Monkey to Millions | Grace (Session 11) - IB Technical Interview Mock + Keeping Perspective - July 29, 2020
About
In this session, I give Grace another mock technical interview for about 15 minutes and we catch up about recruiting, hirevues and what is coming up over the next month. I try to push her to try her best but also stay grounded knowing that this is first interview cycle is not her last opportunity to break in and that she should focus on 1 thing.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 11) 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 session, I give grace another mock technical investment banking interview for about 15 minutes, and we catch up about recruiting higher views. What is coming up over the next month? I try to push her to try her best, but also stay grounded knowing that this is the first interview cycle and it's not her last opportunity to break in and that she should really focus on one thing joy. All right, Grace, thanks for joining another session here. It's now July twenty ninth and you are back in New York. Yes. Oh yeah. Give us an update. Let me hear how things are going.
Grace: [00:01:45] Mm hmm. So it's a lot of the pretty much the same situation as before. I'm still doing my internship remotely for right now, and it really ebbs and flows by the week. So some weeks I've been extremely busy. Other weeks, not so much. And then some weeks, just kind of in the middle. So I. But I don't really know until at the time. So it's difficult to plan sometimes, but overall pretty good. And I was expecting to have recruiting going on right now. But a lot of the banks have been pushing it off for sophomores, so they're separating the processes. A lot of them this year and doing all the juniors first and then waiting to do the sophomores. So I probably won't have any interviews until late August
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:33] At the earliest, which is funny because it's still super early, right? It's like when they used to when, when, back when I was in college a long time ago, it was like sophomore recruiting wasn't even a thing first off, and then the juniors weren't even recruiting until, like after the new year. So you get six months like a schedule and a full year. So it's totally different now. So let's so you have you do have that interview those interviews, though coming up August isn't that far away. Obviously, it's just days away. So. So the internship, I've heard the same thing from the other mentees. It's been super sporadic, kind of because I think because you're not in the office, it's kind of like they maybe forget and then they remember and then they give you a big heap of work and they leave and they ignore you for the next three days and then they come back and say, What's going on kind of thing, right? I would say in terms of like your work product and stuff like that, I would try to just it's that fine balance of staying in touch with them enough such that they don't get annoyed, but they know you're still there and like, what your capacity is. You know what I mean, right? Mm hmm. So I would just keep doing that in terms of the technical interview. Have you had any chance at all to look at the courses, whether it's the interview course or any of the Excel modeling or any of that stuff?
Grace: [00:03:55] Mm hmm. I have been looking at the, I guess, the technical interview. I guess I haven't had as much of a chance to dive into the modeling courses yet. I've just been focusing more on the interview.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:07] Yeah, which you should. It's kind of crunch time. And so they said August, so they're still going to interview sophomores. It's just a question of it's just more a question of like timing.
Grace: [00:04:19] Is that right? So. Yes. And I've spoken, especially at Goldman, I've spoken to three or four different people, all of whom don't, at least last time I spoke to them. No one really knew what the timeline was looking like. So they just said that the higher views would probably be late August they were thinking, but all of them said to that that could easily change. And then that actual interview, like super days, would be probably early September.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:46] Yeah. So let's talk about higher abuse because I think that's new. That's only been in the last few years that they've been rolled out. And so it's still something I think that needs practice. It's helpful to practice looking into a camera and not feeling weird and smiling and answering. I think a lot of the questions are fairly straightforward for that. It's more behavioral. They're typically not testing your technical acumen. They're testing more like, OK, does this person have a decent, well thought out answer on why investment banking and why this firm specifically? So have you thought about that? Do you know what higher use you're going to get at all in terms of like, is it based on like only the ones that have sophomore programs? Is there a chance you get it at other banks as well?
Grace: [00:05:35] Well, the two that I've. Are the two earliest ones, it sounds like will be Goldman and Bank of America. And I know both of those are high reason. I know Goldman's is usually seven questions, and they're all behavioral focused.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:50] It's a lot, right?
