WSO Podcast | E210: How to Get the First Round Interview | Weekly Intern Meetup #10
Another interesting chat with our intern group.
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WSO Podcast Episode 210 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. Another interesting chat with the interns. If you're interested in applying to the internship, please check out the show notes. There's a link right there. Enjoy. Let's start it up now. I see some familiar names. Hey, Paul. Harry is pretty nice. Nabila, of course, is on because he has to be honest, getting Paul on. Rachel. Hi, Tony again, Evan, Ian and Mahi. And then we've got a couple more coming in right now. How is everyone doing?
Intern 1: [00:00:52] I have a quick question, actually. So I believe I start I put my start date is like August 1st because I'm doing internship right now and a part time one as well. So do I just kind of chill in the slack until then, or how does that work? So I'm sort of the fall type of thing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:18] Yeah, you can just start in August. If you're added to the group, you can just kind of see who's in there, the types of questions coming in, if you want to check it out beforehand, all the resources are pinned to the top of the slack.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:35] If you want to, we'll send you an email before your start date like a couple of days before. But if you want to start looking over some of that stuff prior, feel free or mine for you to just focus on your current internship and then just get ramped in August.
Intern 1: [00:01:44] Yeah. By the way, I love the podcast. I listen to it like every day before I go to the gym or all my in the gym.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:58] I appreciate it. Yeah, we've done a lot of episodes now. Like crazy, almost 200. Yeah, I feel like we got to do more. We haven't been doing as many.
Intern 1: [00:02:11] Yeah, I've been looking for recent uploads and I can't find any stuff. I got to do more rescue on that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:24] Yeah, we've been doing more. We've been doing more of these. I've actually been uploading these calls because they're kind of similar to the career oriented advice and stuff. Where are you located right now?
Intern 1: [00:02:37] I'm from San Francisco, so I'm doing my internship here. But next summer I'll be in New York, so I'm pretty amped.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:41] Nice. What school? Purdue. Nice. Very cool. What are you doing in New York? What's your internship?
Intern 1: [00:02:43] S.a.t. So it's going to be pretty interesting thing. I don't congratulate.
Intern 2: [00:02:45] I'm not paying attention to it.
Intern 1: [00:02:46] It's really shocking because I did like no networking or anything and just got the Super Day and got the offer. So Really? Yeah, especially from Purdue.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:03] From Purdue. That's impressive.
Intern 1: [00:03:10] Yeah, I don't know.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:16] That's very cool. Maybe they know something you don't. So, Sandman, tons of people flowing in now. They are getting much larger. Sorry about all the I don't know if you guys can hear those beeps of people joining, but so we can start out just basically. Usually do. Are there somebody anybody that has questions around the ship in particular? Let me change the view so I can talk. There you go. And sorry if you hear kids screaming in the background. So that's probably mine. But yeah, in the meantime, any questions specifically around the internship? Just to get get started, we got about almost 30 people on the call now. Anything there.
Intern 2: [00:04:02] I had one question about the internship.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:09] Yeah, go ahead, Camille.
Intern 2: [00:04:15] So you have to dedicate at least 15 hours per week for the internship. That's correct.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:22] Yeah, correct. Nabil, do you want to talk about the hours and the requirements?
Nabil: [00:04:26] Yeah. So it's 15 hours every week for a total of 175 hours over 12 weeks.
Intern 2: [00:04:28] So would it be possible? So my question was, would it be possible like one week to do 10 hours, another week to 20 hours so that it adds up to 175 overall? Or do we need at least 15 hours a week?
Nabil: [00:04:35] Oh, no, you could do that. We'd like it if you'd have 15 every every week.
Nabil: [00:04:36] But then if you can't just let me know in advance. Yeah. So we'll probably let that just for this week.
Intern 2: [00:04:41] I just have some like, for example, I'm here over in Canada, like we have, for example, the July four celebrations today. And yeah, like this week, I don't think I'll be able to meet that those 15 hours. But for the following week I'll set aside more hours for the internship. Right.
Nabil: [00:04:48] Sounds good. It sounds good. Yeah, no problem. Okay. Thank you.
Intern 3: [00:04:55] Yeah. Also for the same thing. It happened with me too. I kind of skipped through the week for this week. I have, like, five, 6 hours, but I completed next week.
Nabil: [00:05:14] Yeah, sure. No problem. You can. You can just carry all the you haven't done this week or two next week and then complete it. No problem.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:40] Yeah. And Dau is asking, can you compress the hours to finish early? Yes, you can. You need to speed through it to get to another internship. You can do that as well. So that's that's an option as well. You can speed through it. But keep in mind it's super low quality in the articles that are coming through. They're not going to get approved. So you're trying to rush through it and do a ton of hours early and in the quality of work suffering, then it's going to just end up dragging the thing out longer than you want to.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:49] Sorry about that, guys. I got a lot of screaming kids in the background, but we'll keep going. Um. So anybody let's say ye said I just sent a message on Slack regarding my article status.
Nabil: [00:06:07]Oh, yeah, I just. I just put your name back. I don't know what happened in back channel status. Yeah, it's fine now. We got your name back. You.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:26] Hey, being is asked, do we have regular meetings? Yes, we typically have a meeting every Friday like this where we can answer questions and answer not just questions about the internship, but questions about the actual questions about the actual career oriented questions around the interviews, recruiting and whatnot. Yeah, that's totally fine. Yet tonight. Go ahead.
Intern 4: [00:06:46]I just wanted to know if that was a minimum requirement of articles I need to submit before our internship gets over. Like, is there a number of articles that are going to get done with before the 125 hours?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:59] Yeah. 81.
