WSO Podcast | E107: McKinsey to Private Equity from a Non-target School (Part 1 of 2)
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In part 1 of this 2 part chat with Paul, we cover his days as an undergraduate at a non-target school in the midwest. We find out how he managed to break into an investment banking internship at Morgan Stanley and why he pivoted to consulting after a health scare. We learn how he was able to successfully recruit at both a top investment bank AND a top consulting firms in back to back years. In this part 1, we step back to really evaluate his internships and recruiting out of undergrad to find out what really opened the most doors for him.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 107) Transcript:
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:06] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me as I talk to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it in part one of this two part chat with Paul. We cover his days as an undergraduate and a non target school in the Midwest. We find out how he managed to break into an investment banking internship in Morgan Stanley and why he pivoted to consulting after a health scare. We learn how he was able to successfully recruit at both a top investment bank and a top consulting firm and back to back years. In this part one, we step back to really evaluate his internships in recruiting out of undergrad to find out what really opened the most doors for him. Enjoy. I call thanks so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast.
Paul: [00:01:05] Yeah, you bet. Good to be here.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:07] So it'd be awesome if you could give the listeners a short summary of your bio.
Paul: [00:01:11] Sure. So I went to Wheaton College for undergrad. I played soccer there. After that, I did three years at McKinsey. I guess I should say I did an investment banking internship during undergrad, decided to do three years in consulting after school and then from there spent three more years at Inside Equity and Middle Market Private Equity Fund and am now at Wharton doing my MBA.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:38] Very cool. So let's start all the way back at Wheaton and figure out, first off, why? Why Wheaton? Why did you go there and when did consulting come on the radar? Or were you sounds that you did an investment banking internship? So that was also on the radar? Tell me a little bit about about the decision to go there and then kind
Paul: [00:01:56] Of, yeah, that'll unfold it. Spark story. Yeah. So I decided to go to Wheaton for a couple of reasons. First is that I was recruited to play soccer there, and that was something that I really wanted to do in undergrad. And second, I really wanted to be part of the kind of intentional community that Wheaton had. I wanted to be part of a small, liberal arts college that was, you know, focused on building community and small groups and just really loved the people there. I was really impressed with the people I met when I visited and ultimately, how to create for your experience there. However, Wheaton is a non target school, and so 18 year old me didn't really appreciate the choice I was making by going to play soccer at a school like Wheaton, which tell
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:47] Me just for the listeners who don't know where is, where is that?
Paul: [00:02:49] Yeah, so that's in Illinois. So there are two Wheaton's. Yeah, this one's the one just outside of Chicago. And yeah, I really loved the experience. There was a math and economics double major. I honestly chose that because I liked math and I thought, Hey, great, this is the kind of coursework I like. And if I can focus on that and have to do lots of other coursework, and that'll be great.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:17] And you didn't love writing.
Paul: [00:03:20] You know, I like writing a lot more now. It's interesting how things change all you. But at the time, I was like, Great, I can just focus on math. And then I noticed that economics had a lot of overlap. So you talk in interviews about double majoring, but it was really honestly made year and a half. And yeah, so I did that, and I kind of knew at some point that I wanted to go into business. I think the writing was on the wall that I wasn't going to be a professional soccer player. But even by the time I was heading into college, and it was really sophomore year where I started to become more interested in career. And that's when I started to have to figure out, OK, do I want to go into investment banking and figure out what business
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:07] Me about your family a little bit like? What are they in medicine or are they in something completely unrelated? Are they in consulting?
Paul:: [00:04:13] Yeah, they are. So both my parents are lawyers and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:19] They pushing you to go to law school or they said, stay away.
Paul: [00:04:21] No, both of them were like, Stay away, you know? Now they were great, they've been very supportive and, you know, open ended, let me really explore, and so I came to Wheaton kind of completely blue sky in terms of what I'd be doing afterwards.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:38] Ok, so you're kind of realizing you're not going be a professional soccer player. Soccer comes around. How do you start learning about this investment banking world and all?
Paul: [00:04:49] So it's funny, I I really didn't have a lot of great resources, I think Wheaton has done a great job over the past decade or so of beefing up their existing career sort of resources, but at the time I just didn't have a good source to try and figure out, Hey, what should I even be shooting for? I was just a competitive person that liked numbers and wanted to grow a lot and do whatever the most interesting and competitive thing could be after school. And my sophomore year there was an alum who came and spoke and he gave this talk called What I Wish I Knew as a sophomore. And essentially, it was a pitch to to go get an MBA and in the meantime, do either consulting, finance or tech. That was sort of his spiel. And he had a bunch of interesting credentials. He he works in venture capital. And he was just speaking in a really compelling way that wasn't kind of sugarcoating that. Everything would work out when you left college. And I remember he offered to for anyone who was at the talk to follow up with them if they wanted to just individually pick his brain. And so we talked know he asked what my GPA was and what I was studying and and based off of my extracurriculars. He was like, You know, Paul, I think you should really consider going into either finance, specifically investment banking or consulting after undergrad. That's where a lot of other competitive candidates with your kind of background or going from some of these target schools. And if you were to go down that route, I think you'd really be able to to compress five years of learning into your first two, two or so years. And I thought, OK, great. So that kind of sparked my my initial interest.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:51] Very cool. So that was kind of an important mentor, even if it was a passing mentor. Not so. That kind of planted the seed a little bit. And so did you. How did you start doing? You started just googling like crazy about all these different careers or what? What was the next step for you?
