounds. It's probably not as big a jump as some people would see, but then my squat actually went from three hundred and sixty pounds to four or five pounds. And then lastly, my deadlift went from four hundred and fifty five pounds to five hundred and forty five pounds. Not bad. Don't slip a disc or anything, I would probably die if I tried to lift that. So you're it seems like you have a good background. Your do you feel like coming out to Vancouver would be? Have you been out here before? I was actually out in Whistler a few years ago. I think it was during my great ten year of high school. My dad and I actually went on the bobsled course. So that was a lot of fun. I really loved the area, kind of just the atmosphere was filled with a lot of youth. So I really love that. And did you have you ever lived here for an exciting period of time or did you have family or anything like that out here? I do not have any family on the West Coast, no. And so do you think would be tough for you to transition out here or do you feel like you're open to that? I think I'm definitely open to it. I think I can. I can really speak to that as I just moved from Halifax to Montreal. And I've never been to Montreal before and I have absolutely no family here and I've really loved the transition. It's definitely a lot different, but I really like being in situations where I'm uncomfortable and have to adjust. Now tell me a little bit about. Tell me a little bit about like a time when you didn't agree, like you were working in a group project, you didn't agree with somebody in the team or either your or maybe it was a teacher, you didn't agree with them. How did you handle that situation? Awesome. So there's actually just this past summer when I was taking, I took a full six course load during the summers in my intermediate accounting

Andrew:  [00:17:17] Two course, So the first half of the course was fairly straightforward, and then I ended up having to miss a few classes due to networking events. And I told I told the professor this, and he really didn't. He said that he tried to help me out, but whenever I'd reached out to him, he really didn't. So kind of from that, I was at a loss and I reached out to a lot of fellow students who'd already done the course before and achieved pretty high marks in it. And they helped me to the best of their ability, like given their schedule. And from that, I kind of really pulled myself up after nearly failing one of the exams to achieving a pretty high mark in the course, given the circumstances,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:02] Which could be something. Yeah, that'd be. It was. I was close to probably a d after the midterm and then I wrote myself back up. Not bad. So let's just move a little bit into some. So that's behavioral. Do you can you give me a little bit more detail like you started? I want to go back a little bit to the deal you talked about. It was pretty light. So just giving you some feedback, it was pretty light in terms of the details you gave. And I know you do much. Is there another deal you could focus on where you did do the modeling? Though I don't think I've actually I haven't done like a lot of the modeling, but one of the associates on the team, I think, is supposed to walk me through her model. I think later on today, so I'll take a peek at that and try to try to run through it myself. Yeah, because I think that's super important that if you can say that I didn't run the model with the in the model, but I have been through the model and to be able to speak to the numbers. So then they'll be able to ask you what was the free cash flow generation of the asset? What was this and this? And you should know, like the high level numbers of that, so they can do a little bit on it and be confident that you actually did take the time to go in the model for an hour or two? Definitely. Because that speaks to a lot of like your willingness to your desire to learn which is such a huge deal. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, definitely. So like you, going into that model before Sunday is actually really, really critical. So you can say you did it. And then if they actually quiz you on it in terms of specific numbers, you actually have like top line even know real estate assets, but like, you know, cash flow generation, whatever they do. Yeah, gross rental income, you know what I mean? That's actually a good foundation in terms of what their returns would be for the investment and also the capital structure in terms of how they're financing it. Ok. Yeah, I would know that high level. We know that pretty well because they may say, what's the interest on that? You know, what's interesting on that piece of debt? Is it a leased building? What type of transaction is that type of stuff? So, yeah, as much detail as you can get with her be like, what does that mean? What is this? What is this so that you get asked those questions where they are pushing you because who knows somebody on the call? There may actually no real estate really well, and then there might be an interview. I don't. So I'm like, OK, yeah, whatever you did the teaser or you put together the call the softer skill kind of presentation, but. So, you know, in terms of how you're walking through them right now, I'm sharing my screen, this is part of the private equity interview course, but like typically when you're walking through a deal, you want to talk about the deal in terms of like as an investor, not like just for the firm. So be like, I thought it was a really good deal or I didn't think it was a good deal because of X, Y and Z. And so you talk about like the purchase price, the multiples of EBITDA or EBIT, it represented the sources and uses of capital. So like the financing you use to purchase, so you just getting. So like when you gave me that answer, it would actually really impress me more if you started kind of being talking passionately about it or you started giving me some numbers in terms of why you thought it was a good investment. So instead of speaking in broad terms, and maybe because that's you haven't been in the model and you don't know those numbers, but you should know them because it shows that like you. You were interested in whether it was a good deal or not, you were interested in looking at it as an investor. And like how the fund was specifically looking at it because you guys are investing, you guys are purchasing assets right and getting return on them right and holding. Are you exiting as well? I think like a 10 year, actually. It's a real estate private equity fund basically, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's the same thing. So you're just being really getting more detailed into that and that one deal, and that's the only deal you're you could really speak to, right, right now. Yeah, exactly. So no, that deal really well, it's only one. And you can tell them that's really the only one I've worked on so far, but I've tried to really immerse myself and learn as much as I can. So, you know, talking about the base operating case, the projections, the key risks and upside. Tell me about what could go wrong with that asset. Tell me about the projected returns, the IRR or multiple on multiple and capital that's expected. And I don't know. Again, real estate slightly different. Who's? And then here, you know what role was what was your role in what value did add to the team? And I like how you didn't overplay it. You didn't oversell that. You did the modelling. But that doesn't mean you can't know all the stuff. Yeah, yeah. So like I didn't do like, I'll just be perfectly frank. I didn't do the model. They didn't let the intern touch it. You can make kind of a joke. But I did go in there to try and teach myself, and I know I thought it looked like an interesting deal based on this return on assets, even in the base case or the downside case, it still had pretty, pretty decent returns. Blah. Talking about it, you start all of a sudden showing that you're using your investment judgment and you have, you're looking at it, a lens as an investor, you know? Yeah. And they'll like that, especially if you highlight like the key risks or upsides to the project and their real estate business. It's not. It's a little bit more like step wise and a little bit more like, OK, your returns are inbound based on the capacity and all that stuff. So it's not as exciting, but you talk about like the upside case versus the base versus the bear case. Got it. And I don't know if they did that in the model. Did she like it would?