Nabil: [00:07:01] Yeah. 21 in total. Yeah.
Intern 4: [00:07:06] And if you finish 21 before you finish your hours, should I continue?
Nabil: [00:07:12] Yeah, because I see minimum requirement. Right. Got it. Perfect.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:19] Yeah. And the the issue is if you just try to get the rush, the 21, we've seen the quality suffer. So we want you to really spend the time to make sure you're getting to the length and the quality that will allow us to actually get them published. Got it.
Intern 4: [00:07:25] Thank you.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:26] No worries. Thanks.
Intern 5: [00:07:28] So I haven't done too much research into the internships.
Intern 5: [00:07:31] And so I'm starting in August, I believe. But I was just wondering how it's kind of structured. Can we just are we just trying to put out articles for the Wall Street Oasis website on basically anything we want, say, like there's like a macroeconomic event? Can we just write about it or something like that?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:52] Yeah, you'll see once you start. There's a whole list of topics that we have kind of pre-populated with ideas. So it's not just a random selection. You can select the ones, the topics that are most interesting to you that will help your CV the most. But yeah, it's not totally random. There's there's some method to the madness in terms of how we structured it in the types of stuff we we actually selected for, for actual upload. So we actually have these pages ready like on, on site. They're just not published yet. So we're just waiting for that content to fill in in terms of header tags, sub headers, a series paragraphs, all that good stuff. So it's more ranked, it's more built around like what's going to be what's going to help us as a site and as a community grow the traffic and get get relevant traffic to the specific products and services and stuff like that that will help the business continue to grow. So it's it's like a very, very long term play for us. It's not one of those things where you write an article and suddenly it's like paying off and bringing you hundreds of visitors.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:46] It's usually like you write an article and if you're lucky, it'll rank in the top 20, which means like you'll get a trickle of traffic. But if done really well, it'll start creeping up. And then maybe in a year, year and a half it starts ranking like the top three, because people who are landing on that page, you realize, Oh, this is a really good piece of content and they're sticking around and Google's recognizing that. And so it's really helps us creep up those rankings and suddenly it starts becoming linked to as a reference for that specific term or topic. And then from there you start ranking higher and actually start bringing in a couple of visits a day, for example, across the whole year. It actually makes a difference. But yeah, that's the goal. That's the goal. Still letting in people were up to 37. I don't know if it's a record, but it's definitely gone up there. Bennet, you have a question? Go ahead.
Intern 5: [00:09:17] Oh, yeah. So I'm starting my internship today, and I just had a question about something on the guide which said that if I do need to take a break, I can take a break. And I just wanted to ask that regarding. So I have, say, 12 weeks and I have two exams in between these 12 weeks where I will need say at least a one week gap. So I'll have to take, say, one week in July and then one week in September.So is that possible to break it like that?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:03] Yes, totally. Absolutely. Just give me a heads up. So we have that kind of documented and then we can. That's fine. I don't think that's an issue. That's why we have those two kind of we have that two week kind of flexibility built in. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. It usually tends to be more of an issue during the school year because people are actually doing this with classes sometimes and it's much harder for them to do that. So if you have exams over the summer for sure. Ammad, you have a question?
Intern 6: [00:10:29] Yes, I do. Is the internship based on the amount of articles that we write or. Is it based on the timing or can I can I spend 21 articles to a span of like more than 12 weeks or not or less even? Or do we have to make it synchronize between the articles and the timing?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:49] Good question. So I think the confusion is around like the timing. You can compress it, but you can you shouldn't be extending it past the 12 weeks or the 14 weeks. If you have a two week grace period like Bennett was just requesting. So that's the maximum length. The minimum minimum number of articles is 21, and the minimum number of hours is 175. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Emmett, go ahead.
Intern 7: [00:11:08] Hi Patrick. I actually think I might have skipped a few people,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:15] so, I’m sorry I don't even know who's raising their hands first. Did Madoff get was he ahead of you? I think so. Yeah. I think I was the last in the queue. Go ahead, Madoff.
Intern 8: [00:11:36] Oh, hi, Patrick. I just graduated high school, and I'll be attending college in August, so I'm starting my internship tomorrow, and I applied late too. So what would you suggest I do? Because I started. I started college in, like, midway through August.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:48] What you should you do in the sense of
Intern 8: [00:11:54] Like timing wise, like there's no way I get a 15 and there's no ways 15 weeks between now and August. And I'm playing I'm also playing tennis in college, so I wouldn't have any time to.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:14] Yeah. I mean, you could make it like, a full time role, right? And try to get through the 21 you have six weeks before you start. You can make it more like full time. And then that would. That would get you there, I think.
Intern 8: [00:12:20] Okay. So I could I can do that. Right. So I don't have to do all I don't have to go full 15. You don't have to go.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:27] You don't. That's the minimum. Like that's, that's the maximum. That's a maximum. So you shouldn't be it shouldn't be stretching out past that. You can get your hours. Yeah. You could do this in six weeks. It's a lot.
Intern 8: [00:12:34] So if I so say I do as much as I can, I don't get to 21. Like what? What happens? Like, how does that work? Like you'd be getting the free courses as you go along.
Intern 8: [00:12:51] Okay, so it's just like proportionate to how much you do.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:00] Yeah, exactly. Because you're getting free credit, you're getting the courses unlocked as you go. So it just means like if you want like some sort of certificate, a lot of people who are doing this want like a certificate at the end or something like, like successfully completed or got you, you wouldn't get that but you would still unlock free courses and stuff like that. And there still it still benefits you putting it on your resume and stuff like that. All right. All right. Thank you. You're welcome.