Paul: [00:07:05] Yeah, I definitely spent time on Wall Street, Oasis, among other sites, and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:11] Hopefully not freaking you out.
Paul: [00:07:13] Yeah, no. There's tons, you know, tons of different sources you can go to. And I think over time, what was the most helpful for me was just trying to draw from either like obviously my my college network, but also, you know, friends and family, people who were in those industries or even tangential to those industries. So like, for example, I remember having a really good conversation with someone in commercial banking who he was a director. And so he was able to put me in touch with somebody on the investment banking side after we had coffee. So just, you know, trying to turn over every rock and slowly over time, you kind of get different tidbits of truth from each conversation.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:58] And how long did that take you? So like, this is your sophomore year when you so tell me when that first kind of talk happened? And then how were you naturally just aggressive at networking? Or was it something that you were awkward at first and got better? Like, tell me about that.
Paul: [00:08:12] Oh yeah, it was extremely painful from the start, but you learn over time time. The timeline was, I think this guy gave his talk in either September or October.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:24] So early sophomore year, which is good. Yeah.
Paul: [00:08:26] Yeah, early sophomore year and one of the first things that I learned was from from some of these initial conversations was, Hey, these investment banks coming, coming from Wheaton. And unless you've cured cancer or something like there's not going to be a sophomore internship opportunity for you. So I think some of these initial conversations really just helped me get a lay of the land and understand what kind of timeline I was working with. I feel like that changes every year for IB. So like my my timeline is a little bit outdated now, but you know, I had in mind, OK, I need to come back in the fall of junior year ready to talk to people. And now I know the things that you're filing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:12] Yeah, yeah,
Paul: [00:09:16] Things keep speeding up. But but for me, that was the time frame. And so I just, you know, honestly spent the next. Call it six months, you know, going into the like right before the summer, trying to talk to any wheat and grads I could find, I mean, there weren't really very many in investment banking and at the time were hardly any in consulting. So it was, you know, talking to one person who might introduce me to another person or like, for example, I interned in wealth management after my sophomore year with my former soccer coach. I found out that he happened to be wealth manager and had learned from other conversations that that was one of the potential stepping stones to invest in banking. And so it was just
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:06] Kind of so I get that. So you've got a wealth management internship, which is they tend to be easier to get. That makes sense. Yeah. This was your sophomore summer.
Paul: [00:10:13] Yeah, sophomore summer
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:14] Teed up your you're recruiting for junior year, but there's still no on campus recruiting right there. Or is there a little?
Paul: [00:10:21] Oh yeah, definitely. No.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:23] Three or four. I mean, for finance, obviously making roles. So how did you even I see here you ended up with a winter as a winter analyst at Morgan Stanley. How on earth did you even? Yeah, in that.
Paul: [00:10:39] So so I will just add the other thing that I did over sophomore summer was I went to tuck and I did their bridge program, which essentially pre MBA program for liberal arts students, is one month idyllic experience in the summer up in New Hampshire. Really helpful kind of a crash course and financial modeling, corporate finance, accounting, all the things that I wasn't taking as a liberal arts student. Yeah. And then I was doing a lot of
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:09] Was that paid? Did you pay for that yourself or your parents helped to cover that
Paul: [00:11:13] Or helped put you in a little bit?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:16] Is that expensive?
Paul: [00:11:17] That tuition just creeps up every year? So I'm sure that
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:21] That's like a normal tuition for a school. Yeah, I mean, it's through tuck, right?
Paul: [00:11:24] So yeah, it wasn't as expensive as normal tuition, but it was.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:29] It's a condensed month program like a how long were you in school? I'm just curious about that program in case you feel like it's valuable for other kids.
Paul: [00:11:36] It was four weeks. It was valuable. And like one thing I found interesting from the program was there were a lot of target school students that were doing this. Not everybody was doing an internship, so some people were treating this as their summer experience. Mm hmm. And the other thing I noticed was that a lot of students there weren't proactively trying to network through Tuck. And so I just walked into the career center one day, and there's the person who helps investment banking interested MBA students get jobs like why not see if she has time later on that week, and she ended up being a really helpful resource over the next six months. So I think just going to talk from a brand perspective, from the coursework perspective and just adding more stones to turn over, I think that was also really helpful.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:32] The more possible connections for the Tuck Tuck alumni network is super tight knit. So even just saying to that program, although probably not as likely to get you a response.
Paul: [00:12:44] Yeah, there was a guy who I shot him a note I literally combed through. I mean, believe me, everyone who was in IP and there's a guy at Merrill Lynch who was nice enough to be of Merrill Lynch. It was nice enough to come and just grab coffee with me over fall break when I was in New York because I had done this summer program, he was like, I don't even know what this program is, but great to meet you. And yeah, the network was was very generous for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:14] That's great. And so you you leverage that you kind of went back and then so you're coming in junior year. Are you networking aggressively before like through the summer during this tuck thing? And then how are you structuring that? You're using LinkedIn only cold calls calling What are you? How are you doing this? How are you keeping it organized?
Paul: [00:13:34] Yeah, I think at the time, gosh, this probably dates me a little bit. But like a lot of people weren't using LinkedIn as like, it wasn't as consistent. I'm sure a lot of people have profiles and whatnot. But yeah, at that point in time, it was not the sort of thing that you check every day. Mm hmm. So it also had a really terrible hit rate. I was just using cold emails. You learn to figure out how templates for emails are structured for different banks,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:02] Which we have in the company database for anyone curious. Yeah, we have all this. You don't have to do all the research.