Grace: [00:05:52] And I think they're all less than two minutes. So it's just kind of rapid fire. And then Bank of America, I'm not as sure about I feel like I've heard it's fewer questions. But of course, that probably changes from year to year as well. And then some of the other programs I've applied to don't even start reviewing applications until early September for sophomores. So with that, I don't have as much of an idea. What's coming?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:17] Yeah, I'd look in the company database and interview insights you can find on higher view specifically because you may be able to or in threads just in discussions. In general, there may be people saying what they asked previously and then just having bullet points in terms of, you know, there's the obvious ones like why this firm and why, why investment banking or whatever, whatever you're applying for, if it's if there's I don't think there's a specific higher you for like real estate or anything like that, right?
Grace: [00:06:47] No, they're all very general.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:48] It's general. Yeah. So just having like we finance or a y investment banking like you can look, there's a thread on debut. So we finance like that question. It's like hundreds of comments on it. So you get some great answers there in terms of how to frame your answer on the behavioral side, on the technical portion. So the idea is it's higher you and then potentially straight to a Super Day,
Grace: [00:07:13] That's what it sounds like. Most of the bulge brackets do, at least.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:16] Yeah, yeah, I think so. And this year just might be weird. It just might be where they. Have like you do a bunch of Zoom calls, like back-to-back Tibet, which hopefully this show has given you a little bit of this mental process in giving you a little more practice than most kids. Ok, so let's talk a little bit about just this to some technical questions. Just like 10 to 15 minutes, and then I'll try to do a quick review with you. Ok? After does that sound decent? Yes. Ok. So let's start off. Ok, so, Grace, welcome to the interview up. Thanks for coming. Any questions about how the process will work today. I don't think so. Ok, so let's jump right in. I'd love to. We're going to do a little bit of technical. We'll probably have some behavior, but let's start out with the technical. You can assume I'm an associate, so associates, and analyst tend to ask the most technical. I think I lost you a little bit on the voice. You there?
Grace: [00:08:23] Yeah. Can you hear me now? Oh yeah,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:25] Bigger. Ok, cool. So let's start a little bit about. You know, ways to build models and stuff. Are you familiar with ways to project certain balance sheet items like accounts receivable, payable depreciation and capital expenditures? What have you typically seen in the models you've worked in?
Grace: [00:08:47] Well, a lot of it is using accounts receivable days and inventory days to project out how long it takes to receive money owed to the company and how long the company takes to pay out money to those it owes money to, and then how long its inventory stays in versus how long it takes to turn the inventory. So those are major parts in DCF, for instance.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:13] So if you are seeing like if you were looking at a company and you're seeing inventory turns increase, what would that mean?
Grace: [00:09:21] Well, that would mean that it's that each item is spending a longer amount of time in the in its inventory. So it's not getting the cash as quickly for those items
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:34] If the inventory turns were going up.
Grace: [00:09:37] Oh, sorry, if they were going down. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:39] Ok, so the inventory turns are going up, it means you're turning your inventory over faster. Right, right. So, OK, great. And then in terms of like bad data, are you familiar with like weighted average cost of capital? Yes. Do you know why you lever a number of beta?
Grace: [00:10:00] Well, it has to do with the capital structure of the company. So since Bita is based on the equity portion of the company and its stock in the public market, you have to account for what percentage of the company's capital structure is debt versus equity.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:19] So like first, what is even better, like what is the point of like and where would you even find that? Why? Why do we even care about Bita?
Grace: [00:10:28] Mm-hmm. So it's the volatility of the stock as compared to the broader market. So a beta of greater than one means that it's the stock moves more has more volatility compared to the average stock in the market. So would
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:45] Like a test what a test will have like a beta of like zero point five or like three
Grace: [00:10:49] Three generally. And then usually utilities and real estate companies are going to have the lower betas
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:57] And more stable. Ok, so tell me a little bit about what you'd expect on the cash flows for a company with a higher beta versus a lower beta. So like in terms of the value in a discounted cash flow, what does that do if a company has a much higher beta
Grace:: [00:11:14] In terms of higher beta implies higher risk? So then that's going to increase its cost of capital, which that is then affecting the whack. And then when you discount the cash flows back, that has an effect.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:27] So in what way?
Grace: [00:11:29] More higher. Yeah. Oh, do you mean the higher cost of capital? Yeah, the higher cost of capital than is going to decrease the present value of the cash flows?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:40] Right. So that the overall value is kind of like lower entry into the company because it's riskier. Ok, so let's talk a little bit about. Different ways that people so in a DCF, typically, how is that even done? Can you walk me through just the basics of like a DCF and then like, yeah, just tell me what you know about it. I don't know what you've come across it in your internship.