Intern 8: [00:13:19] I also have one more question. So how how how weighted do you think this is on a resume, since it's not like a paid internship and like it's like it's not really like a financial analyst position, but it is research. So how do you how do you think it's weighted on it? Like how valuable do you think it is?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:33] It depends on like what you're targeting. If you're targeting like investment banking and it's like a freshman summer or even like you before you even start, like, I think it's a great internship for that because it's just, it's just especially for you like, or freshman summer or sophomore summer, even if you can't get like the banking internship, let's say targeting investment banking, you can't get the banking internship. It's probably like the next best thing because you can at least get like the same keywords and you're still you can review the same topics like valuation, DCF, financial modeling, Excel, all this stuff.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:05] And plus you get access to those courses which you can also put on your CV or as self study. So it's like almost like a double whammy. It helps just flesh out. It helps you get a lot of finance oriented stuff on your resume when you're really young. Like it is really helpful to fill it in. Yeah, I think it's super valuable for for somebody, especially somebody super young, right?
Intern 1: [00:14:18] Yeah. As a rising freshman, that's like super that's like super solid that you're doing this already. I think even more important than Target School or anything is knowing that you want to do finance before school. Because I only realized that like last semester, which was second semester, sophomore year and it was a grind, but I still got something. So if you start it earlier, the better for sure. Yeah,
Intern 9: [00:14:32]I'm going, I'm going to Stern this upcoming fall. And I was wondering like it's like, isn't it like super competitive for investment? So like, is that is it a top target for like, how does that work? Like at the top?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:58] Yeah, man, it's one of the topics. They feed a ton of kids into Wall Street. Yeah, but there's also is there like also like everyone there does. Yes. Yes. So, so it's not like a given, but I think this is a great first step for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:17] Yeah. And I think especially if you can squeeze it in before you start as much as possible and then gets to some of the self study on there, it's just going to show like you're just going to show your super hungry, like at that young age, like even for Stern. I think that's early. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. That helps a lot. I mean, it's crazy how young some of these interns are now, but. Anyway. Who else do we have? I think. Emmet, I think you are next.
Intern 7: [00:15:37] Hi Patrick. Hey, how are you? So I'm good. I'm good. How are you? Good. Hanging in there. And so my question is, it's kind of related to you know, there's been a few point posts from Goldman Sachs and last night saying, hey, are summer internships for next year open already? And so which is crazy when you think that the current interns are barely a week into their own thing. So I guess a more general question around that. So I'm starting an internship. It's a placement internship for 12 for 12 months. It's in a corporate finance firm, but we are doing a lot of investment banking services as well. So I guess but I'm only a month into it. So I guess, you know, assuming, I guess one of those internships in the summer. But if I'm applying for them now, how do you kind of put that on your resume when you've got the limited experience only being a few weeks or a few or a month or so into your internship, And even Joe, I guess if you wanted to put this one in this internship as well, you know, if you're only a week into us,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:43] Have you done any, have you done any articles with us yet? Anything.Have you gotten through anything?
Intern 7: [00:17:04] I've done a little bit. It's been it's been a bit hard to kind of juggle the work, but I'm going to take some time.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:15] Yeah. So, I mean, that's it's hard because, like you said, it's like you're applying without much on the resume. What year are you? And I mean I mean, I would have I have a previous summer internship,
Intern 7: [00:17:29] Not not investment banking related. No. I mean, I went on a spring week,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:35] What I would do. Yeah. So I wouldn't have a bunch of bullets under these internships. I'd have it would almost have to shift a little bit more to like maybe two bullets under each, one under the W so one, one under this other corp dev one that just explains more about what your role is less about. Like I did this, I did that and so it's a little bit weaker. In the sense of like the bullets are weaker, it's not showing you like had an impact. You did all this stuff, but you're still ideally going to be able to say a lot of the self study stuff, the financial modeling stuff.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:59] You're still going to be able to say like a lot of the like you're still going to be able to position yourself as a go getter because you have two internships, right? So I think there's a lot of things that look good there that other kids are dealing going to be dealing with the same thing. Right? They will have just started a few weeks ago. So I wouldn't go crazy and oversell like what you've already done, maybe embellish a little bit if you have if you're on a project in the last few weeks and you did some stuff, maybe you could talk about it a little bit and have that as one bullet and another bullet as like other things you're expected to do throughout the summer. Um. Yeah, that's not an easy position. That's where I'll plug our resume review services where like having somebody sit there for a few hours, then actually review it because it depends on it depends exactly what the internship is, what your role is, what exactly you're doing there, and like how much should or should not embellish. You've got to be careful, right?
Intern 7: [00:18:41] Hmm. Yeah, I guess it's very early days, very early putting out putting putting together some items and valuation reports and nothing is kind of. That's good to go through.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:00] Yes, but that's good. That's good as long as it's relevant work. And it's like, you know, if is your GPA. The problem with all this early, early, early recruiting, all it does is it makes it like the traditional metrics of like GPA in school.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:28] Like people just have to lean on it heavier because the experience isn't even there. So it's a shame, right? Like, doesn't let. It doesn't let kids show who they are through the years. Right. Like, if if Junior Summer was actually recruited in, like early junior year, it'd be so much more they'd have so much more information than what they do. Like now, like sophomore summers, like early freshman year, like junior Summer is like early sophomore. It's joke, it's super early. So that's where like Bennet doing this before, before he even goes to college is helpful because like he's going to be hit with recruiting so early and they're going to see that he actually had this internship. That's why it's like that's one of the reasons it's super helpful for him, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I would I would just try to get something down there that is one or two, probably two bullets, right. If one of them has to be a little bit more like what's expected, your roles like through the rest of the summer is going to be and if you're if you're having trouble doing that, I mean, I would ask one of the analysts or one of the full time people like to help you. Like, what could I write here that you think is reasonable, you know?