Paul: [00:14:07] Yeah, I love that. Yeah. So like just kind of using intuition and trying, trying to dig up as many lists as possible. And the worst that can happen is somebody says it doesn't respond, you know, or is like unwilling to talk. I've had. Plenty of calls where like, I make a mistake, like not using I didn't use my full name like one time somebody told me, like, I don't know which Paul this is. And then you learn, OK, like, give them a little bit more context. So there are plenty of these kinds of conversations where you fumble in the dark a little bit and find your way, and then you actually start liking these conversations. And so I came basically right up to summer, just talking to as many people as I could and I guess through the summer to like tried to leverage the Merrill Lynch network, the network. And I staged it so that as I came back to campus, I essentially reached out to every single person that I had sort of built a relationship
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:11] With, which was how many people? How many people do you think you reached out to? Like five hundred three hundred?
Paul: [00:15:16] Oh gosh.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:18] Like during that sophomore year through the summer? Two thousand three thousand. How how competitive were you?
Paul: [00:15:27] Ninety five percent confidence interval is super wide on that, I would say. Probably like I would, I would guess like genuinely five to seven or 50 like probably reached out.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:40] Ok. So five hundred seven and fifty people and this was, you know, somewhat of a templated thing you'd put together like for certain people, were you? What angles were you using in terms of like how you reach out to them? Were you saying like, Hey, I noticed you went to a liberal arts college? We're using liberal arts alums. Obviously, you did the tuck and you did the you did the Merrill Lynch.
Paul: [00:15:57] Yeah, I think because, yeah,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:00] I'm just curious if you use any other kind of
Paul: [00:16:02] Angles. Yeah, definitely. So like if I'm talking to Wheaton students today, I definitely encourage them to to take the liberal arts angle. But like when I was doing this, you know, it wasn't super easy to know who was at each of these banks because there wasn't this like carefully codified LinkedIn network that everyone was expected to be on. It was like, you know, kind of a sloppy, disorganized setup at that point. So like, I was essentially like trying to find lists like I just looked up a huge list of like here all the people in Merrill Lynch be when I was on the intranet there and literally reached out to all those people and it was like, how like one managing director, like, how did you get this email? You know, like that kind of stuff.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:54] You're like, silent. You're like, Oh yeah, did you tell him or do you just run away?
Paul: [00:17:01] Oh, I responded, and I can't. I honestly can't remember if if we had a conversation, but we didn't. One of the other interviews and I spoke and we had a good conversation. So yeah, it's just kind of learning to embrace failure because the stakes are low with these conversations, as long as you're respectful and just, you know, so OK.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:22] So you use kind of the more the the alumni or the Merrill Lynch network, the tuck network and that seemed to get you, you say that hit rate on those. So I got a five hundred like emails, slash LinkedIn requests, slash whatever would you say, like 10 percent responded to you?
Paul:: [00:17:37] Yeah, let me clarify. So I don't think I definitely didn't know 500 bankers like I think in this day and age, it's much easier to like, go directly to the top. But like for me, it was I was looking up anyone like commercial banking too and like would have a phone call with them to ask if they knew anyone on the investment banking side. So.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:00] Were they insulted that you didn't want to do commercial banking?
Paul: [00:18:04] Well, I definitely didn't lead with that. But you know, it's a delicate. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, like, I was so pleasantly surprised throughout this entire process. I think one of the mental shifts for me was just and now being on the other side is somebody working that gets reached out to like it does not feel like a huge burden to talk to a student, especially the younger that they're reaching out, you know, like as a junior. Like, OK, what? What's what's the angle here? But as a sophomore or freshman, it's like, Oh, you know, here's someone who just wants to talk, hear what I'm up to. If I have time, then I try to make that, especially somebody who's gone through this experience. And so, yeah, I think just understanding that these conversations can be helpful and productive and not feel super transactional is like a huge shift for me. But yeah, I'd say the hit rate is pretty good. I tried to craft thoughtful emails so that, like the top of the funnel, wouldn't get narrowed super quickly and just kind of bury them a little bit based on the context.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:11] But so what do you take your your hit rate was it can be rough, rough range. So like out of say, let's say it was five hundred was like fifty people responded one hundred.
Paul: [00:19:21] Yeah, I mean, just because a lot of this was like my college or like family, it
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:27] Was almost 20 percent. You think that high?
Paul: [00:19:30] I would say higher than that. Wheaton is a pretty tight network
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:35] And a lot, I understand. Yeah, that could be like 70, 80 percent, right?
Paul: [00:19:38] Totally. Yeah. And like just thinking through the fact that I would email the people who didn't respond the first time and collect some. Oh, so sorry, I missed your first note responses. Yeah, I don't think 80 percent said unreasonable. Wow.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:56] You got a lot of responses out of those, let's say, three hundred to four hundred responses. How many did you actually end up talking to or those that five hundred to 750? Are you saying you talked to 500 to seven or you are you reached that? That would be. That's unbelievable.
Paul: 00:20:11] Yeah, it's like this was kind of inefficient because it's, you know, it's not like I'm talking to bankers in each of those.
Patrick (CEO of WSO):00:20:18] Of course. Yeah, but you're saying you actually got on the phone with. How many people
Paul: [00:20:22] Every day of my of my junior fall was like me stepping out of the middle of the class to like take a call with somebody who was available at that time, even like, you know, second half of sophomore year, like it was just hopping on the phone whenever anyone would be willing to speak with you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:42] Or like a call a day at least or something like that, almost
Paul: [00:20:45] Honestly. Probably like two or three. Yeah. Ok.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:48] Yeah. So that adds up.