Andrew:  [00:23:49] It was kind of based on like our entry price that she was just playing around with. Yeah. And then like rent growth.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:56] But typically deal is the deal. Like is the price agreed to right now? No, no, I don't. I think we're just we literally only hit the call like yesterday morning. So I think they're asking for a little bit more on the property today or tomorrow or today or Monday. So you can say the assets really interesting for the firm, but you don't know if it's a good deal because it really kind of obviously depends on the purchase price. And you can say based on what we're looking at based what they're asking, the returns are a little bit less. So I don't know if I would invest. It's not a bad thing to say. You wouldn't invest. Yeah, it actually shows some opinion, right? Then like, yes, it's a great deal because I work for them in the MD. Likes it, you know what I mean? I wouldn't be like, you know, arrogant about it. Be like it obviously depends on the purchase price, but at the level they've currently asked for. But you know, you can be like, it's a negotiation that that price could come down and then it could be more interesting. Yeah, exactly. Just kind of showing them through your answers that you understand the levers that go in in terms of obviously purchase price. It's all it's also the financing you're able to get and the price on the financing. Mm hmm. So if you're if you only have to write an I don't know how big is this asset 20 million dollars, 100 million dollars like four hundred four and a million. So like if you have to write a $20 million check versus a for 40 million dollar check, it's a big difference in terms of your IRR and your return on capital. Yeah, exactly. How much more or a hundred million dollar check instead of 20 million or 50 million dollar check instead of one hundred million, it's a very different return profile. Mm hmm. So just talking to that, I'm going to get you access to this course like right out here because I want you in this one specific section. This module called like technical interviews and answers, so you can really kind of make sure you hit this. Have you studied? You did do the IBH course, so have you studied a little bit of the accounting stuff? Yeah. So what was it? Two hundred dollars decrease in depreciation? Ok. Yeah. How would a hundred dollars decrease in depreciation expense on the income statement impact all three major financial statements? Is that something you feel comfortable trying? Yeah, yeah. Ok, go ahead. So hundred dollar decrease in depreciation. So your net income in theory is going to be one hundred sixty dollars higher after assuming a