Intern 7: [00:20:32] Okay. So I guess kind of just keep it very brief and kind of watch your two on line to one line.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:41] But I still don't have wrap into two bullets. Just giving a highlight of what you're doing, what you've done so far, and then what you're expected to do.
Intern 7: [00:20:58] Okay, great. And one other quick one. I noticed there was two new courses in the last few months that you put up the 13 week modeling or conceptual model. Yep. And the the private equity process or something like that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:18] Private equity deals process course. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Intern 7: [00:21:25] I just wanted to ask very quickly, could you give a brief overview of them just kind of what they entail? 13. Sure. 13. Kind of distressed. Yes.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:44] Yeah, it's a little more on the distressed side. It's kind of what you'd see a precursor to like a corporate restructuring course where we're in development on a corporate restructuring course that will almost be like an almost like a mini course prior to doing a restructuring. So if you're interested in like distressed, distressed, they working on restructuring IB or private equity restructuring type shops where you're looking at distressed assets, that's probably a good course to take. And then once we have our corporate restructuring for full corporate restructuring course, I definitely recommend that the private equity deals process is much more giving private equity associates and analysts a framework of what a deal looks like. So it's not just LBO modeling. It's really from like when they get a sim from a banker and they're trying to figure out, Hey, is this a good deal or not? What is their role of like looking guiding a deal from through diligence, looking at a QV report, building a super detailed underwriting model with cases going through like a letter of intent, an IOI, all the different stages of an auction process and buying what their role would be as a private equity analyst and associates.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:27] So I think it's going to be a super popular course because people in general just love the idea of being in private equity, even though it's super competitive to get into it. So they like to learn it. I think that paired with the LBO modeling course is a great way to kind of prepare yourself for a career in private equity and what you'd be doing. Kind of it gives you a really good, really good idea of what you'd be doing day to day.
Intern 7: [00:22:36] Awesome. Thanks so much.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:38] Yeah. To the point where we actually even sourced real deal documents from the community and redacted them. So obviously they're super confidential. So we got these like huge real stock purchase agreements, real letters of intent, real NDAs, and we go through that. The instructor goes through them and spends a lot of time kind of drilling down on the types of things you should be looking out for as an analyst or an associate to be to make sure the disaster scenario doesn't happen. It's a pretty cool course. Lumina to say that, right? Lumina Yes.
Intern 10: [00:23:23] Hey, Patrick, how are you?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:24] Hi, how are you?
Intern 10: [00:23:26] Good, thank you. I wanted to ask at the end of the internship, like when when intern ask for you for letter of recommendation, which you write one.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:37] Typically we do like a completion, like successfully completed an internship. Nabil, have we done like any sort of letter of recommendation? I think mostly it's been just people asking for completion like certificate day.
Nabil: [00:23:48] So we usually give that. Yeah, it just says that you've completed the internship from so-and-so date and so forth.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:53] Yeah. Yeah. It might be something to do where we could do something like are you looking for something like on your LinkedIn or something like that to help feature it.
Intern 10: [00:24:03] Like I am because, because I want to apply for master, like I want to go for for my master's degree. And then they, they ask for a letter of recommendation from your employer, from your internship, like, you know, employers. So that's why I was going to ask like.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:20] I think I think it's something we might be able to do. It's just it's tough because you're not working like day to day with. Yes, it's hard for us to like, speak too much around. Like, did you do good work? Yes, hopefully. But like, I don't know if it's going to be the best source of of an actual rec letter. I mean, we're we're happy to do like a letter of completion, all that stuff. And even maybe something more or less formal on like a LinkedIn to help your your CV look on there. I probably wouldn't use this for a letter rec on a I don't know if you disagree. I think I think it's different if you if you work through the internship and do an amazing job and then we promote like we promote you to a paid position, which we have done and we're promoting to more, I think in the next few weeks. If that happens, I think it's it's a different story because then you're more like in the day to day full time working with us.
Intern 10: [00:25:16] Okay. Yeah, it makes.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:18] Sense. I don't know if that's going to be an option for you, but that's. That's what I would say. Okay. Thank you. What do you want to ask a question? Since I think. You've been waiting.
Intern 11: [00:25:24] Yeah, sure. So mine's more related to the networking side of things. I'm taking a summer course, and the chapter that I just read this past week was on power and politics, and it went through networking. And my question, I guess, is through that chapter, they really emphasize networking more of not just reaching out and trying to build a connection, but reaching out with something to provide. And for a students or someone who really isn't yet in that industry or actively within that industry, what are some tips or maybe ideas on what, say, someone like myself could provide to someone I'm trying to network with?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:23] Yeah, it's hard as a college kid to be providing actual value to people in the field, right? Because typically, typically you think, What can I do? They actually have everything they need. I'm a poor college kid. I can't buy them anything. I can't write. So what I would say is the value you're giving them. Think of it this way. The value you're giving them is them feeling good about themselves by helping you because like what you're going to be giving them is a lot of gratitude and appreciation, I hope, when they do help you. And so, like some people will say, you could send them like a relevant article if it's around their specific deal or their specific groups, or, for example, let's say it's somebody in Mazars restructuring group, for example, and you see that Lazard just retained a big client.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:02] The restructuring group just, you know, suddenly was placed on the XYZ bankruptcy. And, you know, sending a quick note when you see that in the news is a great way to stay top of mind. See that you're reading relevant financial topics and kind of up to date, but then also kind of making them feel good, like, hey, congratulations on this pretty exciting mandate. So that's kind of like it's not giving them a ton of value. I think if you are like super deep into the research of like a specific niche niche area or product group, and you found a really interesting article that you might find relevant. So let's say the person's an investor in SAS educational SAS type SAS technology, education technology type businesses, and you read like an incredible article or you stumble upon it, that's maybe a little bit harder to find. You can potentially see, Hey, you probably have already seen this or maybe you've already seen this, but in case you hadn't, I thought you might find it interesting as well. Something like that would be great.