Paul: [00:20:50] And like, some of those mattered way more than than others. But yeah, so
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:56] You probably learned a ton on those calls, I assume.
Paul: [00:20:59] Yeah. One of the benefits to that was by the time you get in the interview room,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:05] I know where to focus the rest of the podcast. You're like the expert network, like a phone informational phone interview versus it's like, what exactly? How do you structure these so that they were most beneficial? I assume you got really good after like the first fifty to one hundred?
Paul: [00:21:19] Yeah. Well, so it's interesting because like, you know, early on, you don't even know what to ask. You're kind of just fumbling around and. I think. Over time, you get different things out of the conversation. First, you sort of just get a lay of the land. So like when I was trying to decide whether I wanted to do consulting or banking, I wanted to do something junior year. And one of the big takeaways that I learned was, Hey, it's really tough from a non target school to do a consulting internship after your junior year. There are far fewer of those because they want to leave open the opportunity to hire people full time from, like invest, banking or other types of backgrounds
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:05] Where you just taught me that I didn't realize that they left more slots open.
Paul: [00:22:11] Yeah, so so there's a lot more recruiting. It's very common to see a lot of people who go into consulting that didn't have internships in consulting, whereas in banking, if if you're going to spend two years working one hundred hours a week, then you kind of need to test that out and see what that's like. And so the banks, I mean, I don't know what the stats are today. You probably know this way better than I do. But just like the expectations that you do a junior internship in order to have a shot of
Patrick (CEO of WSO):: [00:22:44] The yield on these is crazy. I mean, they tend to. Most banks are between 70 and 90 percent. Some are analysts to full time offer rate and the and the yield on that is still incredibly high. Although it has dropped a little bit, it's not like severe. The bigger problem for the banks is the attrition rate analysts leaving so early or being checked out because private equity recruiting happens so fast. But that's a different story. So, so,
Paul: [00:23:10] So logically, in my head, I was like, OK, I can't like there's only going to be one option junior summer. And that creates two paths because consulting firms are very interested in hiring people who have just gone through this intensive 10 week. Crash course in being responsible and modeling and all the things that go into investment banking, and so I thought, why not try and pursue that and see what? You know, coming out of an internship makes more sense if I have two roots, so at that point I kind of narrowed my focus. I would say that was kind of like during the Tucker program is when I was like, OK, I'm going to go full speed ahead towards just investment banking. And you know, that's when I double down on, like doing a modeling course and stopped talking to people in consulting like stop proactively reaching out and just focused towards towards it. Yeah, OK.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:15] And so when you got on these calls, as you got better, would you keep it more conversational? How was your tone? How is like sort of like, Hey, hey, Paul, how can I help you? Like, what would you even start off? I think that's I think that's helpful to hear because a lot of these kids are so nervous, especially when they first start out. So just giving a little bit of a framework, not that they have to be robots and read a script, but
Paul: [00:24:37] Yeah, yeah, of course. So they're all different kinds of people that will get on the phone. Some of them are rush. Some of them are nice people that are having a bad day. You know, you never know what it's going to have to deal with. And so
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:50] I'm busy. What do I? What do you need anything? Do you want? What do you want, kid?
Paul: [00:24:57] Yeah. And like I remember some people who would be interested in just small, small talk at the beginning, and you kind of need to be able to read that. But there were a number of conversations where people were short. People didn't seem to want to engage. And so one thing that I started doing after, I don't know how many of those uncomfortable conversations was, you know, I noticed that every call at some point transition to my story. And so if I felt like it was awkward, my safe phrase was just, well, thanks so much for getting on the phone. Would it be helpful if I told you a little bit about myself? And then that's a great way for them to like one either start to get engaged and interested or like now, there's not even small talk they completely check out, you know, that just kind of transition the conversation to a more predictable, structured frame. Because then you know where it's going, you tell your two minute story. And I found that a lot of people were way more willing to engage after that than at the beginning, because then it's, Oh, OK, this guy has relevant background. It seems like he's doing some of the right things. I'm connected to him for whatever reason. I figured out to connect to that person because of. And from there, you start to get into more of the typical questions about would love to hear more about your experience in X Group Y company and can kind of more organically flow from there. But you've built up some credibility if you're speaking out of a two minute story that's effective, you know?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:33] And how did you structure that story was? Obviously, you were. You'd be referencing your program at talk and how you came from not target, but you're you're working towards better yourself and whatnot. Is that kind of the main framework that you used?
Paul: [00:26:46] Yeah, it's sort of like you. You build your story such that you come from the right background for whatever they're interested in. So the fact that I was majoring in math and economics mentioned I looked at the stats at some point like I pulled this off of LinkedIn, but the number of athletes in investment banking, the percentages is crazier. It was when I looked at this a few years ago and so referencing that I just bought that I'm competitive learning to hit on some of those things. That kind of it's funny.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:21] We had the we had the most, most athletic investment banks because we actually ask questions on like interviews and like our compensation sellers. We ask her, Did you play a varsity sport in your college? And so we have a list of like who the who the biggest like the most athletic banks versus the least athletic. We'll to have to pull it up. I haven't looked in years. I don't even know who it is now. But sorry, yeah, no.
