WSO Podcast | E102: Goldman LevFin Sales to Oaktree High Yield Trading
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In this episode, Justin shares his impressive path with us. We cover how he was able to break into Goldman Sachs on the high yield trading desk directly out of a non-target university, what his internships were like, how he was able to build relationships and what has changed now that he has moved to the buyside at Oaktree. Listen to hear how his work ethic, interpersonal skills and attitude made all of the difference.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 102) 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 this episode, Justin shares his impressive path with us. We cover how he was able to break into Goldman Sachs on the high yield trading desk directly out of a non target university, what his internships were like, how he was able to build relationships, and what has changed now that he has moved to the buy side at Oak Tree. Listen to hear how his work ethic, interpersonal skills and attitude made all the difference. Enjoy. Justin, thanks so much for joining the Wall Street Oasis podcast.
Justin: [00:00:56] No problem, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): your bio.
Justin: [00:01:02] Yeah, absolutely. So I'm originally from New Jersey, grew up a Jets fan and a Yankees fan. I'm like your head over there and maybe have some difficulty on this podcast. But grew up in Jersey. And then when it came time for college and going down to Virginia, to James Massey University, and when I was down there, I kind of got involved in their student investment fund, which really opened my eyes up to the world of finance and got me to kind of fall in love with investing. So from there, I spent one summer working in wealth management as an intern. Then I spent two summers at Goldman Sachs working on their trading floor in sales and trading, rotating between kind of different groups and different desks. And then I ultimately got hired full time to work for Goldman coming out of school, and I worked in their leveraged finance sales business, which is basically I focus on high yield and distressed debt sales. My job kind of while I was there, is to really focus and cover the largest asset managers in the hedge and largest hedge funds in the world and basically help them execute the trades they wanted to in the marketplace. We can get into more details about that later on. But after spending almost five years at Goldman, I ended up transferring over to the buy side and took a job with one of my clients at the time, Oaktree Capital. So now it Oaktree. I've been here for almost five years as well, and here I focus on trading and I specifically focus on kind of high yield stress and distress markets. So trading bonds within those within those asset classes.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:24] Very exciting time for you guys.
Justin: [00:02:26] Oh, it's been. It's been a heck of a ride the last few weeks.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:29] Yeah. So we're just for context, for people who are listening to this now, It's April 17th today, so there's probably come out early May. But so back to your to your jet fandom before we dive into the thing, were you are you old enough to remember, are you? Are you old enough to remember the butt fumble?
Justin: [00:02:48] I'm old enough to remember a bump fumble. There’s some low points in my life and stuff that I never want to think about again, and most of those happen on Sunday afternoons, unfortunately.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:58] So yeah, it brings me back. I mean, the Patriots now don't have Tom Brady, so it'll be interesting to see what happens in this upcoming season. The Jets, how are the jets looking like?
Justin: [00:03:08] What do you think? Let's just be real. Ok, you guys still have bounce back. You guys are still great. You're going to find a way to win, whether it's through deflating footballs or stalling on practices like the jets are going to finish at the bottom of the division again. I'm pretty sure you just you just expect the worst. And then hopefully if they win a couple of games, you'll be happy at the end of the year.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:28] Yeah, I don't know, is Darnold still the QB?
Justin: [00:03:31] Yeah, Darnold still our guy with that flashy red hair.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:35] Nice. Ok. Well, yes, I don't know that. I don't know that much about. It's funny because we've been spoiled
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:41] For so long as Pats fans. Like, it's almost like I was hoping the Pats would sign Brady just as a thank you and whatever. But I got the feeling that they wouldn't give them like it's just so they're so ruthless, not giving, not giving him like more than a couple of years. You know what I mean to
Justin: [00:03:57] Have a whole podcast going into that conspiracy theory of what's going on there, too?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:01] Yeah, yeah. Maybe, maybe at the end, I'll get your thoughts since we hit. Let's go back to the whole point of the podcast. Talk about your career. Talk about your transition. So let's go back to undergrad before any of this started. Did you were you familiar with kind of. Finance Wall Street in general, before going into undergrad high school, what kind of prompted this whole interest in finance or even sales and trading?
Justin: [00:04:25] So kind of I would even take it a step back going to middle school and high school. I come from a family of medical professionals. My dad was a doctor. His dad was a doctor. My mom's a nurse. And my dad's mom's a nurse. So kind of just grew up thinking that, Hey, I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to help people. I wanted to get into medical field. But as a lot of your listeners are aware, like going through all the schooling that you need to go to through to become a doctor, it's a long time and medicine's changed a lot over recent years. And I just remember talking to my dad one night I had written a scholarship essay, how I wanted to go to Stanford and play baseball and study pre-med. And my dad was like, Listen, I really think you should consider business. I think there's a lot more opportunities there. I think you'll be exposed to a lot more in your life and you'll learn a lot more. So from that point forward, I thought I wanted to get into business. I didn't know what part of business, but what high school or middle school kid does. It's just business.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:21] You'd be surprised at what your choices we're getting more high school kids carry a lot of gunners out there, but yeah, no, I was in the same boat I had. My dad was a cardiologist, and so he was he was saying the same exact thing. He's like, I don't know if you want to go the medicine route, it's getting harder and harder.
Justin: [00:05:35] Yeah. But then ultimately, what ended up happening is when I started looking at schools, my dad and I went up to bentley College in walton, Massachusetts, one weekend, and they have one of the most beautiful trading rooms you've ever seen. And I just remember walking through it with my dad and him being like, this is the stuff you want to do. This is the stuff you want to learn. And no, because I would always see him at home with like CNBC on in the background and like, I just never understood what it meant. And then learning about the Great Depression in history class, you start to learn more about the economy and what really happened with the stock market. So kind of that that whole trip up to bentley really kind of solidified the idea for me that, hey, like this finance is pretty interesting. So I end up
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:17] Going like a senior in high school at that point
Justin: [00:06:19] Or, yeah, basically a senior in high school. So I ended up going to James Madison and tried walking on the baseball team. I ended up getting not making the team getting cut and that next day there was like a student organization night on campus. And so I'm like, Well, I have nothing else to do. Is that the kind of low point in my life to that career? And so I just started walking around this kind of all these different
Like stance to see kind of what student organizations I can get involved with my free time. And there was the Student Investment Fund at JMU. It's called a massive investment fund. There were a couple of guys there, and I just remember my dad saying to me, like, this is the stuff you want to get involved with. So it was the perfect opportunity to get back up on after getting knocked back down and kind of just redeploying and kind of redirecting my passion to something different. And that's kind of
how I got involved world finance.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:11] Were you a good student in high school? Were you like more of the baseball guy who like, you know? No, I was.
Justin: [00:07:19] I take a lot of pride in my work ethic, and basically what I would do every day is obviously go to school in the morning. And then once I was done with practice, call it six seven o'clock in the afternoon, I'd work in my backyard on skills till eight, nine, 10 o'clock at night, sitting out there, working on kind of defensive things, working on hitting, trying really to hone my skills and then basically would start doing my homework at 10 or 11 o'clock at night. But I took a lot of pride in my education, and I did graduate with a very good GPA in high school. I think I was carrying about three, five or three six, so I was able to do both. And in college I was able to carry a carry both work and do well too.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:01] Very cool. So you're at any, any reason you went there, any thought process in terms of like, you know, because obviously it's not like a super target school or anything like that. Did you know anything about that stuff? Obviously, your dad's medicine, so. Probably not. Yeah.
Justin: [00:08:17] So it's funny story. So when I was putting my list together, schools that I wanted to apply to my junior year in high school and kind of go visit that summer. And then the next year with my dad, I put together a list for my dad and it was a list of every school that played in the college World Series that year. And so I took that list to my dad and he said, where did you come up with these schools? Because it was like Stanford, USC, U.V. or UC Irvine, right? Rice University, like all these different schools and my dad's just like, how did you come up with these? And like, well, like dad, they're all playing in the college World Series. They're like top notch baseball programs around the country. This is what I want to do. I want to play baseball. And he's like Justin. I want you to focus on your schoolwork and baseball second. Go back upstairs. Go take that Princeton Review book that I bought for you. That was seventy five or one hundred dollars or whatever it was and actually read it and see where you can go and get a good education in business and maybe play baseball at the same time if things work out. So I kind of went back and kind of revisited my list. I end up applying to a bunch of different
schools and ironically, jamiu was my safety school. I only put it on my list because one of my really good friends was there. She's two years older than me, and she just spoke so highly of it, and I saw that they had a top ranked baseball program in the CAA. And then I also saw that their business program was ranked one of the top twenty five in the country. So I was like, All right, well, this is perfect. And when I looked at the SAT scores and I looked at the GPA stuff like this is perfect. I qualify. Like it should be fine. Yeah. And it turned out Jamie was the only school I got into of the eight schools I applied to. So I went to go see all these other schools and ended up just going to JMU on a whim. I never saw campus before my first day. I guess they invite you there for orientation, but until orientation, I never really saw campus right and ended up being the best four years of my life. I met the best kind of my best friends. I met some of my greatest mentors, greatest friends and some of the best professors I've ever had while I was there.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:15] Awesome. So it sounds like you ended up at the right place.