Grace: [00:12:09] Mm hmm. So you start out by projecting out the company's free cash flows generally for a five year projection period. And to do that, you start with earnings before interest, after taxes, and then you have to add back depreciation amortization because those are non-cash expenses and then subtracting out capital expenditures and the change in net working capital. And for each of those projection years, you use the weighted average cost of capital to discount it back to the present and used to calculate the weighted average cost of capital. You use the capital asset pricing model. And that's to calculate the cost of equity. And then you also use the cost of debt for and that's the
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:52] Good quality you get. The Yeah, how do you get the cost of debt?
Grace: [00:12:56] The cost of debt is generally you can use the company's current bonds trading in the market and then as long as the risk free rate,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:04] What if there know what if it's not publicly traded, but if it's a private company,
Grace: [00:13:08] Then you might find the four comparable companies you might find with theirs or trading at.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:13] Ok, and then what about that? So we just take the five years, so I'm going to be a bit of a jerk. We just take the five years and we just discount it back, and that's the value of the company in the DCF.
Grace: [00:13:24] No. So there's also the terminal value and that captures the value of the cash flows for all the years beyond the projection period. And so that generally captures a large part of the entire valuation because it's more years than just the small amount and the projection period. And there's two methods for calculating that. So you can use the perpetually growth method, which is where you take. You apply a constant growth rate to the cash flows, and you usually use a rate around the growth rate of GDP. Or you can use the exit multiple method, which is where you apply a multiple to the generally the EBITDA of the last year in the projection period. And then once you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:04] Ok, sorry, if you can finish.
Grace: [00:14:06] Go ahead. And then once you calculate that terminal value, you discount it back to the present as well.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:10] So why wouldn't you use like for a really fast growing company? Why wouldn't I just use like a growth like, let's say, like a fast growing start up that's proven to be fast growing for a long time? Why couldn't we use like a five or six percent growth rate on the terminal or even an eight percent? Because it's growing, it's been growing at 20 30 percent a year. Why wouldn't we do that?
Grace: [00:14:31] Because it's not going to keep growing at that rate into eternity. That wouldn't really be possible because then the company would be larger than the entire economy at some point, which isn't possible. So.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:45] So you're saying growth has to slow down at some point? Ok, so tell me a little bit about what do you know about?
Grace: [00:14:52] Lbos. So that's when one company will use a large amount of debt to acquire another company. And that's generally done through a shell company, so they and then the target company is loaded up with a lot of debt. And over time, they can pay off that amount of debt and then sell the company several years later for a large return. Because this is only
Patrick (CEO of WSO)v: [00:15:18] What industries use LBOs.
Grace: [00:15:22] Do you mean private equity, is that what you're asking? Who?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:24] Yeah, like. Yeah. So you said like, yeah, can one company buys another company so like, who or who are the actual buyers of these companies?
Grace: [00:15:30] Ok. Yeah. Generally, it's private equity companies, OK?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:33] And then tell me a little bit about what makes it good private equity target.
Grace: [00:15:39] So generally, they'll have a strong balance sheet and they'll be in a recession proof industry. So something with more consistent cash flows as compared to something like hotels or casinos, where it could be very inconsistent because in those industries with less stable cash flows, they since the company is going to be so highly levered with debt, then they might breach their covenants. If they were, if they were to go into a recession,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:08] Yeah, pretty on target for what we're going through now. Be pretty interesting to see a lot of the retail elbows, what they're going through now. It's probably not fun or even manufacturing. Tell me a little bit about. I'm trying to keep it technical here, so I'm like racking my brain. But why would a company issue debt versus going out and just doing an IPO?
Grace: [00:16:38] Well, that could just depend on what their current capital structure is and if they don't want to have it too much in equity. And then also, it could have to do with current interest rates. So if interest rates are very low, then it might make more sense just to borrow money at the time. And also, if they know they're going to be able to pay back to make those interest payments consistently, then that could be the smarter option, especially if they're not going to get a high price in the equity market at the time, then it might not make sense to do an IPO then.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:11] Yeah, what's typically a higher cost of capital?
Grace: [00:17:14] Generally, equity is a higher cost of capital.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:17] Right. So what happens when you issue shares to the public or issue shares in general? Sell shares? What happens, what happens to the current capital structure in terms of the owners?