Andrew: [00:26:16] 40 percent tax rate and then carrying that 60 dollar increase to the cash flow statement, that would be your top line, a cash flow statement. And then you'd add back in or subtract it the hundred dollar decrease in depreciation and. I'm avoiding practice on this one.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:44] No, it's really confusing, so I go back because you've got to go back and just read through this like a hundred times, because that's pretty common question just to see if you understand how everything flows. So just and it is, it's confusing if you haven't done it before. So definitely just keep going through that valuation techniques. I want to go to there's a point where. Let's see. How to prep, and he's a lot of videos here. Do the fit questions. There's some stuff around specifically what makes it so what makes a good investment in private equity? So there's certain things you want to hit. So have you thought about that? What specifically like what? Oh, you mean like, what would a typical candidate look like? What's their profile, not the candidate? An actual specific deal? I know I haven't looked at anything like that, I know the candidate one pretty well. Yeah. So in terms of I think it's here. How do you feel about having? There's a place in this course where you yeah, it's not here, where it's not in the behavioral. It's somewhere here where basically it goes through specifically the types of deals that private equity firms look for. So typically, it's a larger company that has stable cash flows, low capex. The working capital requirements, so it has a company that's been through several cycles, it's not cyclical.

Andrew: [00:28:24] Yeah, they lever it up

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:25] Or they do a dividend recap. They can pay out dividends to the thing and not risk putting the company going under if the economy turns. Stable and growing cash flows, I should say, but yeah, we'll definitely I would dive into that. Here we go. Interview process, capital structure, common calculations. I'm trying to find here. Recruiting how to choose an offer now, this is more like how to choose an offer.

Andrew:  [00:28:59] How to make

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:00] Money. Common diligence topics. Deal selection. Here we go. So do you know anything about specifically how this firm does or sourcing for deals? I try to look through their site to see if they'd have like a process, but I haven't found anything quite yet. I try to look through like how we invest. And it was mostly

Andrew:  [00:29:22] Just like we're doing like responsible investing through like these ESG initiatives. And it wasn't. It wasn't exactly specific.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:33] They do they actually specifically do like ESG stuff. Or is that just a. I that could have just been a part in that. Yeah. This is 13 billion assets under management performance. Not bad. So, yes, they're investing everywhere. U.s. 52 percent, Canada three, you know, a lot of their investments are actually in the U.S. and Europe. So have you looked through any of these? So what interests you specifically in BCI or should I not ask you that because you haven't had enough time to drill? I don't have time to drill that one yet. No worries. But yeah, definitely have be ready for that. The why private equity? I think it's good you talked a little bit about. Remind me what you said. Remind me what your answer was for that is they p over real estate. Yeah, I didn't like so much. The real estate is like, you're only looking at it. I would just focus on almost ignore the over real estate questions. You kind of have to make you talk negatively about that and notice I followed up with like, Oh, so you don't want real estate for your career almost to stay more on like one of I think they're both really interesting for different reasons. I think real estate has its own unique traits and stuff that makes it unique in terms of like actually be able to physically see the buildings and go there and see how I think is pretty cool. But you could also talk about specifically in private equity in general. You love being able to meet with management teams, understand new learn about new industries, specifically the actual not just the financing, the creativity on the financing side, but the creativity operational side to change it. And that's something that's really important that you know about BCI before you go in. Are they like just a prototypical piece shop who's typically just lending, purchasing the company and exiting? Or they are, they do. They say they're like actually in-house putting in consultants in, they're replacing management teams. Do you mean active? Are they with their portfolio companies? Is the question got it? Because that's going to give you a better kind of window into whether in terms of like what interests you and you should kind of try to mirror that as much as possible. And you should be definitely into their portfolio. There's a whole section for their