Justin: [00:10:18] It all worked out.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:20] It's awesome. So you see, you're kind of going through. You kind of already have an idea of you want to do something in business that's super broad, right? So you don't own my own business going to Wall Street? Did you know, when did you kind of start getting an idea of what that meant in terms of like, OK, this is investment banking. This is private equity. This is. When did that start coming?
Justin: [00:10:39] Well, I think it's worth pointing out, too, that I was a freshman in 2007. And if a lot of your listeners remember, we had one of the greatest financial recessions of all time two thousand eight two thousand nine. So I came into Jamie's majoring in finance and I'm like, OK, this is what I want to learn about investing. And then I saw all this stuff unfolding in two thousand seven when I got to campus and I'm like, It's probably a good time to study economics, too. So I took down a double major in econ and finance just so I can understand what was going on in the world around me. And then by getting involved with the Student Investment Fund I, I befriended a lot of upperclassmen and just looked at them for guidance because I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where I should be focusing my career efforts. So I befriended two guys, one by the name of Cormann's and one guy named Matt Russell, who to this day, like I call him my big brothers. I just I really appreciate a lot of those guys, and they guided me and they kind of taught me about what the world of finance was all about and a lot of what they learned was from your block and from other blocks and basically saying, like, Listen, this is what investment banking is. This is what sales are. Trading is this is what wealth management is. And so I talk through those things. I talk those things through with them and then ultimately figured out, you know, I've been an athlete my whole life and I've always had that competitive edge. And I don't think there's any place in the professional world more competitive than a trading floor. And that's where I was like, OK, I want to focus my efforts into getting on to Wall Street and getting on a trading floor.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:10] Very cool. So, OK, you kind of knew this my sophomore year, almost like you had a pretty good foundation. It sounds like a pretty good understanding. And did you go the traditional route of like freshman summer? You're doing a private wealth management internship. Was that like you started getting that on your own?
Justin: [00:12:24] So what Matt and Kurt told me is like, Listen, you got to get in early. He's like, they were just like, just start applying, just start applying anywhere and see what you can get. And two thousand seven things started to get a little bit shaky. And in two thousand eight is when things really started to fall apart and I was applying for internships, you know, all over the place in two thousand eight as a freshman. And, you know, no firms are really looking to take on interns at that point in time. So I end up getting an internship with a wealth management firm that was about 20 minutes away from my house via my baseball coach. And he was like, hey, like, I know you don't have a job this summer. Like, I know this guy whose son you used to coach at baseball camp, who does a lot of business with this wealth management firm like you should go and try to see if you can get an interview there. And so they line up an interview for me and it worked out great and I had a great experience there. I learned a lot about how the markets worked, how the markets functioned.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:19] You went through a lot of like cold calling for them. Or were you doing a lot like database management work? What were you
Justin: [00:13:24] Doing? I was basically helping them manage their client portfolios and doing a lot of due diligence. And you know, a lot of these guys spend a lot of time doing fund manager due diligence. So I would be on the phone with different portfolio managers asking questions about how their positioning as the world's unfolding and blowing and blowing up in oil prices were soaring, what their views were in oil. So I spent a lot of time doing that. But is that
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:50] You have the confidence, do you like, right? As like a freshman summer? Like, did you do that? Why do they, what do you think made them confident enough to let you even talk to fund manager? Stuff, because it wasn't business that they had and they were just diligence or what.
Justin: [00:14:03] It's just, you know what, like, I think it was one that they just needed help and they wanted they wanted somebody who can help. And two of I really took a liking to this stuff. I really started to fall in love with it. Like I mentioned earlier, that baseball was my one true love in this world. And when that got kind of taken away from me, I just redirected my efforts to something different. And the world of finance and investing became that. And I just took it upon myself to learn a lot and ask a lot of questions. And I would go into these student investment fund meetings every week with a blank piece of paper and a pen and would literally write down everything I didn't know and would go home and research it at night or read The Wall Street Journal and highlight words that I didn't know and go and research it. Just keep asking more and more questions.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:45] Yeah, that's awesome. So I'm sure you got up the curve pretty fast. It sounds like.
Justin: [00:14:50] Yeah, it was fun. I mean, there's still a lot, I don't know, but it was good to be kind of ahead of my class at the time if I really wanted to break into Wall Street as a sophomore and my sophomore summer, like, I really didn't need to show people that I can compete at the highest level, especially coming from a non target school like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:07] Especially coming in twenty eight thousand nine. The worst possible time to be looking for an internship? Yeah. So, yeah, if anybody thinks they have it bad, imagine coming from a non target school during the great financial crisis. So if you're feeling sorry for yourself right now, yes, it's hard, but it can be done. So OK, so tell me, how did you? So Goldman of all places, what did you do to kind of start chatting with people? Was it alums? How did you kind of get an angle in there?
Justin: [00:15:32] So my angle into Goldman was that they first off like that whole summer, right? Just going into it was sending out as many resumes as you could and just networking like crazy and just casting a really, really wide net. And one of the most beautiful thing about JMU is our alumni network really cares about the students, and we they really do a lot to give back. And I just would get a lot of time on the calendar with people for coffees or just a quick call to just understand what their job was and understand what they would do if they were in my shoes and just kind of what they did. You know, and I remember talking to one alum who was like, I just showed up at the door at Deutsche Bank and I'm like, Here's why you should hire me. Well, I don't really know if I could do that, but you know, I did. I did spend a lot of time getting to meet as many people as I could if they were on campus or if I got their email address or if I got their phone number, you know, cold call and cold emailing. That's what you had to do because the responses I'd be getting back from people were, hey, listen, I really appreciate your hustle, but we don't know if the firm is going to be in business tomorrow, right? That's what people are really worried about. Yeah. And then the way Goldman came about was, I remember my freshman year, so backtracking a year they were down on campus. Three alums were down on campus just doing a presentation of what Wall Street was because they were just good guys that they want to come back and help. They were two managing directors and there was an analyst. And the room was filled. There's probably one hundred and fifty people in this room meant for 20. And I'm sitting on the floor in the back of the room, literally sitting on the floor, writing down every word that they're saying because I know what this stuff meant. And once the presentation was done, everyone in the room, all hundred and forty nine other people in the room rushed to go talk to the two attendees, and I was the only guy who wants to go talk to the analyst. The only one I was the only one to go talk to the analyst because everyone wanted to go show their resume to the MD.I was like, Well, I know I'm probably not going to be their first choice. So why spend time talking to the MD when I can make relationship with the analyst? And so the guy was great guy named Steve Porter. We're still really close friends and I always tell this story to people when we meet. But yeah, so I talked to Steve and I and I just kind of built a rapport, a relationship up with him. And that sophomore summer, I had heard that Goldman had a sophomore kind of spring break program that they were doing right. And so I'd reached out to Steve and I said, Hey, Steve, like would love to see if I can qualify for this and throw my resume, and he's like, All right, give me a couple of days. Let me see what I can find out. And Steve Altman came back to me two days later. He's like, here's this girl's name. Taylor, reach out to her. She's expecting your call. And so I think Taylor was just under the impression that I was just calling to learn about the program. And I was like, No, I'm treating this as an interview, and I prepared. I had my A-game on ready to go, and I treat it like it was a phone interview. And next thing you know, I get an email a couple of days later, Hey, Justin, like, we don't want to put you in the spring break program. We want to we want to accelerate you the final round of interviews for the summer internship program.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:32] And why do you think that? So tell me about that, because that's that seems to be. Like what you did, there seems like a low like, very hard to do. Yes, there are a couple. It sounds like very critical points that got you to that everyone's building. The key part was building that relationship with the analysts because then it's clear that he vouched for you to this person who is running this program. I mean, from my perspective, from what you just told me, do you think that was the most important? Do you think the prep of the interview and impressing her was more important? Do you feel like they both played a part and then tell me about exactly what was that interview like?