Grace: [00:17:27] Well, the current owners have their ownership percentages diluted, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:32] Ok. Tell me a little bit about do you look at any stocks? Do you trade at all?
Grace: [00:17:39] I trade a little bit, but mostly in indexes, ETFs.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:45] Ok. Do you have any specific view on the current market and where we're at?
Grace: [00:17:50] Well, it's interesting right now because we were talking about earlier with betas, it's kind of flipped at the moment, so industries such as utilities and real estate before all this were generally below zero point five, but now they've actually increased to be higher than one and one, then in reverse the technology. Many of the technology stocks had betas of greater than one before, and they've now gone to less than one because of the major shift we've seen in everyone's lifestyle currently and how the economy is running. So it's interesting to see how it's been a big reverse from what it was before.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:30] And why does that matter as a trader, which it would it doesn't matter. Where do you think? Do you think things are overvalued or undervalued right now in the stock market?
Grace: [00:18:39] I think that wildly depends on the industry. And then it also it matters a lot too, because when you're trying
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:47] To talk about airlines, what about airlines?
Grace: [00:18:51] Well, that's been I guess that's so much of that depends on the vaccine. And it's been interesting to see that on certain days when good news has come out about vaccines, the stocks that react the most are actually airlines and other and other companies that are highly sensitive to the health outcomes in the future. And so those stocks have moved more in reaction to vaccine news than the actual pharmaceutical companies.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:18] What would be some names or some industries you'd like to invest in to be a little bit defensive given this pandemic that we're experiencing?
Grace: [00:19:28] I would say I would go for right now, probably the some of the undervalued hospitality stocks, because even though technology is very big and important right now, some of those are probably overvalued. And we've also seen stocks like Zoom have gone down on positive vaccine news. So if things are going to be better in the future, then Zoom stock is probably not going to stay at its current levels. So that might not be a smart investment at the current moment.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:58] Are you familiar with options at all? Mm-hmm. Would you have any? Let's say let's pretend that you had a view on the market and you said, well, you know, the market's really gone up a lot right now, but I think what we're going to see. I think there's a lot of volatility priced in and people think that it's going to be super crazy volatile. I actually think it's going to be somewhat of a flat, stable market because we're going to have a vaccine, but we've already kind of priced in a vaccine. Let's say you just had that view. Is there a certain strategy you could put on with options that would help you kind of express that view?
Grace: [00:20:38] Mm hmm. Well, I know there's the VIX, the volatility index, so that's a direct bet on volatility, so that would be the first thing I would think of.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:47] Yeah. And then what about like using options specifically? So like, yeah, you could bet on the VIX, like staying low and whatnot and put on certain options. But like, are you familiar with call options and put options? Mm hmm.
Grace: [00:21:00] So not familiar with any of the complex strategies, though.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:03] Ok, that's fair. Do you know? You know, basically what a put option is.
Grace: [00:21:07] So that's for being able to sell the stock at a certain price in the future. And then call is for buying the stock at a certain price.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:15] So if you buy a put option on a certain stock, what's your bet
Grace: [00:21:20] That it's going to go down?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:21] Correct. And so if you buy a put option, you have the right to sell? Correct. At a certain price. So basically, if it goes up, that option becomes pretty worthless. Right? It's over that over that point. It's called what do they call that? When it's kind of not worth anything if where the strike is out of the money, out of the money, right? Ok, so tell me, do a couple more and then we'll call it so M&A. Are you familiar with like, you know, why would anybody even want to merge? What's the point of merging or acquiring a company?
Grace: [00:22:02] Well, usually if it's a strategic acquirer, then you can have synergies realize that ultimately end up saving you a lot of money and then increasing the bottom line.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:12] So give me some examples of synergies.
Grace: [00:22:15] Well, that could. It's usually operational, so a lot of overhead costs as well, so if you have two companies that essentially do the same thing and then you merge them together, you can eliminate a lot of excess overhead. And then also, you can take
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:30] It on the income statement. Where would that show up?
Grace: [00:22:34] That would be under Cigna, usually great.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:36] And then go ahead.
Grace: [00:22:38] Ok, and then you can also have take advantage of scaling if you put the operations of two companies together, so then you can decrease your variable costs.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:49] Can you tell me a little bit about what type of analysis investment bankers do to kind of look at that?