Intern 11: [00:28:01] Okay, perfect. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:15] Yeah, you're welcome. Um, how about I think. Paul, do you have a quick one since we want to give everybody else a chance to.
Intern 12: [00:28:20] Yeah. Sorry. I was just wondering, since I'm doing, like, next summer, but I'm interested in, I've. Yeah, how should I go about that? Like, should I try to get an off cycle thing, like private equity or banking, or should I just try to get on like a good desk, like something more related, like either like high yield, distressed debt, credit trading. So I'm going to be on the fixed side. Or do you think it would be better just to try to network within the bank and try to lateral through the bank?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:40] You can never get in the bank. My only concern with that is like, are the people in S.A. going to hear about it? Right. It might be better to. Try and get that off cycle I think would be great. It's a much better way to show your interest in banking and not get branded as the SAT person. That's your fear. So it's kind of a it's a delicate balance. I think the fact that you have a relevant interest is good. It shouldn't. Having an internship shouldn't stop you from be able to apply to the full IB ones. It's just it would look better obviously if you have an actual IB when even it's a tiny even if it's at a tiny bank.
Intern 12: [00:29:19] Yeah. I think I'm going to love Santa as well.
Intern 12: [00:29:33] I just want to see as I go into the summer what, what other things I can do, because I know it is a pigeonhole, but it's a good pigeonhole where you could just become a writer. But I'm also interested in other things.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:58] That's fair. I think that's fair. So yeah, I would just try to do what you said. I think off cycle is a great idea. If you can do it or stack stack one next summer with a hobby. Yeah. Sorry. No, go ahead.
Intern 12: [00:30:18] Do you think it's still possible to get off cycle internship at this time?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:24] Her father's cycle, by definition, is unstructured, and it's just about that's really where like putting in the legwork of building a massive network and keeping up to date with that network. Really, that's where it pays off. Because then it's like, are you actually building a. Are there a few really good relationships at some tiny bank where they'll be like, okay, yeah, you can intern with us or like do a couple analyses for me here and there. I'll throw some work at you. And then it's like, it looks good on the resume. It's maybe not a ton of work for you, but it's something that can kind of signal to employers like, Hey, I'm really interested in this. But that takes that's really hard to find because there's a lot of people trying to get that. Cool. Camille.
Intern 2: [00:30:47] Yeah. So I'm I'm in a little bit of a unique situation. Like, I was born in America, so I'm an American citizen. But my whole life since I was like ten years old, I've lived in Canada, right? So I'm based out of Toronto, Canada, and I'm looking to break into the corporate finance investment banking route in America, because I know there's a lot more opportunities in the States compared to here. So my question was more so related to the value. How would I go about transitioning into that field in America? Like is the is the internship and the GPA more important or the type of school you go to or like, do they value schools in Canada? We're not so much like, if you had any advice for me in terms of that aspect,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:10] Yeah, they actually value schools in Canada. I don't know where you go, but like an Ivy or a McGill or there's a couple other Schulich school of business, whatever it is, right? Yeah, I think if you get one of those is a top target. I don't know. Are you at one of those or not?
Intern 2: [00:31:29] Currently not, but I'm looking to pursue my MBA in like Schulich or Rotman, like one of those Ivy leagues.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:49] Yeah. So like, if you're not at one of those, my bigger concern is, is more like you're getting branded as like, making sure it's very obvious on your CV that you're a US citizen.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:12] Oh, right. That's like the number one thing on your whole thing because everything's going to be like Toronto address, like your your resume is going to get thrown out before they even realize you're a citizen, right? So like, you need to somehow, like literally in bold at the top, like us.
Intern 2: [00:32:28] Right. Right. And then potentially even like. I was also considering maybe doing an MBA in the States as well.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:35] I don't like the MBA right after undergrad. That's what you're thinking
Intern 2: [00:32:54] Okay, because you want the experience first, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:01] It's just it's such a good reset, man. It's like it's like in case of emergency, you know, option rather than like. I don't think this is an emergency yet. Right. You haven't even graduated, right? You're not even like so like, I would go to the NBA route, like if you need to rebrand, but if you can break in, you know, elbow your way in and then like, let's say you want like a reset for like to jump to a better bank or something like that. And you're not able to do it for some reason.
Intern 2: [00:33:14] Like, yeah, like I have like banking experience in terms of not in corporate finance, but like financial advising, financial advisor, personal banking advisor, and TD Canada Trust. Yeah, one of the bigger banks here in Canada. But like, I'm trying to break into that like the golden smack, the Goldman Sachs, the JPMorgan, those kind of like big banks, corporate investment banking.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:46] Yeah. Your private management is a million miles away from the banking, right? Yeah, for sure. Just like is one thing. It's a good it's a great career, but it's very different. Right? So I think this internship will help maybe get you some more looks, But your GPA high. Yeah, it's pretty GPA high. So that so it's going to be about like just trying to get into the interview processes. Like we're saying it's super early.