Justin: [00:19:09] Yeah, I think I think it was both parts, right? I think I think impressing Steve and letting him know Steve was the analyst and pressing Stephen, just showing him kind of what type of person I am showing him the grit and the hustle, and the kind of just the networking skills that I have in the communication skills. I think that was played a huge part in it. But then just impressing the ET, the woman from Air Taylor at the time and just showing her that, listen, I'm prepared. Like I came to play, like I'm ready to go and I didn't. I didn't fool around. And you know, you ask her some preliminary questions about the program. But then like I showed that I had an understanding of Goldman. I had understanding the different divisions and ask deep questions about the divisions. And then I would I would, you know, as she was talking, I would insert kind of some lines about how I was a hard worker. I was a hustler. Like, I'd run through a brick wall. I would love this opportunity. I could learn quickly. I'm coachable, right? Like somebody who's very determined and persevere in like Brazilian, like just learning how to insert those key words into the conversation so that she can see that I'm not just some average random student who was picking up the phone and calling like I was prepared. I was put together,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:15] You're like, I'm ready to work one hundred and twenty hour weeks. I don't care. Just give it.
Justin: [00:20:18] I'm ready. I'm ready to come into the office this afternoon
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:20] And sleep all
Justin: [00:20:21] Day on like I'm ready to go. And that's just how I treated it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:25] Yeah, interesting. So you feel like talk to me a little about that, that conversation with the analyst? Well, everyone's huddled around the MDS was he kind of surprised that you were coming over to talk to him? Was. How did you kind of initially you obviously introduce yourself and then maybe thanked him for coming out, but what was kind of how did you how did you make him feel comfortable? How do you show that you had good communication skills and develop that rapport? So it was possible like a super formal thing and more like the conversation?
Justin: [00:20:55] I literally went up to him. I said, Hey, Steve, my name is Justin Qualia. I'm a freshman. I'm the only person in this room who's probably not trying to get hired right now. I just want to make sure, like I'm learning and meeting people like I want to make sure my resume looks good. I've been really impressed by what you had to say, like, thank you for coming down. He was also part of the Student Investment Fund, so I just said, Hey, I'm part of the student as well. And I'm like, you know, all these guys are trying to fight for your time to get a job like, I would love to just pick your brain one day when you have 30 minutes to actually talk and really just learn more about what you would do if you were in my shoes. I wasn't aggressive. I was just like, Listen, like when it fits your schedule, like we'd love to talk more. And I think he was really taken aback by that. I was like, OK, wow, this guy actually has interpersonal skills and is a human, and he sees that people around me are kind of just there, like they see prey on the ground. They're going to go chase it down, right? Whereas I was like, Listen, I know that maybe I'm not the prime candidate right now, but I'm not going to waste this opportunity to get to meet somebody.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:53] Right? Ok, that sounds fair. I mean, yeah, I think it's almost like you're demonstrating a little bit of restraint. Yeah, you're able to demonstrate that restraint and understand the situation enough to kind of almost in a way, subtly, subtly jab at.
Justin: [00:22:08] Oh yeah, I'm just going to say it's like it's like life, right? Or like a relationship like you have to know when to push and when you when you can pull back.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:15] Yeah, for sure. So you're OK. So you're kind of coming through here. You get accelerated to you basically get an internship offer or the interview. You get to find out the offer. Tell me how stressed you were about that.
Justin: [00:22:32] I basically so the interview was two weeks after that. I stopped everything that I was doing for two weeks. And other than going to my classes every single night when I got home, I sat in the study hall, my dorm and I just and I just learned everything I could about Goldman, everything I could about the markets. I read the vault guide, I read any interview guide I could. I did mock interviews with people. I would go and basically stare at myself in the mirror and practice interview tactics so I could see kind of what body things I was doing with my body to fix that. Yeah, my body language. But then basically just spent a lot of time talking to Kurt and Matt and the other upperclassmen and my professors. Just how do you prepare? How do you prepare? And I reached out to a lot of alumni, and again, I throw it back in our alumni. I think the most amazing people and when I would reach out to these guys and say, Guys, I have an interview at Goldman, they would do anything they could to help me, anything they could. And I really appreciated all that and would not be anywhere I am today without them. But those two weeks period, like all I did, was just study, read and just follow the markets and just ask questions of people. At the end of the day, you only know what you know. I'm not going to be like a senior level finance major going into as a sophomore, but if I can show that I understood the history of the company, understood the different departments of the company divisions of the company. It shows that I prepared and I think a lot of people just want to know that you prepared for the actual interview. Right.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:57] So tell me a little bit about kind of, was it in person live 20 minutes, half hour, one hour and tell me, like, what was the format and specifically how they what they grilled you on?
Justin: [00:24:07] So I literally had the most non-traditional interview of anyone I've ever heard at Goldman. I mean, I think Goldman, everyone is. Everyone knows you. You have Super Day after Super Day interview like you may had 15 interviews in one day.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:22] I literally remember going through a similar thing with Goldman. It was like nonstop two on one. It was like brutal.
Justin: [00:24:28] And you're going to hate me when I tell you this. But I literally had two interviews, both with two women from HR. And I just remember one of the people telling me that you want to make your interview a conversation and you want to show that you can build a relationship with the interviewer and you just want to talk like you're a normal person. And so the first woman that interviewed me, her name's blanking on her name, dammit. I'm fine for forgetting it. But she was the she was the recruiter for Duke, and I'm a huge Duke basketball fan. I know that a lot of people are going to hate me for that, but I'm a huge duke
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:04] Like I'm a Patriots fan. That's OK.
Justin: [00:25:08] And so as soon as she said that she was, she was a recruiter for like, Oh my god, you go to Duke. She's like, Yeah, like, I'm a huge Duke basketball fan. Did you watch the game? And we just start talking about Duke basketball? And next thing you know, the interview was scheduled for 30 minutes. We're twenty five minutes. In the interview, she looks down on her watch and she goes, Oh my God, like, we've been talking about Duke for 20 minutes or twenty five minutes. Like, I haven't asked you any questions. Do you have any questions for me? And so that was very unorthodox, but it just shows that I have interpersonal skills. And I think as you're looking to get into sales and trading, they want to see that you have interpersonal skills.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:43] Yeah. The key for sales and trading, right? I mean, I think absolutely it's all about clients. It's all about like interactions. It's if you don't have those interpersonal skills, if you can't shoot the shit, you're in trouble.
Justin: [00:25:54] Yeah, OK. They want to see that you can connect and they want to see that you can sit next to somebody for 12 hours a day.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:00] Right. Ok, so you have kind of that not unorthodox will call it the Duke interview to kill me when she said, Do you have any questions for me? Did you ask her anything specific? Did you kind of were you like, No, we're good.
Justin: [00:26:12] I mean, yeah, this is always a great question, because like even when people ask me, what should I be asking in an interview, I think the way I think about is if you have some logistical questions, sure, get that kind of get that ass right away. Like when do I expect to hear back? Just ask one question in regard to that. But don't spend all your I wouldn't let that be your first question. I will let that be your last question because you can always ask that as you're walking out the door. I would say your first question should reference something that the interviewer brought up, right? Or referenced their experience with inside the culture of the firm that they brought up. But show that you were listening and you were paying attention to what they were saying, right? And then I think the second
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:55] Person to say this is that's super critical because so many kids come in with a set certain questions they know they're going to ask. And sometimes it's so blatantly obvious that they had their set questions and there was easily a relatable segment of what the person just told you about that you could have either easily drawn in and slightly changed your question to make it more applicable to what that person has just told you. Absolutely. And like, link it all together and make it more like a conversation and make it make yourself more personable. It's just very subtle. Little things like that make a huge difference in terms of the impressions. Ok, sorry. Continue. Yeah.