Grace: [00:22:54] I'm looking at accretion dilution, is that yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:57] Can you yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about that and what that is, what that analysis tells you?
Grace: [00:23:02] So that tells you, based especially with two public companies, you can look at their stock prices and their earnings per share. And then if the companies merge, one acquires the other, then you can see if there if it would be accretive or dilutive to the acquirer.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:23] Great. So I think that's good. What do you think? Ok, I thought you did great. Yeah, no, I thought you did a lot better in the first time. We did this a lot better. You were confident there was the ones. The one little one was like on the option stuff. It's you're not looking to be a trader, so I wouldn't. I like the fact that you at least knew what a put was. You didn't talk about like any sort of complex strategy, but you said that up front. Like, I'm not really sure about the complex strategies, right? Like, I know there's probably a way to put on options, a blend of calls and puts to express that. And to be honest, like, I don't even know I just I was just curious to see if you knew like I could probably think through it. But the point was just trying to test. I just trying to push you a little bit on that. The rest of the stuff was good. Did you feel we didn't dive into a lot of valuation? Did a little DCF? Mm hmm. I thought it was. I thought it was really good, I think. I would keep drilling, though, like I wouldn't stop because I could, I could have been more of a jerk and pushed you harder, like those were pretty down the fairway. I think do a little more technical, but then maybe switch to behavioral, maybe like another week on technical and then looking at like really trying to think through different problems like especially ones like if this happens to one financial statement like a little more on the accounting side.
Grace: [00:24:48] I think I I'm confident about a lot of those questions.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:51] Yeah. So like the inventory turns like just be careful on that because it is kind of like when I said what happens in inventory turns goes up and then you said to me like, Oh, it means you're not going. It's like, it scared me a little bit. I'm like, Oh, she's reversing it. So just be careful because it started off. Like, I was like, Oh, like, is she getting this or not? So but the rest of it was super strong, and I think you recovered well. So that's what matters on the air. Just be really comfortable about like changes in working capital and the way they phrased that and what that implies in terms of cash generation because those are very common. And then just the valuation. Tell me about trading precedent transactions. We didn't dive into that so much, but be comfortable about talking about like the types of adjustments you'd make to normalize earnings and why that matters. Okay. Be comfortable. Be confident around going from enterprise value to equity value and back. Okay. And there's actually a lot of good primers in the valuation modeling course that we released, that's pretty new. You may want to just go through the first couple of modules of that course. You don't need to go through a really long go through the first couple of modules because there's like we drill example after example, after example of like what would change equity value and what wouldn't change equity value. What would change enterprise value and what wouldn't. And so there's lots of examples which are really relevant to like an interview question. Ok. And so that I'll just drill it in your head. So you would be like, Oh, issuing a dividend would or would not? Oh, doing this would or would not. And then you'll just be like, if they ask you something like random like that, you'll be able to quickly just answer it. Ok? How else can I be helpful? So why investment banking is the obvious one.
Grace: [00:26:44] And then almost everyone I've talked to, at least that the bulge bracket has told me that they always want to hear about the deals that you've been reading about recently in the market. And just so really just having a few recent deals to talk about things that interested you and almost everyone has mentioned that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:03] Yeah, tell me about that. Like in the Wall Street Journal, whatever. Is, there are ways you can look at. I think that would. I think that's true. I think what would make you more interesting is if you don't get the one on the cover or the one,
Grace: [00:27:16] Oh yeah, I've that's what I try to do is get something, something
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:19] That's a little bit less well known, a little more unique. Maybe it's not like the one like you should know the ones that are more recent or have heard about them. So you're not like thrown off if they ask you specifically about that. But it'd be good if they ask you, like, what interested you? You don't. You don't take one of those. Maybe you take one for like a month ago or a couple of months ago, right? And you talk about that one that's a little bit smaller in a niche industry. And you explain like, you thought this was an interesting acquisition because it means they're kind of going into this space and.
Grace: [00:27:46] Right? Yeah, I try to flag the more niche ones. I just bookmark them and so good.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:52] Good, good. Yeah. So I would review those. That's a great idea. Better if you can even find ones that have more data around, like the specifics of the transaction, which is super hard. Most, most of the times, they're not much info. It's just like it was acquired for an undisclosed amount or whatever, which is not as interesting as if they talk about specifically what it was acquired for or what that implies on a multiple basis, that type of thing.