Intern 2: [00:33:53] Yeah, just trying to break. Just trying to like because like, I feel like they don't even, like, look at certain schools.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:59] They're not going to you're not going to get any on campus recruiting or minimal or if they do come to campus, it's going to be for like office or back office positions.
Intern 2: [00:34:19] Right. Just to get into that interview stage, I guess.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:25] Might work. That's the hardest part. And that's it's again it's about like. It's going to be about like making sure you're you're talking to people now. Like what? You're you.
Intern 2: [00:34:32] I'm so I actually transitioned like I was in health science and I switched to Bachelor of Commerce specializing in finance. So I'm technically going into my third year of finance.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:45] 30 year. Yeah. So it's a little late, right? Do you have a do you have an internship? A finance internship? You said you have a private wealth management, right? Was that so? It's going to be tough, man, because, like, they're recruiting full time, right? So, like, at this point, what I would say to you is it's not like, oh, my gosh, life is over.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:09] Yeah, but it's one of those things where it's like it's so crazy competitive and people are so friendly that if you're from a non target, you need to like, have your shit together so early. Yeah, so crazy, like not working like a maniac like freshman and sophomore year, right. Just to have like, just to be in the loop, to know when the interviews are to be like, Hey, can you get me a first round? And they're like, No. Even then, it's hard to get the first round, but like, you're going into year three. With some good GPA, good internship. But like, I think there's other there's there's also other tracks that you should be looking at to get to banking, if that's your goal and there's no harm and like going to transaction advisory services super competitive to get into. Yeah. For that reason because it's, it's a feeder right. And so like I know you want to get to the Goldman Sachs and the. Morgan but the reality is you're not at the school to get you looks and you haven't done it and you haven't done a networking and the groundwork to actually get you the first round interviews where you get the first round interviews, maybe you're better than everybody else, maybe your technicals and your super personable and so your behavioral is are amazing, your technical skills are amazing, your financial body skills are off the charts, but it doesn't matter if you're not even getting looks right for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:26] So I think what I would say is like. Um. Try still apply to all these places, apply to all of those bracket banks. Make sure it's very clear on your CV or your resume. Make sure it's a one page resumé number one. I don't know if you're here. The last couple of weeks we did some resume reviews. One page wasn't me. Yeah, one page. Make sure you use the template or another one of these one page proofing templates. And then from there, literally under your name, I would put bold like US Citizen, because you're going to have your Toronto address up there and that a lot of people could be like, Oh, throw away right away. Yeah. Okay, So do that and then start like, you know, start actually talking with people right now throughout the summer.
Intern 2: [00:37:08] And then in terms of those kind of like just one quick question. I don't want to go too much time, but. So I am aware that I'm late in terms of that process. But is there like that's what I was looking to do, my MBA.
Intern 2: [00:37:21] But I guess it's so competitive that it's like freshmen and sophomores. Like, is it possible to, for example, finish your undergraduate degree, work a few years in certain industry, in the banking industry, receive your MBA and then go into a position like that, or that's that's too late then that's
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:41] What do you mean going to what type of position? Like a bank.
Intern 2: [00:37:47] Like in terms of the corporate banking, like investment banking, internships. If you get it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:00] But the key is like you want to build a good profile such that the MBA program you get into is super is super important to like. If there's a big difference from like the 20th ranked program and the top in the fifth ranked program in terms of how many people place into the top banks. Yeah, it's a massive difference. Like if you're talking about like. Duke, Fuqua, Wharton, Yale, a Cornell, Cornell, Columbia. Like one of these, you're going to get into like a top bank, if that's what you want. But if then you start talking, like at a like some random state school MBA that doesn't have as as going to a feeder like, oh, yeah, we send some kids to Goldman Sachs. Where. Goldman Sachs.
Intern 2: [00:38:40] So in terms of the MBA, what is important is the like is the internship more because MBA is a little bit different than like other graduate programs, like is it the experience that they value more or is it the GPA or is it the combination of both?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:52] Like what are the combination you'll want to hire to offset your non target school? You'll want a high math. So you have a high GPA, which if you get a high degree man on top of that, that's really good. Like a 700 plus minimum, I'd say if you do those two things and then you have and then you show, like if you go from like to then you break into a bank and like, you know, then at that point, if you're using the MBA to like as a brand, like upskill your branding and you write a good essay and you brand yourself. Yeah. So like branding yourself, meaning like you've got as an applicant, you want to be coming in as like a well rounded person, like, Oh, I'm strong, I'm kind of strong in a bunch of areas. You really want to train yourself as like, I'm really passionate about education, technology and my extracurricular activities were all around education technology. My startup on the side is about education, technology. My, my, what's it called? My family has history in education. My, my business or my philanthropy. Work on the side is focused on education, helping education. So like you're so for example, for me, that was how I branded my applications. Yeah, right. For you. You get to find your spike, right, and really lean into that because I think it makes the ad it makes the admissions committee's decision much easier when they know, okay, Camille is this person right? He's our software whatever guru or he's our industrial engineer, like slash combo person, whatever it is.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:19] But you've got to find that and kind of lean into it and then try to build a cohesive story around like how you how you were shaped as younger and kind of growing up with your parents, your family and through this. And so, like, you want to weave this beautiful story of like, oh, and this is why the MBA is perfect.