Andrew: [00:32:05] Portfolio. They just had a lot of

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:08] A lot of it was like fun. Yeah, mostly, I think if you keep going down. Yeah. So real estate, they're going to like, see, you wouldn't want to come to our real estate fund because they do have a large real estate fund 24 billion. Yeah. And their PE fund is 13 billion. Infrastructure 12 mortgages. Ok. Interesting. Yeah, I'm looking at the performance investment. Anyways, it's interesting. I mean, you should definitely read the annual report. Yeah, right here. So you can kind of speak to that and see how it's, you know, they've done really well. And there's got to be there was only a couple of public investments announced. Definitely do a bunch of images. I've done a lot. I've done a few Google searches, and it's just like the last few throughout this year. Yep. Cool, yeah, I'm looking at this, it's a lot of just generic stuff here. Mm hmm. They're not giving you like a list of portfolio companies. You know, that's what I was looking for whenever I first got on. Yeah. So yeah, definitely just do some research around that, see if you can find more deals that they did to get a sense of like what industries you said, health care and something else in tech. But see, you can get a little bit more of a flavor of that. Yeah. And then. I think just especially for a phone interview. Make sure you're smiling. You know, they can't see your smile because it'll relax you, and it'll kind of make your breathing more regular if you're trying to, like, get your answers out and really, I know you can have some notes up in front of you, but don't be typing into Google searching something last second. If you're trying to figure it out, it's just so obvious you be reading word for word. You're just going to sound like a robot. Yeah, got a few bullet points in terms of like stories. Tell me about the stories you have ready, so you talk to me a little bit about a professor. I wasn't  even like fully in tune because I was kind of trying to get ready for your next question. But what was that story about a professor? Not you didn't do well in the first midterm? Was that it? Yeah. So it was basically like, I well, I got like an 80 or so on the first midterm, and then I had to start going to a bunch of like midday networking events when the class would happen. And he would tell me that he would help me out and provide like these additional tutoring services. But he never did. He never was like responding to me. Right. So then I started like reaching out to students who'd done his class before, and they provided a lot more help to me. And then that helped you do well. That helped you do well. So that's good for myself back. That's a good one. You should be a little more. So like so it sounds less generic. It's kind of like your resume initially when you first sent it to. So it's now less generic. I'd give a little bit more specific, just a little bit. Just go in a little bit more detail because you're very much like surface level and they may ask you anyways. But in the initial thing, if you can say something specifically like it was this course, just tell them what course it was. Yeah, you know what I mean? You have to say it here, but just say what course it was and kind of give them that. Given that detail, so it's a little bit more real. And then any other struggles like you may get asked, like, what are you? I hope they don't ask you this, but like, what are your weaknesses and stuff like that? But like, what are your what's your plan for that? Do you have one? Oh, the like typical banking one. I can't really delegate tasks. What about like public speaking? I feel like I'm halfway decent public speaking. I think I'm fairly comfortable with it. Yeah, no. I think you're good too. But it's a good one. I can just pull out and they could just they just say, it sounds like you're not. No, no, no. I think you could say, like public speaking is something that I continue to try to improve on. When you say something's a weakness, it doesn't mean it's a weakness. It can just be something that you want to work on in order to improve. And you see it's not being at the level you want it to be. So just like they're trying to frame it as a weakness, to make you nervous, to say something that you're trying to improve on, but don't be nervous to say like you're trying to improve it and be like to be perfectly honest, although I wouldn't call it a weakness or something. Say what I've done to improve it. Or, yeah, I definitely need more reps on financial modeling. Like as an intern, it's been hard to get my hands like, you know, I've been through the model, but it's one thing to be looking at the model once it's built, it's another thing to be building it yourself and running all the scenarios. And so I've been trying to do that on the side. I have taken financial modeling training courses, but I think getting real reps. It's hard to replace that. Definitely. And so that's a good one just to be frank and honest. And the good thing is as an intern. It's good because you're showing humility, you're showing that, you know, you need to continue working hard. And that's really an attitude and positivity and friendliness