Justin: [00:27:30] No. And just to add to that point, I think a lot of times when students are preparing for interviews or young professionals or preparing for interviews, they try to memorize responses. They try to just literally memorize it like it's a piece of paper in front of them. I think that's the worst thing to do, right? I think you should know yourself well enough and prepare yourself well enough to know what points of your life you would reference for. Certain questions, but you don't want to sound like you're a record. You don't want to sound like you're a broken record to just repeating the same thing. But because then what will end up happening is you're going to forget something because you're going to be stressed out, you're going to be sweating, you're going to be nervous, and then you're going to forget something and then you're just going to trip and fall over yourself and then you're just going to get all out of whack, right? So don't try to sit there and memorize anything. But to get back to your question, I think if you then have time for a second question, I think the second question should be something a little bit more thoughtful. And what I would encourage everyone to do is if you know you're going to have an interview with somebody, if it's an investment bank or private from anywhere, try to figure out who you're going to interview with and then do some research on that person and show them that you put in the work to learn a little bit more about them and then ask them something specific to them. I think that's another important thing to do because again, it just shows that you prepared. And I think people, I think people would much rather hire somebody that they know has done the work who's ready to play right and is shown that they care versus somebody who kind of is just like, OK, so one, should I expect to hear back
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:58] Or what do you like about the culture here or tell me about like just the standard kind of boring, you know? Uh, kind of questions sometimes you hear out of the out of some of these courses and guides and stuff, but. Ok, so you seem to have had a really great connection with this person. So you had a second interview that day? Yeah. Another that one was a
Justin: [00:29:23] Little more behavioural, kind of the typical behavioural questions. Walk me through your resume. Tell me about the time you worked in a team. What's your biggest weakness? That dreaded question and just what?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:34] There is weakness.
Justin: [00:29:38] I don't know if I could share that one.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:39] I need on it. Ok.
Justin: [00:29:41] I think I want to share that one. I got to keep that in the back pocket again.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:45] Ok, do you feel like what I typically tell people is like, it's typically you want to give you want to give a weakness that is not like not will is critical for the job. Maybe it's maybe if it's
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:58] A job that's like public speaking, you don't want to say public speaking is your weakness that you know, but always talk about how you're working on it and in trying to improve. So like technical ability or financial modeling, you can say how you've been. You feel like you're pretty weak in financial modeling. However, you've been taking these courses to try and improve. You've already put in the hours and but you still feel like there's a lot to learn there, especially trying to get reps in the real world. It's very different than just to show some. Some.
Justin:: [00:30:24] Absolutely. I think you said it better than I could. I would just say, try to be as humble as you can, right? Don't I don't have any weaknesses. I'm perfect. I know like everyone's human everyone, everyone struggles with some things, and I think it's perfectly fine to do to those things. And like you said, you don't want to show something that they're going to be like, All right, red flag. But you do want to show that you know what? You're humble enough to acknowledge the fact that you do have a weakness and you're working to fix that. So absolutely agree with you there.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:50] Yeah, you don't be like, I have trouble being on time to meetings or I have trouble like waking up in the morning or like, you know, stuff like that. But I think things around like skills based weaknesses that you can show that you're working towards, even if it's, let's say it's an analytical job. I think saying public speaking is a great one because a lot of people hate public speaking. If you're in a sales job, I probably wouldn't give that as your weakness. Yeah. But if you're like, if you're going like, let's say, to a coding job or a job, a financial trading algorithmic job or some other data scientists, I think saying that as a weakness is a great one because they're going to, well, OK, we don't need you to do that. That's fine, you know?
Justin: [00:31:28] But anyways, yeah, OK.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:29] So you have more behavioural oriented interview. Why do you think with this on campus? It was this like
Justin: [00:31:36] This was in New York at one of their offices?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:38] So do they fly you in for that?
Justin: [00:31:41] Yeah, they I ended up taking a train, but yeah, yeah, I took a train up. This is a great story. The train got delayed and delayed and delayed and delayed, and I basically didn't get on the train until I didn't get off the train until basically two hours before my interview started. So my poor dad picks me up in New Jersey at the train station and then gets me to the Newark train station so I can hop on the path train to get into the city. For my interview, I cut it pretty close and I left it like ten o'clock in the morning, the day before the actual interview. It was unbelievable.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:15] Oh my gosh, so you got there. What? Like, 20 minutes before something crazy?
Justin: [00:32:19] Like I got there about an hour before, but I'm always somebody over prepares, you know, and with respect to your to your, your, your coach, Bill Belichick, like as a Jeff fan, the one thing I do respect about the guy is he is so keen on preparation, and I think that's how he's built a lot of success. It's just trying to think through all different types of situations, like what could go wrong, right? Or What would I do if something else something else presents itself? Or how would I play this situation? And that's why I left ten o'clock the day before because I knew like, OK, I'm going to leave 10 o'clock in the morning. God forbid the train gets cancelled. I could still get in the car and drive right or something like that. But yeah,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:55] So I got delayed, sure enough, and got delayed. But you still made it.
Justin: [00:33:00] I got there an hour early and literally for the hour before my kind of my process when it comes to interviews and big meetings is I like to get where I need to be like, I would say an hour to forty five minutes before and then for like a half hour. I try to just review my notes, think about what I'm going to say, what I'm going to do if I'm going to meet a client or something like that, do my homework on the client for Thurman. So I, I sound prepared. I sound ready to go. And then for 10 to 15 minutes before I'm supposed to be there, I kind of just clear my head for a little bit. I put everything away, take a couple deep breaths, walk around for a little and just, you know, I don't try to get all worked up. I just try to get comfortable, get in my zone and be who I am. And then always, always, always. I always show up 15 minutes and check in with security 15 minutes for. I need to be there to show that I can be on time.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:47] Yeah, perfect. Ok, so you're you do make it on time. You have the second interview. And then is it immediate offer right there on the spot? Like, do they have the authority to give you a summer internship offer?
Justin: [00:33:57] So it wasn't right on the spot, but it was weird. Like, I was obviously super scared going into this. I didn't really know what was going to happen. Like what Jay MUC is going to get an internship at Goldman Sachs. I didn't think it was going to happen, but I. Had a good ceiling come out like, wow, that actually went really well, and that that afternoon I ended up going back to my parents house in New Jersey, spent the night there before going back to school, and they did give me a phone call and I saw my two one two number come up on my phone and they called and they said, we'd love to extend you an offer for our summer internship program. Wow.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:28] And so. Do you feel like that is that is how typically like a non target, how it would happen, where you kind of get an end with an alarm? They push you to air and then you're kind of given this kind of off cycle. I call it off cycle Super Day for I know there's sometimes have now super dates for like the target schools and once per day for all the non targets, kind of on a separate day. Yeah. Is there a reason you think you are kind of. Given this kind of side, almost a side, it's not even really a super day for you, just met with two people. So why do you think it was different for you? Was it just timing for me?
Justin: [00:35:04] I think one, you've got to attribute it to luck and hard work, right? I spent two years kind of working on that relationship with Steve and preparing for that debt kind of phone call I had with the woman in HR, right? So the luck opportunity, that hard work kind of all presented itself, but to what you were saying. I think, yes, a lot of these guys love to recruit from the target schools because they know the quality of the education, the students getting there. So it just makes it. It makes it more realistic that the candidate's going to work out versus non target schools. You just you don't know as much about what type of student you're going to get, and there's just more risk to hiring somebody from there. Not that they're a bad student or not a smart student or anything like that. You just don't know the quality of the program a lot of times, right? But to your point, a lot of a lot of the banks now have carved out. I don't know if they carved out by percentages or headcount or whatnot, but they do have part of the internship pool that they do want to be non-target schools. Now the thing that has changed since I was at Goldman a while ago, we're in two point twenty 20. This is like twenty two thousand eight. You know, I think a lot of these programs now, they do virtual interviews and stuff like that so they can interview more people and give more opportunity to more people. So I think it is starting to become a little bit more of a level playing field, especially now is more of the Ivy League school. Kids take the kind of startup route or going to work in tech and stuff like that. I think there is still opportunity for somebody from a non target school to get the get the job that they want, for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:35] Yeah, it's definitely there's more information out there, more courses like our course that will help kind of get kids up to speed earlier from if they don't have that strong career services or materials or resources to help guide them. Yeah. So you kind of got this internship where you're jumping off the wall. What was the where you just like or what was what was going on?
Justin: [00:36:58] I was super excited. I was thrilled.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:02] I was just excited. Your dad said he was.
Justin: [00:37:04] He was pumped for me. He was really pumped. But the funny part about all this is I was still going to commute from my parents house to New York every day in Jersey. And like, I just I didn't really know how much like they told you how much you were going to make, but I just didn't think that would go very far in New York, and I knew I needed money for school the following semester. So like, I was like, All right, I'm just going to commute from New Jersey every day.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:26] How long does that to get into the office?