Paul: [00:27:45] But it was just like, I think I scraped like 10 liberal arts schools and like 80 to 90 percent were some university athlete in college. Yeah. So just hitting on things like that, I think was important as kind of fitting the mold. And then my progression, I think, was the other main piece. So here's why I like, you know, very quickly hitting on here's why I chose math and economics. I love working with numbers. I'm competitive and so like coming from that, I knew I wanted to do something in finance and I did this internship, which I really liked X element that's related to investment banking, and I really felt like it was missing y element, which is also related to investment banking. And so I went to the tuck program that confirms that. This is really where I should be, and every moment up until this conversation is like culminating in me wanting to be an investment banking, I mean, like, that's kind of the the formula
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:49] Now that's helpful. Ok. That's actually really helpful. Thank you. So. It was more they were more receptive after that you had a good conversation and then typically would you end it with, you know, is there anyone else you think I should speak with or I'd love to stay in touch? That kind of thing.
Paul: [00:29:04] Yeah. So so I think one of the questions that I would always ask is what would be your advice for me coming from a non target school to get my foot in the door at Deutsche Bank or whatever the bank would? And. That was kind of a softball question, too, in a way, because it's not asking for a referral. It's it's like it's indirectly saying, Hey, do you want to help me? And and like I, I have plenty of people who are like, Well, I'm happy to refer you in the fall. Reach back out. And I had a number of other people who weren't uncomfortable saying, Oh yeah, just keep doing what you're doing. Keep networking. And that's like an easy way for them to say no and for the conversation not to be awkward. And plenty of those people even were willing to connect me to somebody else at the bank. And so a lot of like those softball questions to follow up have a reason to follow up later. A lot of requests to talk to other people. I think I talked to like four people in JP Morgan's real estate group at one point. Like, you just kind of work your way around. Yeah, yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:21] Fair. Ok, so you end up doing the internship winter analyst. Tell me about that. What's what's going on? How do you how are you? Land a winter internship at an even though I've heard of this, I believe. But is this something in the Chicago office?
Paul: [00:30:33] Yeah. So that was in the Chicago office.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:36] They have winter internships because they've realized it's better to be in the office all night instead of being.
Paul: [00:30:42] Yeah. So they did. They did this every year and they would have one intern, and I had no clue this was even a thing. And I wasn't even really going for it. So to rewind, so I come back, I reconnect with every single person I know who's in any way connected to investment banking. And there was a Wheaton alum whose cousin worked at Morgan Stanley in their investment banking division and the Sweet'N along Super Nice is like, Let me introduce you, my cousin. As far as I know, I'm sure he'll be helpful to you. And so this guy, he gets introduced to some student from his cousin and he's like, OK, sure. Like, I'm super busy, but I'll connect with this guy, and he knows that I'm interested in going out to New York for the summer. Like I've got this fall break lined up where I have, I'm planning to meet with all these banks. I'm going to figure out how to piece together a schedule like as I fly up there. I think I had like 10 percent of those chats set up as I flew out there and the rest figured itself out once I landed. Yeah, but this guy in Chicago was just sitting down beforehand to talk me through and give me advice and say, Hey, here's this part of your story. I'd tweak or be ready for these kind of questions, because when you go and sit down and Goldman, like, they're not just going to like, want to chat with you to chat like they're going to ask you some questions, too. And so he basically tested me on some technicals and was really, really helpful. Really nice guy. So did this New York visit went really well. Got to meet with a bunch of banks, and I came back from that and I just shot him a bank, you know, like, Hey, this this trip to New York went really well. Thanks so much for your help. You know, talk to you at some point in future, you know? And so I didn't think anything more of it, and this was probably in early October and in early November. I get a voicemail and it's from the sky. And he's saying, how? Hey, Paul, I know that you're interested in New York for Ivy Rolls for the summer. But you know, we just finished doing recruiting through Northwestern in Chicago for our winter analyst role, and we didn't like any of the candidates. We're thinking of scrapping the program for this year. But if if this is something you're interested in, then give me a shout and maybe I can convince them, I know you're not coming from like a school that we're used to hiring from, but maybe I can convince one of the associates who's involved in recruiting to talk to you and take it. From there, you probably have to take off for your spring semester for Q3, because this will be
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:40] Like, Oh yeah, no problem,
Paul: [00:33:42] I will figure it out, you know? Yeah. And fortunately, I had the credits to do that, so I was able to to basically just not graduate. Yeah, yeah. I only took queue for credits this semester and basically, I reach back out to the guy. I was like, Yeah, absolutely would love to chat with whoever. And by the time I got on the phone for what was essentially that first round interview, I had already done two hundred of these three hundred of these like telling my story. I had just been in New York sitting down with banks doing this process. And so it just felt like I was doing this thing that I did every day.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:26] Second, nature to you at that point, it was like riding a bike.
Paul: [00:34:29] Yeah. And so I don't know. I would. I wouldn't be surprised if if students who have had to network a lot coming into these kinds of interviews tend to have a higher hit rate in the interview because they've already told their stories so many times. I think that's a silver lining for people coming from backgrounds where they have to do networking, or even just for students who are proactive from target schools who are connecting with alumni like, you know, the fact that you come in and it's
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:58] Like you are naturally like, I mean, because you speak well, do you feel like you're naturally kind of gifted in that though? Um, you know, I don't, I don't know. Some people are just, you know, they really struggle with it. They're they. B or more like on the engineering side, a little more technically competent, but they just in terms of interaction, it's almost like I think of this as like a different layers of intelligence and there's like a social IQ aspect and there's the IQ aspect sometimes when people are very high on the IQ aspect. They lack a little bit of IQ, which is it's hard on the phone, especially when you're not getting facial approval or anything like that to really understand. A lot of things become much more direct and transactional, like you said, rather than a conversation, I feel like. You don't you don't seem to, even though you're a math and math major, you don't seem like a lot of the math majors I know. So do you feel like that is a. It was easier for you or you still feel like you were. Were you really fumbling at the beginning, like because to do that, many calls, it seems like you were really comfortable with it. Or did you just force yourself to do it?