Andrew: [00:37:03] Is about

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:04] 80 percent of the interview. Do you know what I mean? Like, do they like you are not? So like a lot of it's going to be about not overselling being energetic. I'd say, give a little more energy and your answers. Definitely. And said it'd be like, you know, this is this would be like a dream. You know, you can even be like, this would be like a dream job for me. It's it looks really, really interesting in terms. It's like just be a little bit more like, this is really what I want to do. It's really I think I see evaluating businesses, evaluating industries as super interesting. I think getting to know management companies, I think the whole the whole transaction process, the whole, you know, looking at Sims and stuff like that, I think is really interesting because you're not you're seeing almost the other side of investment banking where it's like they're trying to sell you something and you have to figure out, OK, what's actually true and what's not? And so you're the work is actually more about the is more about the numbers, the thesis rather than making something look pretty for a client. And you talk about how that that's more intellectual. You can talk about how that's more like that's more of an investor mind-set rather than a sales mindset. And you feel like that's a good fit for your personality, especially given the impact that the fund at your school and you tie it back any time you can tie it back to something on your resume, tie back to something on your resume. Got it. So. A couple of things. As I just said, try to eliminate arms. Be comfortable in silence. Just be comfortable in silence. So if you don't have something to say or you're thinking just think and that takes practice, it's actually really hard to do. And there's other filler words as well, not just Um, but you know. That, you know, day to day, you know, you know, you know, and then, yeah, I do that a lot. And so I try to actually that's something I have to consciously listen for. But more importantly, I think before Sunday, I think what you really want to do is. Not really understanding why BCI, why private equity know that one deal really well. Get in gross income, the upside downside case, what are the returns look like? In each of those cases, if you can talk to that and talk to that intelligently and you say, well, it depends on if we're able to get, you know, five x leverage or six, that's leverage on the debt. You know what I mean? It will speak intelligently about the actual sources and uses of what's going into the transaction and shows that you actually get the financials behind it. It's going to your state. They're going to be like, we've got to get this guy in for a second round. Whereas if you're like, oh, I don't know, what's the purchase price you're like if all you know is the headline number four hundred? It's not as encouraging for them, you know what I mean, and I know you just literally just started on the deal, but like you have that opportunity where you can start talking, where you can actually talk about it in the financials. It gives you a big opportunity. Ok. If you feel like you can pull it off in 24 hours, I think you can. I mean, there's only like 10 numbers you need to know. Yeah, right? And you can ask the ask the associate, be like, Please tell me what you would ask if I was running this. If you were interviewing and you had to talk about this deal, what would you ask? What would you ask? And just ask her for like the details like, OK, what about the returns? What is there like a downside case? What does it look like at this low purchase price versus this high purchase price? Stuff like that. Got it. I don't know if you guys have like pivot tables based on purchase price and returns and stuff like that. And like financing and an actual entry. But. That could be interesting to talk about. I'm looking at my notes here. I think that's really it, I mean, we could drill, we could keep drilling, but tell me about more. Let's go back before we call it, let's talk a little bit about your other. So you have that one struggle story. Tell me about like a success story. Tell me about a time when you had to balance multiple priorities and stuff like that. Like, do you have a story for that? Like just what they proved to me that you're a hard worker type question. And I for like this question. Am I able to like reference like other interviews like not at the same time, but like past. So it's like, can I? Can I tell my story? And then can you say if it's like if I'm allowed to do that in an interview? What do you mean? So like during the summer, like I was interviewing for like multiple firms at the same time, I was. It looks like you broke up. Sorry, you broke up for a second there, what was that? Your multiple, you know, multiple places at the same time. Yes, it was like interviewing for a few jobs and taking like three midterms and working like three days a week. That's pretty good. So how many hours were you working? So I was working like twenty four hours or so week, so that's when I was with the Canada Revenue Agency.

Andrew:  [00:42:50] So that was during like the spring summer semester. And then I had I had interviews coming up with PSP.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:02] Oh, man, you're breaking up now. Not sure why. I'm shutting things, I'm hoping it's not my connection. Next, on top roles for an advanced accounting and taxation course. I got the gist of it, you're breaking up a little bit, but I think you're basically saying you were super busy during this time with midterms, with interviews and with work. Correct. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's a great example referencing that specific time. But just give them some numbers around it. Got it. You know, I had like four interviews. I had two midterms and I was working 30 hours a week plus schoolwork, right? Exactly. On top of the midterms, so I think that's good. But like, I still don't think it's necessarily. And then you can, I don't know you're were you part of any other clubs or anything like that or like sports? You're kind of doing the power lifting thing, probably. But besides that? Yeah. So it was like that, and I was still doing like the accounting society stuff. So I had to help plan a career fair for the September. Ok, so yeah, that's good. Just include all that. So, you know, I felt I feel like, you know, I definitely had to balance a lot of priorities at once and make sure I was communicating well with all my team members, stuff like that. So just once you want to highlight that you can communicate well and be part of a team and not let things drop when you get. And actually like, just suck it up and get less sleep. Exactly. Kind of like what I'm going through right now when with no nanny, three kids up till one a.m. and then woken up at five a.m. six five thirty six a.m. this morning. That's my life right now. But so I think you're in good shape. Any other stories? Do you have any other stories? So how many like actual different examples and stories do you have where you feel like you could let me not share my story? Maybe that's what's slowing things down is there. Is there other stories you feel like that you can pull from? Maybe like my stock pit story. What's that story with the Kellam apartment re one,