Justin: [00:37:28] It was an hour or 15 minutes or so. And I was I was getting up at 3:30 in the morning every day, and I was the first person on the trading floor every day, literally turning the lights on the trading floor every day because I'm like, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I'm not going to let it pass me by. You know, you started to see some of the old schools, traders and salespeople get in super early and you develop a relationship with these guys and maybe they don't spend too much time with you, but they, you know, they're like, Oh, you're that kid. And I was that kid. I was that kid that got an early was the first one there. But the funny part was that your question about my dad, I didn't know how to tie a tie. And so every day when I got home from work, my dad like I would go to bed as quickly as I could because I was obviously waking up super early. I would always leave a tie on my dad's or my parents bedroom door handle. And every morning, when I would wake up, it would be tied for me to just like, slip over my head. It's funny because my dad would do it for me.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:24] That's hilarious. That's hilarious. I love it. So you are. You're going in. This was your sophomore summer, correct? Sophomore summer? Yeah. So tell me how that went. What was it like? So you're getting in there super early, then? Yeah, you're kind of developing a mini relationships with these people. They're just like, Oh, they kind of just acknowledge you, OK, this is the intern. Was it very much like a hazing culture like you typically hear on the trading desk or they're like, Go get us coffee every day? Or, I mean, there is that, I'm sure like, get us coffee. But what about the like, what about the mentorship that went on during the summer?
Justin: [00:38:55] Yeah, that yeah, it's a whole lot of mentorship, right? And like I can, I can only speak to Goldman because that's where I intern, that they really do care about these people and they just view it as like, OK, I want to start investing in you now, and I don't want to waste my time. And especially if you're a sophomore, I really want to invest in you because I want to see you succeed. I want to see you come back and I want to see you actually have a good career. And the people that I worked with that I stuck the closest to were people that were trying to train me to be just as good or better as they were, right, because they wanted me to be able to come in and help them do their job, be able to come in and take over their job. Well, they went away on vacation with their family or took their kids to see schools or one on one away for the holidays or whatever it was. But yeah, you got in early. Go ahead.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:45] All right. So you entered in sales, sales and trading. Was it just called the same desk or whatever and like, so can you give the listeners a little bit of perspective, like how that's like an investment banking? Thinking internship. Yeah, so
Justin: [00:39:57] So I guess the way both programs work is, they're normally 10 week programs. The first week or to two weeks is probably like a more formal training program to kind of just teach you some skills, teach you about the business, depending on your banking or sales and training. I think banking may actually be two weeks, whereas for us it was only one week and then we did three week rotations amongst different desks. So my first summer, my three rotations were securities lending, where they do all kind of control the short selling in the marketplace. Then I did municipal bond trading and I did equity derivative sales. My second summer, I did leverage loan sales, high yield sales and then I did sales again because I thought maybe I would want to go into the derivatives business. But yeah, so you spent three weeks rotating on desks. And basically what I did every day is I sat on a stool. I literally sat on the stool every single day just to listen to what different people said. And oh, could you pause for one second? Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, so I basically spent my summers sitting on a stool and, you know, sitting on a stool and learning as much as I could from people just listening to what they said, listening to words that came up, listening to how they handled situations. I'd hop on the phone and they trained us. You have two phones or you have a phone in a headset, so they'd be on the headset, they'd give me the phone. And so your job is to try to create value. Right? How do you be value added in your seat? So, you know, there's certain times a day where you kind of just back off and
leave people alone, but there's other times a day where you're trying to just ask a lot of questions and learn a lot. And there's certain times of day where you're just sitting there and listening. And I'll never forget when I was on the desk, I was sitting with this guy by the name of Paul Parisi, Paul's Old School Old School sales guy. And I just remember just sitting on the phone for hours on. It literally would just sit there listening for hours because he'd never put down the phone. He's always talking to people. And then when there was a gap to ask him a question, I just I just start firing them off. Why do you say this? What does this mean? How come he's looking at that bond and not this one, right? And just start firing off questions? But then there are other times where, you know, I just
listen to what they were saying, and maybe a question would come up in the conversation and either the salesperson, the trader didn't know the answer. So I was like, This is my opportunity. So I put down the phone I'd run. I'd go get the answer, and I come back and I tell them what the answer was to show that I was actively listening, not just sitting there, sitting like this with, you know, like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:31] Falling asleep. Yeah. So how did you getting up so early at three a.m.? How did you stay alert on all these phone calls? And listen, were you like chugging coffee all day?
Justin: [00:42:40] So and to this day, now I get kind of the last few weeks I've been getting up at three am with all the volatility of market, but I don't drink coffee. I'm not a regular coffee drinker. I don't drink energy drinks. I have an iced tea with one of the guys here every day. But other than that, I'm not. I'm not big on caffeine. But the first summer it was pure adrenaline. It was 10 weeks of adrenaline. And yeah, sure, on the weekends you sleep in a little bit and you'd be exhausted. And as soon as you got home at night, you'd be exhausted. But I just took it as this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I was not going to let it pass me by. I wasn't going to take a single day for granted while I was there. I wanted to meet as many people as I possibly could, as much as I possibly could. And I say that loosely by literally meant that,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:26] You know, I believe you. I mean, I think it sounds you're getting up at three, what, three, 30 a.m. You said you're getting up? Yeah, three, thirty. And then what time? What time would you get home?
Justin: [00:43:34] On average, there were days where, you know, first off, I would say they're very understanding like, well, first off, I would say they're very good about putting together a networking events for you at night so that maybe one night you're meeting traders from the commodities business. One night you're meeting sales people from the fixed income business. One night you're meeting bankers to see if you have an interest in doing banking. So there's always like a networking event to go to. So maybe call it maybe two to three days a week. You had a networking event that started at six, that ended at eight, and then I would just get on the next train and go from there. But if you had to work
Patrick (CEO of WSO): 00:44:08] Sometimes at like ten o'clock at night and then four hours later.
Justin: [00:44:11] Yeah, I think the latest I pulled was twelve. Thirty one night, the the head of the muni trading desk was in the office literally to to 12:30 at night and I just sat there with them. He must have come over ten times saying, Go home, I'm like, No, I'm going to stay here until you go. And unless you can, you may need something. So I just stay there and I stay there and I stay there, kept on coming over. Literally, he's like, All right, I'm going home. And we walked out together twelve thirty at night and I got home. I think probably 2:30 in the morning and I got up at three thirty and like, nothing ever happened and did it all over again.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:44] And you didn't have coffee the next day you went on one hour sleep.
Justin: [00:44:47] I don't know. I just thought, I don't want to develop the habit. Oh, it's good.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:51] The caffeine. I trust me. I have a headache. If I don't go with it now, yeah, it is. Wow. I mean, just super, super motivated. You just had a great work ethic, it sounds like. So you you're kind of you're absorbing a ton of information, do you feel like? It was recognized like when you were doing those little things, when you're going like when you refuse to leave, when you all those little things, you think you are making good impressions. Is that why they invited you back for your junior year and then why?
Justin: [00:45:19] Absolutely full time offer? Yeah, because like you also learn that I would go up and talk to these people and similar to the situation with the analysts from Goldman when I was at college. I'd go up to these people. I'm like, Listen, if you don't have time and again, I'm not here trying to get a job. I just want to get smarter and I want to learn. And it just shows that you're humble and you're human, and I think they appreciate that. But at the end of the day, I think my work ethic is the thing I take most pride in and I will. And I mean this nobody will ever work harder than me, and I take a lot of pride in that and I will stick up to that and I will run faster than you. I will work harder than you. I'll jump off whatever building I need to. So I just took a lot of pride, and then they saw that they said, All right, here's a kid who's a hustler who's got a lot of grit, who's got a lot of resilience and he's got good instincts like, this is the kid we want to bring back. And that's where my feedback was. And you know, they called me a week after the internship and it is like it was the same girl who I had the woman from HR who I had that phone call with that I impressed and she said, Justin, listen, you press all of us. This is a no brainer, but we love for you to come back.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:21] And now it's your junior year internship
Justin: [00:46:23] That was from my junior year and it was the same thing. Well, the best part about was you went back to campus and you didn't need to fight to get another job. But you know, you just you came in and then the junior summer with that same attitude, that same reputation. But now you're miles ahead of everyone else because you already have relationships. So now you can follow up with people. You can tell people, Hey, I'm coming back like, we'd love to spend some more time with you. And then as you develop more and more relationships and you build on your network, you know, at the end of my sophomore program, maybe there's only 10 people that were vouching for me at the end of my junior program. There's 20, 30, 40 people that are like, This is a guy we got to hire. This is a guy we got to hire.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:01] And so I get the hard work ethic. But how do you personally like even know where you're going in all this mess? You're barely sleeping, you're working crazy hours, you're absorbing a ton of information. You're looking at like all these different desks trying to make rhyme or reason, like, what are they actually doing? What are you going to derivative? What is it? You're still learning this stuff in school and you're seeing on the job applied. It's kind of like information overload. But then more specifically, how were you yourself trying to decide and guide yourself over like, OK, I want to be on this desk where that desk, how are you looking and evaluating, like, specifically within the bank? Was it like deal flow? Was it just the the personal relationships you were developing with those senior traders or sales gold that was most important to you? Or was it like, Oh, this has the best rep? Like, were you able to learn that?