Grace: [00:28:19] Also, I've found, too, that sometimes more of these like blog style platforms will have more information about the strategic rationale behind it. And so you can talk a lot about that, too, even if there's not financial information
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:31] Available like a seeking alpha type site or a or a value investor club type thing. Yeah, there's lots of ways you can try to try to unearth some, some smart kind of analysis and rationale around it, and it's good for you just to read that stuff, right? Because it's getting you into the lingo. It's getting you into the thought process of an investor of how people think about different industries. It's almost like the consulting skill set of case studies and map and industry mapping and being able to kind of understand that so that if you're thrown a case in an interview or you're asked about XYZ, you could kind of on the fly not completely flop on your fall down. So, yeah, I think I think overall, you're good. I tried to stay away from the more obvious kind of valuation stuff because I feel like you would nail it. And that's good that you should be ready for those because our very common. Yeah. Everything else, I think so in terms of plan for the next month, because next month is important. When do you start classes up again?
Grace: [00:29:33] Um, I think it's August twenty fifth,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:35] You're a little quiet, sorry, what was that August twenty fifth? August twenty fifth. Ok, so that's good. You have a month, right? But you're still working through, right?
Grace: [00:29:45] Mm hmm. Yes. So I'll continue interning in the fall and I'm because of everything being partially online now. I'll be living on campus, but my schedule looks like it's going to change because we have so many international students, so I might have more of my classes together, bunched together in the mornings. I might have some seven a.m. classes, but that's also good because it looks like there's probably going to be a live deal starting that I'll be able to work on if my internship soon and I, with the way my schedule is looking like it's going to be four classes, I can probably spend a lot more time at the office, so it would be good if I can stay more involved with that too. So at least for right now, that's what it's looking like.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:28] Yeah. And then I'd say actually get that deal on your resume bounce right now, not to be crude, but like, you know. That's at a certain point you have what you need on your resume. Your time is better spent prepping and networking, right?
Grace: [00:30:45] Especially in the spring, because that's when all the sophomore programs are yes for especially the women's programs to for accelerated interviews,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:53] Unless it's like super unheard of for people to drop out like, you know. But like if you can pass the baton gracefully, no pun intended with your name, like if you can, if you can do that and not upset anybody and still have that deal experience and that you feel like you've done enough where you feel like, OK, I get it, I get what this does. This job is I understand the processes and all that stuff through pitching through actually doing a deal. That's great because then you can kind of talk to those experiences, but also focus on your schoolwork. Maybe have a little bit of downtime so that you're not. I mean, it's crazy now. I don't know if you're able to what the what, what they're doing with school, but I can imagine it's a little bit isolating. Being in New York, maybe you have some friends where you're living, but I know for a lot of people, it's been a really tough time just trying to like adjust to the isolation and lots of especially people who are like in school or students or international. Imagine international students who are like, super hard, right? So I mean. Yeah, so just try to also. Take some time for yourself. Don't feel like you have to work through the whole year on the interstate, I think we might have mentioned that before. Don't feel like you have to like you owe them a full year. Give them a hard. You give them a summer. You give them the fall and you. You have some good stuff on your resume. I think that's enough to. And I told the same thing to John, who said, you've got to stop working at this internship like you have plenty of deals that's not holding you back from getting the job now. It's really just about who you know. And so I think I'd say the same thing to you this year. Round internships are sound great on paper, but they can take away a lot of like it can make you feel like you're doing a lot for your job search when you could be doing so much more damage with those hours if you were actually just doing the actual recruiting, right?
Grace: [00:32:52] Yeah, I think it's just being able to balance it, which at least in January and February, when I was actually going into the office and on campus for school, I found a really good balance and I still had a social life and I was still doing well in school and everything.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:04] But yeah, so I think that's the key is if you feel yourself like getting overwhelmed or whatever, making those important decisions of what to cut out, right and trying to prioritize that like I think. Given where you are given that you landed that internship, given that you've prepped, you've clearly prepped on some technical interviews. Yeah, I don't say stop yet, but like just keep that going at an pace that's not going to burn yourself out, right? Psychologists, you still have a lot of time in college. So like, it's unfortunate that recruiting is so accelerated now that you can't even like, like the first couple of years are just crazy. But the good part is if by like sophomore summer you have an internship or turn off, you can start kind of taking the foot off the gas a little bit. Right. And just enjoy your time there. Take classes that interest you, not just what looks good or you're going to teach you accounting and finance. Like just try to like, expand your horizons in terms of actually learning a lot of different new concepts and stuff because it's going to be your the last opportunity for a while to do that, right? So and hopefully by next year, things are things you're kind of coming back to normal. You can enjoy the city, right?