Paul: [00:36:08] I definitely force myself. I mean, like, I don't know what my starting point is, I think. What I'll say is this, I think, you know, maybe there are a very small percent of people that are so far towards the. The low social IQ or whatever you want to call it, that it really will be tough to get over the hump, but the vast majority of people who would be listening to something like this or interested in these types of roles are more than capable. Like, honestly, like I'm an introvert and I did 300. These calls for 400 calls. So I think like at the end of the day, it's about OK, I can learn from this and call, and it will benefit me for the plus one and 10+ to call and plus three. And and like as you start to have more of these conversations, you learn more about what this like. A group of people is interested in talking about or expects to hear, and one of the super valuable things that I get from a lot of these people is feedback on my story so that by the 10th conversation, I was speaking much more effectively than I was in the first one. So very painful at first. But you figure it out, you know, regardless.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:32] Ok, that's fair. So you somehow so you're getting this interview for this winter analyst position at Morgan Stanley. It's like a dream out of like a movie. But you did knock on a lot of doors, so we'll give you a. So this door opens up and you kind of, are you nervous even though you've done so many of these? Or you're just like, Hey, if it doesn't work out, whatever, I'll keep going.
Paul: [00:37:52] Yeah, well, I'm nervous. And I'm also trying to figure out, OK, how does this work for the summer, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:00] And were you hoping they maybe would give you a summer analyst? Yeah. Offer as well.
Paul: [00:38:05] Yeah, which I did receive.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:08] Ok, so tell me so you took time off from school. You started in January. Yeah, quarter off, right? And. You just showed up to the office. I mean, what was it? What was it like? So you obviously they said, OK, we'd like you to come in, you talk with the associate and a few other people, I assume, and it went well.
Paul: [00:38:23] Yeah. So I talked to the associate over the phone and passed his screen. And so then I came in for a Super Day and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:29] With you and by yourself or with other people,
Paul: [00:38:32] I know it was like a Paul Super Day, Paul
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:35] Super Day because they'd already rejected everyone else.
Paul: [00:38:39] Yeah, yeah. So, so like in some ways, the odds are pretty good. It's like a yes or no. Do they want to bring? The odds are
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:45] Good, but it's also like, why do they reject everybody else, right? Did you get any other, any feedback on when he said, We don't like any other candidates? Did you ever talk to them more in depth about why? Not really, I was unbelievable to me that that.
Paul: [00:39:00] Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:01] Ok, so you're you're in there, you do the Super Day, you get through how a lot of technicals, I assume, were they trying to grill you because you're from an on target?
Paul: [00:39:09] Yeah, I mean, I think that some people saw like, Oh, this guy built a DCF during his tech experience and like one guy went into depth. We talked about how much the terminal value was is a percent of total. And and, you know, did my I mean, I did well enough to pass, I guess. But like, he definitely was playing bad cop. There are other people that just wanted to hear about my background. Yeah, it was kind of everything from behavioural to the
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:40] Bad cop technical interview who started drilling on the DCF harder and harder and harder, how did you handle that in terms of like, did you say at some point, you know, I'm really not sure. Did you like draw a line somewhere? Because I feel like oftentimes people struggle and flounder, and sometimes it's better for them just to say, I don't know.
Paul: [00:39:55] Yeah, I think there were a couple of things that were important to that interview, which were one that like. I kind of saw it as a game and like, you know, an important interview, but also like it's OK, like I know that this guy is trying to push me and like, I'm up to the challenge, like, OK, he wants to drill deeper. And so like, I was kind of still smiling that whole time while trying to figure out whatever new curveball I was throwing. I I wouldn't be surprised if there was a point where I did say, you know, I'm not really sure. And there was one answer that I remember giving. I can't even remember to what it was, but he was like, Huh, whatever percent. Yeah, that doesn't really seem realistic to me. Anyways, next question and you just kept moving on. So like, he was definitely trying to push my buttons, and I think part of it is just staying composed in those kind of situations
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:53] Or panicking and floundering or not. So I want to keep going because it's getting it's annoying. I don't want to keep it too long, but like. You get a full time offer to join in the summer. Why not go to Morgan Stanley for, you know, summer analysts role, you know, three months there? Did you not like the experience or what was the what was the thought?
Paul: [00:41:13] So I think that my investment banking internship that I did over the winter was like the most concentrated like learning per hour spent in my entire career. So even though I decided I didn't want to do that full time, like I'm still a huge advocate for students to pursue that route. I think you learn so much. That was such a critical part of not only my skill set, but kind of my brand going into consulting to where it's like, Oh, we're going to put this guy on any of our modeling projects. That was a big part of me making the internal transition at McKinsey to this really exciting group that did merger management and transactions work was the fact that I had done this investment banking experience.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:07] So let's let's talk about a little bit like so you you get to the end of the winter. Winter analyst stint in March of that year, and they offer you to come back that summer in Chicago.
Paul: [00:42:18] Yeah. So they offered for me to come back for
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:19] The summer, but no flat out right then, then in there.