Justin: [00:47:50] Yeah, I think the way I looked at it, it was, it was. I kind of bucket things into three groups, the product group that I want to be more macro. I want to be more micro. You know, the way somebody puts me one day is like, would you if you were to pick up and read The Wall Street Journal, would you read an article about Chinese GDP or would you read an article about Apple earnings first? I was like, Well, probably the article about Apple earnings. I'm like, OK, so then you probably want to be more micro. Then the next thing was kind of the people is like, who like the culture of the group, like, where did I see myself succeeding? Where did I want to? What did I want to be part of? What's the culture that I want to be brought up in? And then the third thing was is, who are the people in this business that I can see myself wanting to emulate? Who are the people that I want to grow up to be like, who are the people I want to train me? And when I saw that in the high yield desk, I mean, it was it was a no brainer. Like I, I left Goldman five years ago, and I'm sure if you ask those guys now, it's like, I'm still there because I'm still talking to them each and every day. These are just people that have just shaped my life and impact my life so much that I wouldn't be anywhere where I am today without them, and I still go to them if I need questions or if I have questions about life, things or career things, they're always some of the first people that I go to. So when you think about product people and kind of where you want to evolve to in your career, that's how I kind of narrowed it all down.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:12] And you talked about culture. How did you get a sense of the culture? Was it like more reputation based on like those conversations, like those after hours conversations when you've got that perspective? Or was it more like just seeing how people worked sitting on that stool?
Justin: [00:49:26] I think it's a few different things. The one thing is like, I would always just observe, right? And like, you take a step back and you just sometimes you just look at all that's going on around you, right? Like our jobs even today with my current job, you just get bombarded with the news and media and social media and texting alerts and the work. The workload just keeps piling up and like, sometimes like, just got to take a step back and just observe. And when I looked at that high yield desk and I just saw the hustle and the heart that those guys had, you know, to me that was like, All right, I know that they're going to have the same attitude as I do the I love the product, right? With all due respect to my investment grade, friends in the world like investment grade bonds are going to be OK for the most part, high yield bonds. You don't know if they're going to be around in a couple of years. You don't know if they're going to make their next coupon payment. There's a lot more credit risk that you have to that you have to sit there and do your due diligence on. And so it's not just thinking about where does the five year trade relative to the tenure, it's like, are they going to have enough liquidity to make it to pay their coupon in two weeks? There's a lot more.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:27] There's a lot more volatility. There's a lot more potential for traders to earn a lot more money to. There's a lot more margin potentially in that business. Or is that enough that that's well, that's a whole other conversation, just
V [00:50:38] Given what the world looks like in trading post Dodd-Frank and capital controls and whatnot that the banks need to adhere to. But yet, like in investment grade, you're trading things for two three, four five basis points and high yield. You are trading things for a quarter point, sometimes half a point. So, yeah, there is a little bit more spread that you can trade things off of. But to your question, like obviously seeing that it was the product I want and just watching how things evolve as type of people. And then just I looked
Justin: [00:51:06] Up to the junior people a lot on the desk because I'm like, OK, these are the people that are going to train me, right? They're going to help me do a better job at my,job on a pro forma basis. So getting those people off the desk, going to drinks or going to dinner at night when everything was shut down, just seeing who they were, I'm like, These are the people that I want to grow up to be like, these are the people that I want to train and develop me, and these are the people I want to learn from. And it just was a no brainer decision.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:31] And so when you were going through this, these rotations, it kind of you, you kind of sounds like fell in love with the high yield desk. It seemed like you really respected with their hustle, their grit, the intellect and just how hard they were willing to work. Tell me about like the internship itself was it was it more geared to like, OK, you're going to be in sales or trading? Or how do I think of that split in terms of how maybe how Goldman did or how their bulge bracket banks? Yeah, where you like the guys you were working guys and gals you were working with, were they all in sales? Were they all like, was there a split like where you're working closely with the traders executing the trades? Or were you doing the actual trades as well?
Justin: [00:52:06] So as an intern, you couldn't you couldn't actually do a trade. You're not allowed to because you have your series license, right? But basically, I
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:14] Mean, like the junior people on that desk, like, are you talking about like, were they doing mostly calls to the clients or were they like, How is that split? Oh, was it like they do it or are they doing fully sales? And then they passed on like the execution somewhere else or.
Justin: [00:52:27] Yeah, no. So they know. So fixing comes a lot different than equities, right? Where equities, a lot of it's just electronically traded and stuff like fixed income, you have to stand up and shout over your trader, Hey, I'm a buyer of 50 million this bond, and he needs to tell you a price, right? Like it's fully over the counter. So, you know, the junior people on that desk were doing kind of the administrative things to keep the desk running. But at the same time, they were also sitting there kind of executing trades in the over-the-counter market.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:51] And so you get that energy was,
Justin: [00:52:54] Yeah, the energy was great. I mean, because like, you get up and yell, right, if you mess up, you're going to mess up in Front of the entire desk, right? And you know, if one trader shouting at you from five rows away, everyone between you and the five rows are going to hear what you're saying. So I just I just love that energy and I just love being at the heart of the market. In each and every day. Yeah, that's so cool.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:17] So you're there for a good run. Yeah. Four plus years, tell me about how things progressed for you there. And then kind of when did you start thinking of potentially your next step and how that evolved? Yeah. So let's start first. Just how things evolve from when you first started full time. And so you obviously are super ecstatic because they call you that we want to give you a full time offer. Yeah. It's like
Justin: [00:53:40] So basic. Yeah, basically, it was good because obviously you're going back to work with a group of people that you already know. You know who you want to, you know who you want to get really close with. You know who you know, who's going to be there to help guide you through your career.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:55] But you also one question before you go on do you feel like there is a big difference between you and the other interns? Were there other grinders like you or like they were super hard or like, I assume everyone going in there, they want it usually. I mean, if you look at
Justin: [00:54:08] A resume, book now for these interns, they've all started their own companies or starting organizations or have three internships like everyone's a hustler, right? Like, there's like if you're if you don't want to hustle, they're going to go out and find a bazillion other people that want to hustle for that one spot. So it's the quality and calibre of people are very high.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:30] But do you feel like there was something that set you apart was maybe your interpersonal was a little bit better? Or like, do you feel like you're better on picking up the technical side of the business? Or do you feel like you're just better at making the relationships because you mean you got the offer? Not everyone gets the offer right.
Justin: [00:54:44] I mean, I just I think I just showed them that I was somebody who in hustle, right? And they knew that I was going to be somebody who's going to work my butt off. But at the same time, I was, you know, I had the interpersonal skills. All right. This is a guy that I want to sit next to for 12, 15 hours a day. If I had to write and I think
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:55:00] I don't mean to harp on that, I just wanted to ask, is there anything like just comparing yourself to other interns? I know it's hard because you're obviously biased and stuff like that. Do you necessarily want to like toot your own horn? But I just trying to get a sense of like if you felt more like interpersonal, especially at the
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:55:15] Intern level was important.
