WSO Podcast | E145: Private Equity from the Back Office and Complete Non Target School

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In this episode, Dan shares his unlikely path as a history major at a complete non-target college in the midwest. We learn how he was unemployed when he first graduated, how his first job was in the back office, how he managed to break into a business analyst role at a respected boutique investment bank and how he managed the delicate conversations to transition to a front-office IB role at that same bank. Listen to how he navigated private equity recruiting and how one person made a dramatic shift in his thought process and trajectory.

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WSO Podcast (Episode 145) 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 talked 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, Dan shares is unlikely path. That's a history major at a complete non target college in the Midwest. We learn how he was unemployed when he first graduated, how his first job was in the back office, how he managed to break into a business analyst role at a respected boutique investment bank. And now he managed the delicate conversations to transition to a front office job role at that same bank.Listen to how he navigated the private equity recruiting process and how one person made a dramatic shift in his thought process and trajectory. Enjoy.Dan, welcome to the Wall Street Oasis podcast.Thanks for having me, Patrick. Pleasure.The I'd be great if you could just give the listeners a short summary of your bio.

Dan: [00:01:15] Yeah, absolutely.So I'll try to give a quick, high level grew up in New York state, kind of. It was a really strong student of history in high school. You know, I did kind of well on math was never, really never really one of my main focuses. I would say I really liked history a lot more. So when I went to college, I kind of wanted to focus on his. I didn't really know exactly what I wanted to do for my career.And I think that's I think that's pretty,Normal for a 16 or a 17 year old.And so, you know, I ended up going to a small liberal arts school very non-target in the Midwest. I had a great experience there. You know, I ended up majoring in history. So, you know, had kind of started to poke my head into finance here and there.I did have an internship that was kind of non-related when I was a junior, but it was really completely tangential to investment banking. And so, you know, I got out of school and I really had no know.I knew I kind of wanted to work in finance, but I just didn't know exactly what that meant. I didn't know kind of the different paths in finance I didn't really know about. You know, I knew kind of high level about investment banking and but I didn't really know what investment bankers did or what private equity did, etc. So, you know, the first job I got out of school was kind of in the middle, the middle office at a big bank,You know, which was kind of just taking what I could get. I, you know, I didn't. I had a history degree from a non-targeted school. There was no recruiting or anything like that.And it was also kind of come in coming out of the tail end of the recession as well. You know,It was a little bit, maybe a little bit harder to get internships and such. So. I I worked at that job for a couple of years, kind of. I was very lucky that I, you know, kind of along the way picked up a great mentor who helped me kind of find my path and and find what I wanted to do.And so, you know, really she was she really believed in me and said, Look, if you want to do this other path, if you want to do investment banking, yeah, it's really hard, but you can do it. You want to do private equity, you can do it. So someone who really believed in me and, you know, was able to make a move to kind of a a nontraditional investment banking position as a as a business analyst. So I it was the front office that was in front. You know, I was I went from never really being in front of clients or really only on the phone for kind of administrative duties to being in front of clients every day and emailing with clients every day. And so while I wasn't doing, you know, as much traditional kind of valuation analysis as maybe some of the other analysts, I was able to leverage that position to learn a lot about the business and then ultimately transition to a regular analyst role in in this boutique bank that I was in. And then I spent about a year and a half in that role. And then from there I was able to move to private equity. And I've been in my current job for about a year and nine months. I think that was probably a mouthful.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:58] So that's cool. That's a good start. So let's start all the way back at undergrad. So you said you'd kind of you're majoring in history, so you're at an on target, you're a history major. At what point did you say was it senior year?Were you like, Oh, what am I going to do for to to make a salary? You know, at what point did you kind of sit up and say, What am I actually going to do? Because I think a lot of kids find themselves in this situation where they're 20 or 21 years old, they've maybe missed the boat.They didn't really come across.Maybe they didn't find Wall Street voices till later in their college career, and they realize, Oh my gosh, I want to invest in banking and recruiting for my sophomore year. So what? What did you do?Kind of coming into that senior year? Was it OK, now you're going to start figuring it out?Yeah, it's a great question, so I actually did have an internship after my junior year in communications at a big bank. Mm hmm. Which is kind of a. You know, it actually kind of made sense for someone with a history and writing background, like I was kind of like introduced to this type of role. And so what communications do you know at a big bank is they kind of write about some of the the bank's achievements like internal communication.So it's not like industrial relations. It's it's basically

Dan: [00:06:26] No, it was not a bulge bracket. And you're kind of like you're writing about the top salesperson or this team achieve this.And it's like,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:37] It's like PR almost for the bank internally or whatever. How did you how did you come across an internship that was your junior summer?