Paul: [00:42:22] So so I said, yes, yes, OK. And I ended up coming down with pneumonia. So this doesn't happen to everybody who does an investment internship. But i-, I got walking pneumonia and got pretty sick, probably like ours.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:39] Was it the hours?
Paul: [00:42:41] I think I mean, that's something that I've always struggled with in consulting even, and I think I've gotten a better grip in P.E., but this is, you know, probably boring to hear for like an 18 to twenty two year old. But like, I really do think your 20s and a lot of ways are like learning what your body can handle, you know, and that changes over time. But like that, I I was drinking a lot
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:05] As we're both at standing desks right now, I have a bad back pain. I'm 40. Like, You know, you're probably in better shape, you're in much better shape than I am. Yeah. So, yeah,
Paul: [00:43:14] So so like a lot of it was probably the hours, but also the fact that I was just like environment where I was drinking a lot more then than usual. And this is the most dramatic drop off in exercise that I had ever had, right? Like, I'm an athlete and like for the first time in my life, I haven't done anything for ten weeks, like I was just like a physiologically different person by the end of this internship. So like, I'm a best practice, like worst practice person when it comes to like taking care of yourself during an experience like this.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:49] But 90 hour weeks, 100 hour weeks.
Paul: [00:43:52] Yeah, I think I averaged a little over one hundred, but my worst was only like one 15.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:00] Oh, that's it. One 15.
Paul: [00:44:02] Well, I've heard more stories. I think although I know I've heard people
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:07] Ok, so you got trial by fire, you got to the end. Was the pneumonia near the end?
Paul: [00:44:13] Yeah, I didn't even know that I had it until afterwards.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:17] And yes, then you got really sick in that spring.
Paul: [00:44:20] Yeah, and I tried to come back like I did the first week of training and basically in New York, and then I came back and the first night I was up till 4:00 a.m. on a sell side deal and like my lungs, just completely tightened up on me. And I was like, Oh God, what? What am I about to go through again? And over the course of the next few days, my lungs got worse and I basically had a conversation with them and I was like, Look, I, you guys know what I'm capable of doing and what my work product is like. You've gotten to see me for 10 weeks. I don't think that I can physically do this for the summer. And so they were like, OK, like we understand, like, let's have a conversation.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:05] You have a doctor's note at that point to prove that something was wrong with you or you just knew something was wrong with you. You had like a gut instinct.
Paul: [00:45:11] I can't. I did go to a doctor I can't remember. It was after or before like, go get on antibiotics. But like, I already had a good relationship with them. So it wasn't the kind of thing where they needed that for me because they knew, I mean, I had worked. You know, you're a workhorse. Yeah, yeah. I worked for them for a thousand hours at that point, so they knew they could trust me. It was sort of like, OK, let's have a conversation at the end of the summer if you're interested in coming back. And so I took the summer. I ended up doing a different kind of like much lighter internship for the second half of the summer and just like cobbled something together once I was healthier. I pitch it differently, know in conversations, but with basically I use that summer to get healthier again, and it was like, You know, I think I want to find something that's a little bit less intensive for some time.
Patrick (CEO of WSO):00:46:08] So you got into so you finished that. You kind of. I assume the place that you interned at also wanted you back full time.
Paul: [00:46:17] That was actually just kind of a favor. My network where I was like, Oh, we can bring somebody on for the summer, like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:23] You enter senior year with nothing.
Paul: [00:46:25] Yeah. So I enter your senior year and I decide to fall, and I should say this so and cut me off whenever. No, no, it's good to go. But so the funniest part of all of this was that I was in the winter analyst role during the recruiting process for the summer. So I got to see on the inside of this investment banking recruiting machine and watch how it happened. And at the same time, they didn't say anything about the summer. So I was like going down to the lobby to like, get on a Credit Suisse first round and like, you know, talk about why I'm interested in that bank. And so. I was going through all these other processes, and all of a sudden it reached this awkward point where I hadn't heard anything from Morgan Stanley about the summer and I had two super days in New York for other banks. And I was like, Hey, I like, I need to take a day off. And they were like, What are you talking about? This is an investment internship. You don't take a day off. And I was like, Well, I and I talked to the associate that I was close with at the time.And it's like, I've got super days at other banks and like, I don't know what's the deal for the summer? And so like, very quickly, the MD that I worked a lot with, like conferred with the other MDS and they like very quickly gave me a summer offer. And just like you can't go to New York when you do work. But yeah, I got to be there while we were interviewing for the Chicago office and see like I legitimately was sifting through resumes and filtering who should be in the, you know, the short list. So like one of the big realizations for me, it was just how imperfect and human this process is. And the fact that I think a lot of students early on think that they're going to get this careful evaluation of whether or not they're a good fit and it's really no. Can you catch the attention of someone on that boat because it is leaving the harbor and you need them to toss your life best, you know?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:40] Yeah, totally. No, I agree. I think, yeah, it's kind of a naive freshman sophomore. Maybe, maybe junior is a little more a little more realistic once they've been rejected for all the sophomore internships. But so you say, OK, so you kind of get your summer? Yeah. So you come to the summer and then the senior year. I guess you didn't feel you still felt like you kind of had Morgan Stanley in the back pocket, potentially full time. You had already kind of done. It seems you had really strong relationships there after busting your butt for that winner.