Justin: [00:55:17] Do you give me one more second? Go ahead. Yeah, so I think the other thing, too, is you start out and you're kind of you walk in, you realize I’m going to be the low man on the totem pole, right? Like, I didn't come in with big expectations. I didn't come in and say, Listen, I'm going to be the biggest, baddest sales guy in my first year because I knew I was going to get any accounts. I came in on day one and being the guy and my boss told me this at the time. He's like, you're not going to be a freshman starting on varsity, right? Like, just get that out of your head, right? It's just because we're not going to let you cover accounts as a first year. It's not going to happen. So he's like, come in and expect to carry the water jug, right? Come and expect to carry the equipment bag, right? Earn your stripes. I'm a Yankee fan, right? Like, earn your pinstripes, right? So that was those were the different types of things that that they preach to me. So that's what I did. I came in every day basically saying, OK, anything that I can do, that's better than licking the floor. I know it's going to be a good day. So I came in, I set my expectations the lowest they possibly could and just came in and said, OK, let's go. Time to hustle. Time to grind. First one in last one out would not go home until everything that needed to be done was done and knew when it was time to raise my hand. Ask questions if I didn't know something. I think that was super important. But as the career progressed, you were my first call at three years or so you were.You were the low man on the totem pole. You did whatever they needed you to do, right? But then kind of years three four and you start to really develop key relationships with clients and you learn how to execute and you learn the art of sales and the art of trading and the art of risk management and thinking about how things should be priced and relative value, and just understanding how the markets work and learning how to structure deals with bankers and stuff like that. And then ultimately, for me, your four and five is when I first started get on my own accounts where I can get my own kind of called P&L attributed to my name. People who I was the main point of contact them for the firm. So I think that's when it really started to take off for me. But then you're five. I also was doing like a lot of reading over the summer and, you know, just thinking about my career where I could go, like, did I see myself excelling at Goldman and what opportunity would there be? And that summer I was reading. One of my favorite books is Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman, and I was reading that book and I was like, you know what? Like, I really miss investing, right? I really miss like really trying, trying to invest and thinking through investment, thinking through risk and strategy. And I was like, You know what? I'm going to keep doing my thing. But at the end of the year, maybe it would be a good time for me to kind of just kind of take a step back and kind of do like a strategic plan, like where do I see myself in a year or two years, five years? What not set some goals for myself? And it just so happened a couple of weeks later, Oaktree was looking to hire somebody, and I got word of that and I was like, Oh my God, like once in a lifetime opportunity to come work with Howard Marks. Bruce Karsh and Sheldon Stone, who basically were the first people to get involved with Michael Milken on the high yield markets and the leveraged finance markets that distressed markets like there's no other place that I would leave, no other place. I would leave Goldman for an oak tree, and it just turned out to be the right thing. I went through the interview process. I didn't think I was going to get it. I never thought I'd move out to Los Angeles and grew up in Jersey, lived in like never thought. In a million years. I'd go to L.A. Yeah, but it just worked out great. And then I ended up here at Oak Tree almost five years ago now.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:58:48] Wow. And so tell me a little bit about just why you didn't feel like you'd get it, just because it's so, such a competitive role. And what was the role for given the kind of your level? So you were like four or five years in at the high yield debt at Goldman? Is it pretty standard for someone to jump to the buy side from the sell side like that? Or was there or was there a big gap in your transition? Like, was there skills you have to take another big learning curve for you when you first joined?
Justin: [00:59:13] I think the bigger gap was and my fear was, why were they going to hire a sales guy to be a trader? Right. And that's what I needed to convince them of.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:59:21] And so how did you go about like prepping for that? Just obviously just talking through trades and stuff like, I mean, how did you even I
Justin: [00:59:27] Think you just I think what my strategy was besides all the stuff proving that you're the fit and all that from a technical side to go to your question, I just proven that I understood how the business worked right. I understood how to build a good rapport with investment bankers. I understood how to structure a deal and syndicate a deal. I understood how to price risk. I understood how to think about relative value and execute on a trade, as we were talking about a couple of minutes ago. I just proved them that I knew how the business worked. And so I think that was what I was able to convince them of. Yeah, I'm the right, I'm the right. I can fit with you. I fit into what the team that you're trying to build is, and I understand how to just get business done and how this environment works in this new day and age post Dodd-Frank and all this.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:00:09] Yeah. And so in terms of just like the interview process was it was it more of fit or do they were they asking you about specific trades you had put? Owner clients, the work you did with your clients, because I guess the difference in Goldman on the sell side is you're doing a lot of like client calls, right and client. Are you taking them out? You're like, just is there a lot of that going on where you're like taking 'em out to dinner, staying close to your clients, making sure you're giving them good service, whereas then you jump to the buy side all of a sudden it becomes a little bit, at least from my perspective. And my guess is it becomes more analytical.
Justin: [01:00:42] Yeah. So when you were at Goldman, when I was at Goldman, like as a salesperson, you're the relation. You're like a relationship manager, but your relationship manager. You're a detective, you're a fire fighter. You're an emergency paramedic. You find problems. You put out problems. You fix problems like you just make things. You just you just try to solve problems at the same time trying to be commercial for the firm when it comes to your relationship with your client, right? But it's also like getting to know and understand your client and what they're trying to do and what they're trying to accomplish and problems they may be having. So, yes, a lot of what you're doing is getting to know them better, but it's also building up a rapport and building up trust so that when they have something or they need something, they come to you first, right? And they say, Oh, you know what? Justin knows how to get it done, or Justin's team can get this done for me as effectively and efficiently as possible.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:01:32] And like as an example, that would be like, Hey, I need to hedge out whatever this position at this or something that technical or is it something like, Hey, I'm looking to potentially put on a new type of trade? Can you guys get a better product?
Justin: [01:01:44] Yeah, it could be anything like that. Or even if you want to, even if you want to take it something to more present day light, it's like, OK, well, if I want to look at the high yield universe now, everyone's been looking at high yield X energy now that crude is trading below twenty dollars a barrel, right? So but it also may make sense now to start looking at high yield x coronavirus related companies too. Right? So it may say, Hey Justin, how do I hedge out any type of exposure I have to corona related companies? Or how can I put a trade on
Patrick (CEO of WSO): 01:02:16] Energy like heavy retail, heavy energy
Justin: [01:02:19] Or traffic? Yeah. Could you put a hedge in place using a derivative product or a synthetic product that could hedge out any further weakness in my in my corona book or something like that, right? Or Corona related book? Just presenting problems that are not traditional problem. Sure, you can do a simple
hedge, but they really want to see you solve non-traditional problems for them. That's where you would be very commercial for your client and for the firm.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:02:46] And so when you're now on the other side of the table and it's more around, you still have your clients are really your LPs, right? So yeah, it's but you're not on the calls with them every day. It's more around you guys internally as a team working together to make sure you're rebalancing, you're putting on putting on the right types of trades and that type of stuff, and you're in the high yield area right of
Justin: [01:03:09] Yeah. So I focus on high yield stress and distress credit. So it's super crazy right now for you. Yeah, it's been. It's been a fun ride. Just as a proxy high yield, the average price of high yield bond beginning of March was like one of four, and that felt all the way to like eighty five, I think maybe eighty eight, just in the last kind of two to three weeks. So it's been a wild ride for sure. But yeah, now I think the biggest difference is now you're actually a fiduciary on the buy side, right? You actually have clients that you're responsible for and you need to act prudently and diligently and in the best interest of your clients and managing their money. Here at Oaktree, we invest a lot of money on behalf of pension funds, state plans, pension public plans, endowment funds, foundations. There's people at the end of that that are going to depend on the money that we that we invest for them. And so you take a lot of pride in what you do and you put a lot of thought into it. But yes, your point. A lot of it goes now to, OK, how do I position based off what the client's risk profile is and the mandate they give us? How do I build a portfolio that once that will accomplish what they're trying to accomplish?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:04:16] And then for you guys, how do you think about Oaktree in particular? It's large. It's a large firm at this point. You know, it's I don't know how many billions under management. Well, it's big. Is the high yield. How do you guys in terms of how you're structured, is it something where you guys or your own kind of separate entity with a certain amount of P&L that you guys manage, like you're working with your team of 20, 50 people or in your the high yield area? But is it something where you guys are kind of your own separate entity or is there a lot of kind of cross collaboration across
Justin: [01:04:48] Like so we break things down by strategy, right? So we have our biggest strategies are to stress that strategy, our high yield strategy that we call strategic credit, which is more kind of opportunistic kind of a mix of high yield and distressed loans. We have real estate, real estate. We have a whole bunch of different things. Yeah, and basically like each of those strategies, has their own investment teams. But what I like to say is the trading desk is like the nucleus of the firm. We sit there, we're at the front lines of all the different information that. We sit there as a filter, and our job is to filter and distribute all that information to the appropriate investment
professionals that need to know it right, and we need to build that collaboration at the same time, especially like markets that we're in now when things get so dislocated and so mispriced, or maybe having certain conversations with high level people and certain organizations that could be relevant or relevant to other people, that that collaboration is big, right? Like when things are really falling apart, you know, you listen to my loan trader may be saying, Hey, I just sold this loan at 90 when that loan was trading at par. And then it's like, All right, well, the loans trading there, then the bond should be trading much lower than that. Or, hey, if I just trade this energy bond here, this other energy bond must be trading here. Like that collaboration is just key amongst us on the trading desk. But then just getting that information to the investment professionals and making sure that anybody who would be interested in something like that is interested or aware of the information, that's great.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:06:15] So how has it progress for you now? The difference in terms of so I know when you're at Goldman, it kind of you gradually kind of were given more and you eventually had client relationships as you came over to Oak Tree. Was it initially like, you're obviously not running a huge book right away or anything like that? But is it considered like? Were you eventually given penal responsibility, similar kind of deal, where that's given or how did that work?