Andrew:: [00:45:24] The one that's with the impact fund

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:27] That did well? Yeah. So what was it? I originally pitched it. It was right around like seventeen eighty or so and then right now it's trading like north of twenty dollars. Ok. Yeah, I mean, I think that's good, that's good. I think you're talking about specifically, that was smart. So I think we're really breaking up a lot. I don't know if it's the Wi-Fi or I don't know if it's my side or your side. But yeah, I think that's good. I think times when you struggled. Sometimes when you had a challenge with your superior. Do you have something for that, like you kind of talk about a little bit the teacher, but is there a time when you disagree with somebody? What did you do? So with like a like a team member or something like that or yeah, or even your boss or something like that, maybe if you were working, you could give a story about the working at the factory. Yeah, and was I was like it was like one night at the factory. What was it? It's like one of the so I was second in command. So like the shift leader or whatever would essentially like, give out all the responsibilities and stuff. And then I would. Kind of try to deliver it so that I was like, I'm working with people who are pretty much in the 40s or 50s, so I'm like 18 years old, so they don't really take. They don't really take too much to that. So I was kind of just trying to give out tasks and then they just start screaming at me and everything like that. So then I, I scream a little bit back and then they end up. It was there's like a lot of like vulgar language, am I able to like should I just like highlight? So ask. I don't know if that's a good story, because I don't know if you scream back as a response to someone screaming at you, even though it's honest. Yeah. But I think maybe you can say how that was really challenging because. Who were you to come in as such a young kid and be the boss, but like it was your their boss's decision? So it made it actually really tough for you to navigate, but eventually you can tell a Kumbaya story, eventually they were all your buddies and you guys and you worked it out and did it. I don't know if that's if that was true or if you had to like. Be super strict or whatever. Why was that even happening, that you were so young and you're telling 44 year olds what to do? The elastic.  Yes. Hello. Are you there? Here, let me turn off the video and speed it up. Um, yeah. Is there? So was there a reason you were specifically doing, like working with 40 year olds and stuff where you were the one doing that? That's kind of. I just, yeah, I went into the job and I didn't really know. Like anything about people who work there. So I went in pretty blind and it just so happened that like everyone who worked there was like between like 30 and 50 and most were like 40 or 50. But why were you just because your boss told you to do that? Well, like I said, I don't know. I think like so like the what is it like the factory foreman or whatever would kind of

Andrew: [00:49:03] Like delegate who's kind of in charge and he would kind of base it off of like how they've like led people. So like, I spent two summers there and during my during my second summer, I got like a lot more responsibility than the first, just kind of based on me working there year round while still in school.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:25] Why don't you should highlight that? Talk about especially like work ethic and stuff like that working at a factory and hard labor? Yeah. Year round, I think, is actually a more interesting story than I had some interviews in a 30 hours work. You could do both. You could pull the both, but I think you should point at both. Got it. And you could even talk to how like. And then in terms of a challenge, you can be like, well, going back to that factory, the job, it actually because I had worked year round and the boss liked me, he kind of gave me a lot more responsibility the second summer. And it actually was really tough because I put in the put in the awkward position of as an 18 year old having to manage 30 to 50 year olds. Yeah, that's the interesting and be like it is actually was really hard for me to make it. It wasn't the smoothest transition, but I tried to be as respectful as possible. And then, you know, by the end of the summer, I felt like it was much better, like there was a mutual respect. You know, I always respect the guys there. It was more like, I think they didn't like the fact that I had come in so recently when they had been there for years and was in all of a sudden the boss was telling me to tell them what to do. Hmm, mm hmm. Makes sense. Awesome. So like it kind of did that does a couple of things. It actually makes you look good because like you recognize the difficulty of that in their shoes, it gives you some kind of show some IQ in terms of a tough situation. It'd be like I tried to. I tried to tread lightly. Definitely don't say you screamed at them back. You know they probably deserve, you know? But just definitely try to be a little bit more like about how you worked with them. And, you know, eventually you overcame any of those differences. And just through building relationships, trying to take them out to lunch and hang out with them more outside of work. Is that like, you know, you were just doing what you were told to do and it wasn't like you trying to do anything more than that. Mm hmm. To show humbleness, you like, humbled yourself to them, to try and get by in. So, yeah, how you talk about that stuff, I think it helps frame like character and your personality in terms of like how you use stuff. And so I think it's good if you can talk about some of those things, those struggles and actually make it really genuine. But. Yeah, and then again, just being honest about where you can improve, where you're trying to improve. But get in that model as soon as you can say, Definitely, I'm going to let you go, I think you have plenty of work to do if you want to chat again tomorrow before the thing. I don't know if I'll be or not tomorrow, but Sunday I made it up quickly, like on a cell call or something just to get a quick update if you want or just shoot me a text, my cell and then we can. Maybe go over stuff there and try to try to see if there's any kind of last minute questions you have. How do you feel? One, one last thing I actually got another interview