Paul: [00:49:10] So I like the the first few weeks that I was like transitioning back to campus, it was kind of like, OK, if I don't call them in the next couple of weeks, then like, that's that's not a good indicator. So there was definitely like a good month and a half period where I felt like I. I didn't have that anymore and that I needed to create a new opportunity.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:35] So how did you shift to like prepping for consulting interviews? Suddenly, everything you've done for almost over a year now had been banking, banking, banking.
Paul: [00:49:44] So I mean, the here's the way that I thought about it. So I had built up all of this experience in connecting with people in a field that wasn't for people from non-target schools like me, right? Like that was my main skill that I had developed, and I knew how to how to craft a story. And so I reconfigured my story for consulting. I think an important part of this is that I decided that consulting would be interesting, and I had the motivation to to go after it because I was excited about the prospect of working at.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:24] You could be genuine. You could be genuine, which is key.
Paul: [00:50:26] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so so. I started just basically, you know, tailoring my story to to fit consulting. Talked about how much I got out of the investment banking internship. But conveyed why I wanted to do this, and I started having tons of conversations with people doing that, and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:49] You tell them that you got a pneumonia and that you were working over a hundred hours a week.
Paul: [00:50:53] I left out the pneumonia part, but I definitely mentioned 100 hours a week part. I definitely mentioned that. Yeah. So I think the biggest piece then was was transitioning to like behavioral. You know, I had like 100 different behavioral stories from the banking internship easily use. It was really just, OK, how do I kind of people in consulting and how do I do case prep and what resources can I use? And yeah, I was basically spending the fall doing that and trying to. It's funny, like your GPA matters the most like sophomore and junior year and nobody looked. I guess if you're going to business school and people look at it, but otherwise, you know, it doesn't really matter. After that point, so it was just how do I keep my grades afloat while all this crap?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:42] So you start to really in case interviews, case interviews, case interviews with some friends, I assume, or like, who did you even find? There's there's lots of resources online. There's we have a case consulting case, interview course. There's but there's tons out there that are great. There's case books you can get for free. You start off. So is that what you did? You just started drilling yourself or did you were their mentor you had in the consulting space?
Paul: [00:52:10] Yeah. I basically had to find a number of people to to help, and I kind of did this myself, but like the analogy I like to use with this for people who are trying to prep as it was kind of like learning how to golf or really like any other kind of sport like that. So I could get out there and try and figure out how to swing. And you could take a thousand different balls out to the range and like, dump them and just swing as many as you can. And you know, that can be one approach. Or if you take 20 balls and each time you take a swing like somebody who knows what they're doing, gives you feedback, tinkers with your form a little bit. You're going to get way better off 20 swings than you will off of a thousand unguided swing. So for me, it was what are the resources I need to be able to have this conversation like by a golf club, right by some golf balls and then go and have these conversations. And if I built rapport with some consultant or like, for example, one of the TAS from the bridge program, he worked at Bain. And so he gave me a great case, which is now my go to case that I use for any student that comes to me that wants to do cases just like people like that that give you a case that they've given a real interview and then tell you, Hey, here's how you should think about approaching this kind of problem in the future. That was a super valuable stuff.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:36] That's awesome. So you drilled and you drilled and you got a first round interview. How at McKenzie? Now you've done it again for a second time. You think you made an internship at Morgan Stanley from a non target and now you get an internship? I can understand how you get McKinsey easier because now you got Morgan Stanley.
Paul: [00:53:53] Yeah, but it's still like it's you're you really need like. I remember sitting at Morgan Stanley's table over lunch and we had a stack of like a thousand resumes and we split them up amongst people as we were eating Chipotle. And like, we just went through as quickly as possible because like this is taking time away from analysts other like real job to try.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:15] And it's literally like this, sometimes less than five seconds. And you're like
Paul: [00:54:19] Some like off comments about like, Oh, this guy, you know, somebody misinterpreted something you get pulled out or like guacamole drops on part of a resume and like, maybe they stick together and somebody completely misses you. You're like, It's really like for me,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:34] Getting any ding. Don't get hit by the guacamole, ding.
Paul: [00:54:37] Yeah, exactly. I remember like this applies from banking to like I think so. I got two interviews at, well, I don't know what classifies as bullshit bracket now, but essentially all but Deutsche Bank. And that was the one where I did not have any close connections. And I think the same applies for consulting. So I interviewed at Dan and McKinsey and didn't have any connections at BCG, but it's really just through continuing to push, continuing to push and getting enough. It's kind of a function of your your experience and you know, whoever is pushing your resume through and really being an advocate for you and what I will
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:55:18] Say, yeah, you made enough connections clearly. I mean, you got in the interviews you and you did you feel like you nailed it right away or was was McKinsey later on? How did you kind of get to those super days?
Paul: [00:55:29] Yeah, you know so. I felt like the case interview went well over the phone, but I was nervous for the whole process like, you know, I had built up all this momentum and IP and then realized that I don't think I want to go down that route or shoot like, you know, I've put in all this effort. And so I was honestly stressed through this entire process and probably like a pretty harsh critic of myself. So like I remember walking out of the Super Day for McKenzie and thinking that I didn't get it and then got the call that that night or whenever it was. But like, I was very stressed this whole time. So I think if I could go back, I think a huge part of this is just finding things that keep you sane and keep you resilient during this process. Whether that's like for me, I think I neglected running at the time and like that would have been a huge boost to my confidence. So I mean, it worked out, but I think it could have been a little bit less painful.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:35] So no, I think staying staying fit is big. Yeah. So let's let's now switch over to talking a little bit more about what it was like to actually work at McKinsey. 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. Com And till next time.
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