Dan: [00:06:44] Yeah, it was through

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:46] On campus or

Dan: [00:06:47] Network. No, no. It's through like a family friend, kind of last minute yeah.You know, I think communications.What I'll say about it is I didn't. I didn't really like it. I think I what I Liked was that. You were I worked in this really organized environment, and I was I was paid well and or you paid like thirty bucks an

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:10] Hour or 20 bucks

Dan: [00:07:11] An hour. I was probably even less know it was way less than that. I think it was like,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:15] But you're saying like.

Dan: [00:07:17] I think it was probably like 20, 20 something, yeah, that's

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:20] Pretty good for a poor college kid, right?

Dan: [00:07:22] So an 11 or 12 or something,yeah.no, and so, you know, you're working in this really kind of organized environment. You're well paid. It's not that stressful or anything like that, but at the end of the day, you're kind of writing about someone else's achievements. You're like, Oh, this is kind of like to my job is to just write about what you've done and like to kind of give praise to you. And I'm like, Well, I want to actually be the one who's getting this like, I want to be the one who's actually achieving something and having my own success and and obviously communications. You're going to be you're kind of more limited in terms of upward mobility and compensation. And I was kind of I think the important thing was like, I, you know, I was lucky enough to kind of be exposed to this new world where I really had no idea about about finance, but I was like, Wow, there's this whole other side of it. And if I'm paid like this here, like, I can't even imagine that whole other side where like, they're really doing like they're achieving the things right under

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:27] A billion dollar deal.Exactly.Yeah.So you kind of open it, open your eyes. That sounds like junior summer. We're like, we're just taking this whole finance world. Sounds pretty cool. You're writing about it. So you're kind of getting the there. So tell me how you're going into senior year where you like finance all the way, gung ho or what was or still kind of trying to find your way.

Dan: [00:08:49] Um, no, I think I went back to school and I was like still doing, I was like helping them out at school a little bit. I was still being paid, but it was kind of a tricky situation because I knew I really didn't want to do it. So no, like I didn't ultimately end up. I think if I really wanted to

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:03] Pursue like a full time offer, like,

Dan: [00:09:06] No, I didn't really want, I didn't really want it either. I was kind of like kind of like kind of move away from that.I didn't Want to get stuck in something that I didn't want to

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:16] Do. Did you realize how far behind you were coming from a tiny no name school with with a history major? Did you realize that? I mean, where you're with your GPA good or would you have a medium medium?

Dan: [00:09:27] Gpa was fine I

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:29] Three, five or something? One two three two.

Dan: [00:09:31] Yeah, I was like three four three. Maybe.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:33] So you're doing have separate seems like a low 3s GPA or mid three GPA. so it's good, but not you're not blowing the socks off. you're a history major and you're at an all time. So you basically have limited options in the finance world. Let's be honest right now, unless you're like an amazing networker,   somehow and miraculously can break in through like the side door and you interview perfectly. That's basically the only way I would see a person with your profile get into a front office banking job. Right out of school is you're pulling magic on the networking side. But let's say. But so but at what point were you, did you start kind of doing that groundwork in terms of like that first gig?

Dan: [00:10:15] Could you pause it for one second? Sorry, you had a. Yes, that's a great point, I think, in terms of in terms of banking and in terms of knowing the different paths, I think in my head, like I remember there was a brief time where I kind of was like. You know, my junior year, I was like our senior year, I was like, how do I, how do I do this? Can I? Can I still have I completely? Have I completely missed the boat here and I was abroad, I was abroad, actually, I was abroad. I met because I was I was starting to explore it then my second semester of junior year as well, but it did feel like I missed the boat. And so in terms of understanding investment banking and knowing what it was, I think we have a tendency as human beings to feel like. If we can't do something, if some if a path is closed off to us, we don't necessarily want to go there in our head and learn about it and kind of be like, Well, look, I can't look, I can't do this, so I'm not going to go in my head. I don't want to cause myself pain and say, like, Well, I couldn't do this for X, Y and Z reason. I'm just going to move on. I'm not going to really investigate it, right? So I think maybe I lost a little. Maybe, you know, I lost a little time to being like, Oh, you know what? I can't do this or this and that, but you know, and then senior year of college is kind of its own, Its own thing to begin with, obviously.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:51] But and what party? Hearty sense?