Intern 2: [00:40:24] So it's kind of like an all aspect kind of thing coming together.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:37] Yeah, it's all coming together. And that's and like a lot of the outcomes, they want to know like, are you really sure about MBA and why is it going to help you? And so that allows you to really actually deliver a really good answer to that. Why MBA and why now?
Intern 2: [00:40:50] Right. Makes sense. Okay. Thanks so much.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:56] Then you end up breaking into a higher program than you thought you could if your application. You know what I mean? So I think. I think that would be helpful. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. It's Barbara and Nora. And go a little bit longer. I'll take a couple more. Dua, Is that how you said Dua or Dua?
Intern 13: [00:41:17] Can you hear me with the headphones on?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:19] I hear you.Great.
Intern 13: [00:41:22] Okay. Amazing. I'm a stowaway, but thank you for trying to pronounce it. Just hopping back to the internship and the layout for it for the courses and the consist of that. Mainly of the references you guys just refer to other or like for the reference aspect, you just refer to other jobs. Or does it include like grad school or like post-secondary or more than post-secondary education?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:49] And when you say references, oh, like you're talking about like when you're writing the articles.
Intern 13: [00:41:57] Yeah. Like if grad school would ask you for references in order to get into a program of theirs, would it be like, would you guys be part of that? Like the reference.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:07] We could do? We'll do like, we'll confirm that you had the internship, We'll do all of that stuff like writing letters of recommendation. I would say only. I would say only if, like you were promoted to like, like a paid role at that point.
Intern 13: [00:42:22] Like what would the references be under then? And there would just be references, like there would just be like on your LinkedIn or connections or something.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:30] Oh, yeah. You can place this internship on your LinkedIn as like a role you had with us. And then you're talking about, like, a recommendation. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, we could do something where people who successfully complete, they'd be like, Hey, do a do great work for us, Something like that. And a bill can help. Kind of just post those to your internship once it's done. Maybe we can add that as a Yeah,
Nabil: [00:42:47] I think. I think Dua was asking about the five recommendations though, right.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:54] Oh the five oh the, your time with the references. Oh okay. With me. So that you would just email. So what you do is you look at like specific connections I have on my LinkedIn. Yeah. You're really directly just tell me like, hey, I'd love to chat with these five people. And then from there I would go and I'd message them and say, Hey, Doaa was a great intern. Intern. She helped helped us write on this stuff, and it'd be great if you could carve out a few minutes. So that helps kind of just get jumpstart your networking so you can get on more calls faster.
Intern 13: [00:43:26] So you get like a direct email for the reference that I choose.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:30] Youtube. Yeah, you look at who I'm connected to, you're like, Hey, this person at this bank and I can give you some advice around. It depends like what you want to break into. And you can ask me like, Hey, did these people make sense? And I'll, I'll let you know or not.
Intern 13: [00:43:42] And the course aspect of the internship, is it like courses that you guys made or is it just courses like.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:52] Oasis Financial modeling courses, Any of the courses you see at the top of the site, you click courses there, it'll bring you to the main course page and it'll show. I think there's around 30 or 40 courses in the library now.
Intern 13: [00:44:04] Oh, that's. Amazing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:04] Yeah. So many of those you can choose as you kind of go through the internship.
Intern 13: [00:44:09] I'm like, What are the portions that you would like? How many hours do you finish in order to unlock those courses?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:14] Yeah, it's 20. I think it's 20 every 25 hours. Correct. Or and, and three articles. Yeah. 25 last three articles. Yeah. Yeah.
Intern 13: [00:44:24] How. Well, well that's a question that I tried looking online, but I think coming from you would be way better to explain how long no one is Wall Street. Oh, so it's like how big is it and how.
Intern 13: [00:44:37] Would.
Intern 13: [00:44:37] It be to put on a resume?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:39] Good question. Wall Street Oasis is extremely well known. I'd say very basically, any investment banker or private equity professional or any really finance professional who ever looked in investment banking has heard of Wall Street Oasis or been on our site. We've had over, I think, over 300 million unique people hit the site since the inception 16 years ago. So the site is the brand is very well known. This internship is more new, so people might be a little bit more curious about this specific internship, the finance research internship. So people might be a little more curious, like, what is that? We have had many interns in the past over the last 16 years. Most of them have said to us, many of those are many of them have come back to us, said the Wall Street Oasis experience was the reason I broke it, or the Wall Street experience was what I spent 90% of my interview talking about. I think it's because people are curious, because people see Wall Street Oasis as this fun community and sometimes a little bit crazy. And trust us, it's a lot of work with the moderation because people are out of control sometimes, but that kind of a little bit edginess makes people curious how it works on the inside. And so oftentimes when people see Wall Street and the resume, they're like, ooh, I want to talk about that, because sometimes they themselves are members or they browse or read the content. So they want to be like, Oh, what's it like on the inside? Or like, did you what type of work did you do? And so I think it's cool because it allows the interview to be a little bit less like regimented. Okay, I'm going to grill you on technicals and more of a conversation about what you did and how you're interested in finance.
Intern 13: [00:46:14] Okay, that's yeah, that sounds pretty cool. Honestly. Just did you start or I know that you did start the company, but did you start investing or just like banking in general and then you added the internship aspect of it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:29] Oh, for the business.
Intern 13: [00:46:30] Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:31] Oh, I started it 16 years ago. It was mostly around investment banking oriented. And in the internship we didn't have internships for years. It took it was a long, slow build for the business.