Grace: [00:34:22] And I'm trying to kind of load up now more too. So that way, when I am able to travel again, I can before I graduate, for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:29] For sure. Have you thought about studying abroad, ever? And it's kind of out of the question now, but have you thought about them?
Grace: [00:34:34] Yeah. Most business students at Fordham go to London because they're Fordham has a campus there for the business school, and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:40] I didn't know that.
Grace: [00:34:42] So a lot of people do that their junior spring because or at least finance students, because they have their internship at that point. So it's kind of it's a good break in a way
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:51] You're thinking that some things are better, maybe,
Grace: [00:34:54] Right? And then also the honors program I'm in does some shorter trips to. So if things
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:02] I missed new can hear, I can hear the horns honking. I miss it.
Grace: [00:35:05] Yes, I live right on Broadway this summer, so lots of noise. Yeah. So if things stay on course, then I'll be going to London for a couple of weeks next May as well with that group. Perfect. So we'll see.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:21] Hopefully. Fingers crossed. That sounds awesome. That'll be a blast. Ok, so if I can be helpful at all before our next session, just let me know if, like if you hear something or there's a higher viewer, you want to do a quick mark, even just off air or whatever. We'll do that. And then, yeah, it's exciting. Exciting time for you. Yes. And what I'll say to you is in terms of like feeling pressure or higher viewed or any of the stuff. If it comes, I'll say to you, is that you're in a really good spot, you and if you don't get this. So like, you have no pressure like you really like, there's just. Just think of it as just pure upside. If you get these, these internships don't think of it as I have to get this. If I get this, I'm done. No, you have another. You have another swing of the bat, like throughout the rest of the year, you have another string of bad. Next summer, you have another swing like you until you're until your junior summer is over. You have a lot of chances, right? So that doesn't mean you shouldn't try your best and prep and all that stuff. But it means when that day comes to take the deep breaths you need to take and just go in there and try to be more about, like getting to know the person across from you rather than feeling like I have to get every technical right. And if I don't know something like, that's it, it's not true. It's really do they like you or not?
Grace: [00:36:39] Right? If you can find a personal connection?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:41] Exactly, exactly. To do that and just try to try to be like a normal human being, and that tends to go pretty well. Mm hmm. Ok, true. So yeah, because a lot of people psych themselves out and they're like, this is my one shot. And it's sad because it's like, it's not true. Like, even if you went through your whole college career, you didn't get an investment banking on out like, OK, you're still not going to be unemployed like given, given that you're diligent, given that you do well in school, given that you're a hard worker, like you're going to find a job. I truly believe that, and so even if it's not in like the dream thing, you can always get there and there's lots of other ways to reset. There's business school, there's just networking really well if you stay in the city somehow. So that's what I would say is like where you start out is not where you end up and not to get. And that's really like freeing when you have that mind-set of like all you care about is your performance. You don't care about the outcome. And I read that recently, and it's like, it's so true if you just focus on your own performance, what you can control and not on the Ramdin miss that. Is this recruiting, whether it's like the higher view bot picks up the wrong thing or your internet cuts out during it, like there's things you sometimes you just can't control. And so don't worry about that stuff. Just worry about what you can control. Try your best and just let things fall where they may. I'm very confident that they'll that you'll be in a good spot. So, yeah, that's my spiel. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And let's talk in the month. Great. Sounds good. Hopefully, that'll be right around the game time
Grace: [00:38:21] For a few. Yes, hopefully.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:23] Awesome. Cool. Yeah, if you want to, if you want to move it up a week or whatever, we can do that if we want to hear a date or something, just let me know we could do that and kind of go through a little bit. We could do some of the behavioral science. It'll be a little more timely.
Grace: [00:38:36] Yes. So hopefully in a couple of weeks, I'll have a better idea of when that will be perfect.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:42] Ok, sounds good. Thank you. It's great to talk to you 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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