Dan: [00:11:54] Yeah. You know, and look, I think when you're also when you're at a non target, very small liberal arts school, it wasn't surrounded by all these ambitious, the most ambitious people, I would say. But. And by the way, I mean, one note on GPA you mentioned, I think it's so funny to me that GPA is still such a strong metric. That's measure I mean by me personally. Like, I feel like I took some really challenging classes my senior year where I could have I could have just taken like guitar. So, yeah, and I took like a three. I remember I took like a three hundred level psych class that I had no business being in, but it sounded really interesting and I kind of struggled in it. And I think I got like a B-minus or something. But like, I learned so much in that class. So it is funny to me and I think I get it why Gpa is such a metric in recruiting, but I do wish there was something. There was something better that, you know, as investment banks that we could do to recruit kids. But so, yeah, I mean, back to. You know, you know me getting out of college, yeah, I. Since I was like didn't really know I graduated, I didn't have a job. Literally was applying for jobs on CareerBuilder

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:16] Before you graduated, though, were you applying like crazy, like months leading up to graduation or were you just completely just partying? Didn't care? Were you thinking, I'm just going to know how to do it?

Dan: [00:13:25] I would say, I think like

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:27] A career center didn't help you. Probably your parents were telling

Dan: [00:13:29] You, you're probably. I mean, they were they were like, Yeah, you can go on this website and click on, talk to this,

Call this person. And I think when you're. This is actually one of the most. Crushing things that I learned that I've learned about networking is networking, you can do it wrong. Um. And I think. The biggest thing that I've learned about networking is that.

If you're going to talk to people. There's two things, in my opinion, that you should. Two ways to approach it. And one of the ways to approach it is to say. I'm going to I don't know what I want to do. I'm going to call this person because I want to pick their brain and I want to learn about their day to day. I want to learn about

their career path and see if it's a good fit for me. Mm hmm. The second approach is to say, I know what I want to do. I'm very certain of that. I'm going to call this person and give them a bit of my background and tell them why I'm interested in this and see if they have any ideas for me, if they can connect me to other people, et cetera. I think the big mistake people make a lot of the time when they're networking is they try to combine those two things, those two conversations into one conversation. Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:53] And that and that's well, wouldn't you say the first one where you're exploring more? It should be kind of what you're doing early on.

Dan: [00:15:03] Correct? Absolutely. And there's nothing there's nothing wrong with that. I would say you're going to come across better to people if you split those two things up.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:12] So one of the things I'm just trying to learn oftentimes will open more doors, too. And you know, if you're if you're admitting you don't know anything and you're just trying to learn, oftentimes they like that attitude and they like the fact that you're a smart kid and you ask if you ask smart question, follow up questions, especially. Exactly. Yeah.

Dan: [00:15:31] So I think so. Networking can be intimidating when you don't know how to network. And I think a lot of kids, especially if they're coming from a small, liberal arts school, have no idea how to network.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:42] And so I think we're not trying to sound too smart. They feel like they have to sound smart, right?

Dan: [00:15:47] Well, they just don't, you know, they don't want to send one hundred emails like they don't know. They don't. Sometimes you got to spam people, right? But it's so,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:56] So easy on LinkedIn nowadays. I just I can't believe like you can, you can make one hundred connection requests or even just 30 that are tailored within an hour a day. Yeah. It's not that hard.

Dan: [00:16:10] Wellington has changed the game, it didn't really exist as much when I was so OK.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:16:14] So you're kind of you've graduated, you have no job. Have you been back with the family at this point?

Dan: [00:16:21] Yeah, I moved back home.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:16:23] What are your parents saying at this point? How much should your degree cost like a one hundred and fifty thousand two hundred thousand dollars?

Dan: [00:16:30] I think my parents were OK. I think they kind of got it, you know, again, kind of coming out of the tail end of the recession, it was a little harder, I'd say, for my generation, for sure. To define things. But yeah, it was hard for me. I mean, I think I went on, did some traveling, you know, what have you? But I was, you know, I was I kind of became, yeah, after a couple of months, I became like, pretty desperate and I wanted to find something. So I literally got this kind of a rip. My first kind of. Come back, middle office, job

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:17:04] Career at an asset manager, right?

Dan: [00:17:07] Yeah, so it's really it's really wealth management. Yeah, really like a fee based business. So I kind of was able to learn kind of like ten thousand foot business and like how stock brokerage work. Well, you know, wealth management worked and. You know, it kind of it's the kind of thing where you. Think when you're right out of school for someone like me and I'm a fairly introverted person. There's really in a place like that, there's really kind of two. Two options where you're either going to, like be cold calling like a hundred times a day or you're going to be doing like back office work. So I was doing the back office work. I did that for like a year and change.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:17:54] And what were you paid like? Forty five K

Dan: [00:17:56] Base? Yeah, like maybe a little more in that amount of time. Yeah, not a no bonus. A lot of stuff too, huh? And it was stressful, too. I would say, you know, my first job, I learned a lot. I moved to I moved to a bulge bracket, more of like a stable kind of a situation to do similar work. How did you do?