Intern 13: [00:46:41] So what sparked the internship idea?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:45] Internship was really more We feel like we finally had enough stuff to give back in order to in order to be able to offer something where we could we could get a lot of value from interns helping us with writing and writing good content. And we could give a lot of value back Before we couldn't really offer an unpaid internship and give enough value back. We felt like because we didn't have these courses, but now it was like we have like thousands of dollars worth of courses. We can get these interns, which is super relevant for them. So I was like, We can do this and give a lot of people value and we can we can help get together a large group of really smart people that can help us with our content generation and bring the quality of the content even higher. That was that was the goal.
Intern 13: [00:47:26] Yeah, that sounds yeah. Honestly, based on what you tell me right now, it's it sounds really great. That's like an opportunity for a lot of people. Last question. I don't want to take up a lot of your time, but breaking into finance, the summary of it, like what's the like, how does it easy is it hard for someone that has it like as a general idea to pursue and not really like? Sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:53] Yeah. I think when you're starting out at that range and you're like talking about finance in general terms, it's going to be really hard because you like haven't honed in on exactly what you want. So I think that's like the step one, and I think that's where Wall Street Oasis really shines is like there's so much content that you can sit there for hours and hours or read entertaining, but educational posts as well. So like if you start getting into the conversations, you're like, What does that mean? What does ECM mean? What does DCM mean? What does? You're like, what? What is going on here? Like, it's a different language, but once you start reading those and picking up on it and like tracking down the definitions or just clicking on the links and it brings you to a definition and you start learning about that, you'll start actually understanding the lingo more, and then you'll be like, Oh, I get this. Oh, this is a really good path. This is a not so good path. Oh, look, this path is doesn't pay as much, but it's a better lifestyle. Oh, this does this way. Oh, if you like working with people, this is a better person, if you like working than just pure technical, this is a better way. And so you start really kind of getting that map in your head, right? Such that you can make a better decision for your career. And that's really where the community shines. I think it's like that and it's always been like that.
Intern 13: [00:48:57] So yeah, yeah, that, that basically sums that up.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:03] So yeah, I would take advantage of the free forums as much as you can. And this internships, great. You'll learn a lot doing it and it'll get you access to free courses that will help you as well, and that can help you decide as well.
Intern 13: [00:49:13] Do you put the courses on our resume that we took them or.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:17] I would put, yeah. On top of the Slack group, we show you exactly how to include it on your resume to make it look really good.
Intern 13: [00:49:24] And it would be one page like it wouldn't be more than that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:27] I would keep it to one page. Yes, I would look at the resume template to show show you an example, what it should look like.
Intern 13: [00:49:33] Your last question and advice for like people that are starting in the finance industry at a young age, like talking 18 years old, like I hit 18 like a week ago and I'm starting to have no idea.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:48] The news is you're young and so you have you know, you have time. I would say don't think you have unlimited time and like everything's going to fall together. I think the earlier you can know what you want to do and start honing in on that and networking and meeting people and being confident enough. I like the fact that you're confident have to ask questions like this at that young age. If you can do that on a lot of phone calls with actual industry professionals when you're like 18, 19, 20 and you build up your your network, not just connection requests and then accepting it on LinkedIn, but actually getting on the phone with people and building relationships in the industry, you will undoubtedly get job offers.
Intern 13: [00:50:24] Okay. Yeah, I have.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:26] I think your email I can't I'm so like if you are female there are a lot of female and finance type type of programs that can help you as well.
Intern 13: [00:50:38] So yeah, I mean it doesn't really buy like Yeah, it'll be, it will be like closer for like females to interact with each other better. But for I think that's all the questions that I have, I don't have any more and if I do I you're very easy to reach, which is great.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:58] And I'm here, we're here every Friday, so come join and ask me more questions for sure.
Intern 13: [00:51:02] I'll definitely do that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:03] Thank you. Thanks. Let's end with you, man. I know you've been waiting. You're one of our regulars, so I want to make sure I get to you.
Intern 14: [00:51:16] Yeah. So I was wondering about getting promoted to the paid internship if you have to do something for that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:29] It's more going to be based around just it's mostly Nabil saying recommending you because he's reading your content and it's really good you're highly efficient probably you're you're going well past the minimum that type of stuff.
Intern 14: [00:51:35] And add one more question. So from our colleges, like Jp morgan and Goldman Sachs, picks are called positions. So would it be easier to transition to, let's say, another country from those positions like from India? Or would I get to right there? Is it easier?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:42] So the question is, is it easier to transition to other countries?
Intern 14: [00:52:01] If I start like from Jp morgan in India. So can I get into you?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:08] Yes. It's much easier to transition internally. And Nabil, you can talk to this because I think you've done it or you've looked into it yourself.
Nabil: [00:52:14] Yeah, well, my friends just got into Morgan Stanley and then he moved to New York, like just two weeks ago. I think so. Like, it's definitely possible. Like if you do a good job, they'll. They'll definitely move you to the offices abroad.
Nabil: [00:52:21] So you just have to just join in, do a very good job, and then, you know, you can ask for it. He asked for it, so he got it. Yeah. And then they give you the I don't remember which visa it was. It was the Elvis or the F. I remember. Take care of it for you. Yeah, exactly. Everything's done and dusted, so you can just get it if you get in. Like, that's a good thing. That's the hard part. Once you get in, it's easy to stay there for a couple of years, work hard. And it took him like one one and a half years. I think. Yeah, in total.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:00] Hey, guys. Unfortunately, I got to go. I got screaming babies and kids here, But. But it's time to go to the beach with the kids. But we will all talk. Next Friday, I'll be back on. So thanks, everybody, for joining. Thanks to your questions. And if you have more questions, you can feel free to send them to this lecture. I'll try to get to them late tonight or sometime tomorrow. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. 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. And till next time.
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