Justin: [01:06:39] No. So as a trading desk, we don't we don't have like our own P&L, we don't have a prop book or anything like that. We just sit there and we execute trades for whatever the strategy needs us to do. For me, it was just getting more involved with the PMS and just asking bigger, deeper questions and just trying to understand what they're thinking and why they're doing what they're doing. And at the same time, like talking to the analysts and making sure I'm understanding the credits that I'm trading at a much deeper level. So I can I can figure out, well, where should the loans trade relative to the bonds and where we're
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:07:10] Bringing a lot of that information back to your PMS and you guys are just interfacing a lot and stuff like that. That's really cool. Do you like it? Do you enjoy you see yourself be in long term kind of in this world, obviously.
Justin: [01:07:22] I love waking up every day and not knowing what to expect. That's to me, is the best part about this job, is you. I know I have a seven 30 meeting every day and that's about it. I know on Monday I have a meeting in the afternoon to have a meeting. That's about it, right? Like, I'm not sitting in a cubicle, I'm sitting. I probably should be saying I'm staying six feet away now from somebody else. But like, I'm sitting on a trading floor and we're just, you're sitting there, you're at the face of the market. You wake up every day. You are especially in today's day and age, like you wake up. It's like, All right, we're futures. What news came out overnight? What's the Fed doing? Are we? Are you hearing anything about success with any of these clinical trials on treatments or vaccines, right? Is there is there a certain part of the market that's blowing up? Or are we worried about what's going on in the repo market? And you just you just don't know. Like, you just try to react and you just try to learn and react. And then in your downtime, you just try to process and think through things. You know, I'm a big advocate of mental models and just pausing and thinking through different things and just thinking about OK, using inversion or something like that, like using tactics like that to think about, OK, why is the Fed doing what it's doing? Why is the repo market breaking? How could it? How could it? How could it fix itself or right? Or what needs to be done to fix it? What are the long term implications for what the Treasury is doing with their stimulus program versus where are the short term implications? Should we worry about should we be worried about inflation? Should we be worried about the value of the dollar? Should we be worried about the USD being the reserve currency, right? I'm not saying I need to take a view.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:08:53] They know I say no because everything else is getting devalued. What else is? I mean, everyone's printing, right? It's like a fun money. You know,
Justin: [01:09:02] It's helicopter money. It's helicopter.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:09:05] Yeah, yeah.
Justin: [01:09:06] But like, you know, I don't remember what the exact quote is from Charlie Munger, but he basically says that I'm never going to have an opinion on something until I can defend the other side's argument better than they can, right? So that's how I try to look at the world is like, OK, if I if I see this happening, what's the contrary to that, right? So I want to come in with a balanced approach to just know from a risk management perspective, as I wear my risk manager hat is like, OK, what could happen if this happens? What could happen if this happens? Going back to the Bill Belichick similarity that I was alluding to earlier, it's like, OK, it's first and 10, and they're playing their defense back. Their backs are back. Like, What if I did a run play here? What if I ran a comeback play here? How do I? You just start to think about different things and just see how things are reacting to think about what your next step will be. But at the same time, you also just need to be thinking holistically, right? And I was talking to a friend this weekend and just saying sometimes like, you just want to shut off social media, shut off the news and just listen to people like Howard Marks Warren Buffett, Morgan Housel, like the talibs of the world and just people who and who can just kind of hone things back to you to like just some key principles, right? Because sometimes you just get so flustered with everything that you're seeing and you can't remember the key basic concepts of why the world functioned the way it does.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:10:31] Right? Yeah. And I think it's fascinating because you see, like, you know, every time you know, it's interesting because the great the Great Financial Crisis 08, 09, you saw kind of this thing where people are thinking, what's going to be the next thing? And no one expected it to be a virus, right? It's like everyone's looking for the next thing. And they thought maybe student loan debt eventually would catch up, you know, all this stuff. So yeah, it's going to be interesting where more things go over the next six months. I'm hopeful that we've had some positive news recently about some of the trials, the emerging trials and everything. But I think I don't know personally, I think the market's run up very fast in a very short amount of time. So I'm still cautiously optimistic, at least on the market side, but hopefully the economy can follow suit. Yeah, and we won't. We'll get back to at least a semi-normal life over the summer, if not totally normal by next year. Anything else you'd like to share, any young, any wisdom you would share with your younger self or the young listeners before we call it?
Justin: [01:11:35] I would just say to me the thing that's benefited me the most in my career, whether it be when I was in college to where I am now networking, it all comes down to networking. Whether you're at a target school, a non-target school, whether you're in your dream job or you're trying to figure out what your next job is, you always want to be networking. You always want to be meeting people and connecting with people. You always want to let people know of what your goals are because you never know who knows who and you never know who's going to be able to help you at the end of the day. I mentioned the story about my baseball coach early on. I was a freshman. I just finished. My classes were sitting there. I went back to my high school and was having breakfast with them. And he's like, what are you doing this summer? I'm like, I don't know. I'm trying to get a job in finance. And he's like, did you talk to this kid's dad like he works in finance? Like, you kind of put a call into them like, Yeah, it'd be great. And then next thing you know, I have an interview, right? So like, you just never know who knows who. And you just want to make sure that you're just surrounding yourself with people that can help you accomplish what you want to accomplish. People that can make you smarter and make you better, make you more thoughtful.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:12:37] Yeah, I think we harp on that a lot in this in this podcast, and I think it can't be said enough because so many kids hear it over and over again. But yet they kind of have do it or they tinker around with it, but they don't get aggressive with it. Even my own mentees, I have a show called Monkey to Millions, where there's a separate podcast, and I mentor personally three to four kids in college. And even with them, I'm like pushing them. I'm like, how many people did you reach out to this week? How many calls did you do? How many? And they're starting to get it. But it's been almost six months and I've been harping on them and like, you know, now they're all, they're all kind of a lot of them are in great shape because they already had interest to sign up. But now it's like with everything going the way it's going. A lot of them are really happy. They put in that legwork earlier, and a lot of them are still going through all of this. Obviously, with the right caveats like, I know it's crazy busy and the way they're networking, they're being a little bit more, you know, a little more understanding. They're not being as aggressive with the follow ups and whatnot trying to give people their space because it's so crazy right now. But I think it's something where. Being aggressive early, especially if you start like freshman and sophomore year of just keeping your ears open and just having that at that humble attitude, I just want to learn I'm a hard worker and the whole world is open to you. Absolutely. I have good interpersonal skills. You're a hard worker. You're open to learning and you just ask a lot of questions and you actually take a genuine interest in it instead of just being like, I'm just doing this to go through the motions and you try to build those personal relationships. You really can. You're going to you're going to make that. You're going to make that one connection. You don't realize that in three years is going to be a critical career move for you or whatnot or in two years going to be a critical opening to
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:14:17] Your first job out of school, for example. I just wish people realized that more that it's like putting in the work now and investing now. It's not for nothing. Even though the hit rate is super low,
Justin: [01:14:28] You set it perfect. I got nothing to add. You were perfect with that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:14:32] I just like to reiterate it because I think people hear it over and over again, but they don't actually start and like, just invest in sales navigator. Find any sort of link to anybody online. You can start with the alums like you can LinkedIn.
Justin: [01:14:46] Best tool ever created a tool ever.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:14:47] Like any hustlers you can, you can spend 70 bucks a month or something for the thing, and it gives you like it's probably worth like fifty thousand a month. If you actually look at it like across like a present value of your career, of the number of absolutely I should reach out to and connect with. So it's a no brainer. But yeah, hopefully we can convince more people with this with this episode, just hearing your story, hearing how you hustled so much to take this to heart. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for your time.
Justin: [01:15:16] Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. All right,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:15:18] Cheers. And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street Oasis. If you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis Dot. And till next time.
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