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:18:18] How did you make that transition from back off?

Dan: [00:18:21] Just through a recruiter? Yeah. Ok, so you were back.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:18:23] Middle office had kind of a smaller wealth management shop, and then you made the transition to a bulge bracket through a

recruiter, similar type of back off in the middle office. This world correct? At this point, were you thinking, Hey, I need to get front office investment banking or at this point, where was it on your radar?

Dan: [00:18:37] Yeah, it was actually. It was right after I started that job that this mentor came into my life who, you know, through kind of like a family friend. Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:18:46] How much older was she?

Dan: [00:18:49] Uh, maybe like 20 years older.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:51] Ok, so it's perfect. Yeah, she's just going through the gauntlet.

Dan: [00:18:54] Really? Yeah, amazing kind of person who's. You know, and I remember. Because in my head, I kind of was like, well,

Yeah, I'm doing a lot. You know, I was doing a lot better than I was. I was, you know, I wasn't, like, thrilled with everything, but I kind of had some kind of a. What's the word I'm looking for?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:15] Cushy life I had

Dan: [00:19:17] No, I wouldn't say cushy life, but I had like a sort of a plan about what I wanted to do for the rest of my career, how I was going to do it. Can you share where you

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:19:25] Were in this bulge bracket? Like, what city were you in? I was in New York, New York. Yeah. So at that point, did you get a raise going from like 50 to 60 K when you made that jump to the polls? Yeah, it was like 60 something.

Whatever. Ok.

Dan: [00:19:37] And I think I got I would get I think I would get over time to. I don't remember.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:19:42] Like what types of things day to day, what do you give somebody an idea of middle back office or hearing trades? What are you doing?

Dan: [00:19:48] You would like clear trades, but I would also I would do like wire verification, so I would call clients in like all across the country and we would do like, let's confirm that you want to wire a million dollars to this account or I suppose, I speak Spanish too. So I would call in clients in Latin America as well. And, you know, it was like really kind of really mindless work without a without a career trajectory that I thought would be interesting.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:20:24] What is the career trajectory there? You just kind of move up and they gradually give you pay raises every year.

Dan: [00:20:27] And some people in that position had moved over to the front office as like to work directly for a broker. And this was a good it was a good the bulge bracket that was a good wealth management job. Like they had some really good brokers there. And like as a it's called a sales assistant, like in the traditional, you know, I think you have like a client. I think it's called a client service associate. Yeah, the place kind of give it a more a little bit more of a fancy title so that people maybe feel a little bit

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:20:56] Better about yourself, for sure.

Dan: [00:20:58] But you know that you're  dealing with clients directly, but you're you probably do really well, but you're really it's not the most intellectual. Gig, other than other than really just being good with clients, I would say, and really not. I think wealth in general is kind of tough for younger. Folks, because it's like, well, Ok, you're going to you're twenty four years old, You're calling some 60 year old on the phone and telling them that you want to manage their money for them, like they're going to be like, fuck off. Like, Yeah, I curse.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:21:32] Or, Yeah, you can curse this one. They're going to be like, you're not qualified to do this.

Dan: [00:21:37] Like, I'm  just going to go to this other guy who's got gray hair. And you know, you're not going to

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:21:42] I'm not giving you my money. Or at least a gray beard like me. Ok, so so wait a second. See, but you're at this bowl track for less than a year, you make a transition to a front office role. So this mentor seemed to have a big impact on you. So tell me how she did that. What? What were the main things she told you? How did you prep to actually? How did you even get the interviews for a front? It's super, super hard. Super hard. Yeah, to get even interviews coming from, you know, you're already pigeonholed at this point. You're a history major, mediocre GPA. You're in the middle back office. How are you even getting a look for an interview? Is this like the only interview you got or did you get a bunch because you were doing something? Yeah. How did you how did you land those? Because people struggle even to get those interviews, so I want to know, like from some cultures,

Dan: [00:22:27] I'll tell you what happened. I mean, so. First, I remember first talking to her, and I was kind of like, Oh, whatever, I'm just going to talk to this person. I never met her before. Yeah. I was going to kind of talk to this person and like, you know, to offer, she had offered to kind of help me and I was like, Sure, like, I don't, you know, I had kind of built this world for myself where I saw limitations, right? I could. This is the kind of. I would do this for a couple of years, maybe, and then I would try to go to business school or something. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. Yeah. But I had this plan in my head and, you know, she proceeds to get on the phone with me and is like, that makes that doesn't make sense, like, what are you? Like, what are you like that long term,

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:23:12] What do you do?