Andrew:  [00:52:40] For next Wednesday. It's with like an alternative investment firm and in Saskatchewan, So it's like in the middle of nowhere. But they also have offices in Toronto. So I applied to both, but they're giving me an interview for like the middle of nowhere, Scott.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:57] Is it a good firm? I think it's fairly good. It's like thirty six billion under management.

Andrew: [00:53:02] Alternative investments,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:03] Are they doing or the investing funds? It's a fund of funds. It's like real estate, like direct real estate,

Andrew: [00:53:09] Like mortgages and infrastructure.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:13] But are they investing directly is they're doing direct investments? Yeah, I think all they do, both they do, they do funds and they do direct. Yeah, my guess is something that big. A lot of it's probably fund a fund of funds, which isn't necessarily as valuable as being in direct making direct investments.  Ok, so that'd be something definitely just to check into before interview or ask them. Yeah, I'd be like, would the primary work be doing like looking to invest into specific fund managers? Would that be that? Or would it be looking at specific assets like specific real estate assets and or whatever? Got it. That's a good question to ask because you want to know whether it's a fund, a fund or whether it's a direct, whether you're going to be actually doing direct investments. And handlers want to be doing direct. Yeah. Awesome. Because it could. It can definitely pigeonhole you, especially if it's real estate again on your resume. I would almost like tell you just like, don't even take it. No, I go back to school and just keep interviewing and keep trying rather than get another real estate. It doesn't add much to your resume at this point. How do you get either a banking or a pure private equity? Internship at this point, especially get if you especially if you actually learn this, get this transaction, if you know about it and if you learn about it enough, get your hands and do it enough. Or you can actually put it on as an actual transaction on your. Resume that it's a big difference. For sure. Awesome, cool, man. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. How does it feel? Do you feel like you're you have a lot of work to do or you feel like you're pretty good? I thought you were feeling good. I didn't think you were like, Oh my gosh, this guy's killing it, but you were. You were. Definitely. I think you could make it through a phone interview right now. Yeah. Like, I feel like I've got a lot of reviewing to do. I think I just haven't reviewed enough, but I've definitely got the weekend to do that. Up till,

Andrew: [00:55:10] Like nine p.m. Sunday. So yeah,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:55:13] I would hit tonight hard. Like just going through. I'll get you the course, OK? And just really try to review the certain sections like since you have the interview coming up. Skip all the stuff about the private equity industry and all this. The history goes straight to the interview section, and don't worry about the LBO modeling test yet. That'll come with time. If you make it past, then you can drill on that but don't like, I think right now you want to be able to talk, walk through an LBO like talk, talk about it a little bit like sources and uses it up and understand what drives the value there. But that's in the course in terms of like how to talk about it, OK? You don't need to actually be in a cell on a phone. You're not giving in, excel on a phone, and I don't think I hope not. If they are, that's brutal. Yeah. And by the way, if you ever face a situation like that, it's nothing wrong with saying it's just like, Well, I need, I definitely need more practice like. I'm not sure how to do this or saying, I don't know is not the end of that's not an automatic rejection. Yeah. Got it. Got it. Awesome, cool, man. Good luck. Yeah, just shoot me a text or an email before the interview, if you'd like. Yeah, have fun with it and try to just breathe and slow down because I think. You may not even be asked any technical questions, it may just be more like tell us about yourself, that's more likely where it's going to be and then probably be a little more technical. Got it. Awesome, man. We'll chat soon. Awesome. Appreciate it. Thank you. 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.