Dan: [00:23:13] It's not a good plan, and she was brutally honest with me and I was kind of like. I was kind of like shaking a little bit, but she's like, what do you want to do? Are you are you interested in investment banking and this and that, and I was like, Yeah, I am. But like, I always thought, you know, that's not that's not necessarily available to me. Like, what did you do it like? There's ways like, it's hard, but you know, it's possible.

So I was like, I really, you know, I really she kind of like grabbed hold of me a little bit as a person was like, you know, you can do this. And so I really believed in I said, this is going to sound crazy. I literally set about to. China to China without an accounting background,  extra hard, obviously, but I was like, I'm going to go and really try to do this for six months. You know, I'll give it six months. Let me try to find a way into investment banking, right? A really, really hit it hard. And. I was so literally like, go after work, I would like literally go to Starbucks at night and I would like to sit there and I literally had like an accounting textbook and I was like reading, it sounds ridiculous, But I probably didn't learn that much too much accounting that way. But. And I was looking and I was looking for jobs too. And there actually are. There are investment banking analysts postings on some of these job websites. Mm hmm. And so, oh, the other thing I did was I took a course with Investment Bank institute, which was fairly helpful, I wouldn't

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:24:55] Say. Incredibly helpful, but could it take hours? No, just kidding.

Dan: [00:24:59] Yeah, no, no.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:25:01] No, it's cool. So you're

Dan: [00:25:03] In person at that

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:25:04] Time, but no, no, we don't know yet next year. But so  i Think what's interesting, what's interesting is you started kind of investing yourself. You kind of she  kind of shook you up a little bit and you're like, OK, I'm actually going, give this a shot. So you're you're you're working, what? Forty five hours a week?

Dan: [00:25:23] Right. But it was a day job. Wasn't the most demanding job.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:25:27] Yeah, so you could you had time during the day to do a little bit here and there, but then you also had time at night. So what? You'd spend a couple of hours at Starbucks every night, something like that, either studying or applying to jobs and then tell me, like, when was your first kind of AI before an office interview and what was that like? Was that the that's the first one you landed or like, did you bomb your a few? What happened?

Dan: [00:25:47] Yeah, I'm trying. Remember if I had another like, first round somehow. But. Um, yeah, so I actually saw that literally was on, I was on. Indeed. Mm hmm. And I and I literally searched. I was at Dunkin Donuts. I'm Upper East Side at like 11 o'clock at night on like a Monday or Tuesday night. Like, did you not the Dunkin Donuts on ninety third and a half for anyone who lives in the city. And. Literally search investment banking analyst on indeed, and there was like there is a boutique bank who had like a few postings for investment banking analysts. So I. I was like, OK, that's interesting, so I literally. So then I went back and asked my mentor about it and she was like, OK, I have I know someone there. Let me try to get your resume in. And it turns out that this bank was one that would hire. You know, maybe a little bit. They would hire a little bit more. People without the traditional background than. Some other places might, and so I didn't get. I actually did an interview for a typical investment banking analyst I interviewed for a business analyst role, which was working sort of for one managing director very directly, and he was kind of he was looking for someone who. Didn't need the background and valuation and accounting, but you wanted a hard worker and someone who is going to grind really hard and wanted to learn, and I was like, That's me, I can do that. Let me let me in, you know? I want to learn like, I want it so bad. So, you know, the thing the other thing with her was that she was like, You really help me get ready for these interviews.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:27:51] So it was a business analyst. It wasn't like an investment banking analyst. So business has been like you were just basically like almost an assistant to an MD directly or something.

Dan: [00:27:58] Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, there's some I

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:28:00] Don't want to. Was it a lot of admin type stuff

Dan: [00:28:04] And a lot of but it would be emailing with clients a lot sending stuff to clients? Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:28:10] So did you feel like, well, at least as your mentor, I feel like, hey, this was a good kind of way to get in. Oh yeah, absolutely. We were like, Just take it.

Dan: [00:28:17] Yeah, great bank. And you're sitting with the rest of the group. So you're actually sitting with all the analysts, right?

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:28:23] Did you? So when you got there, how long were you in that business analysts or before you able to make the transition to a full on analyst role? Yeah, so that's it's a great

Dan: [00:28:33] Question, because it was like it was almost two years that I did that, which I think was kind of the acknowledged. Um, thing like I didn't want to do one year and try to jump immediately, that would be a little bit obnoxious, you know?

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:28:48] What were your hours like going into this business analyst role? I assume they skyrocketed, skyrocketed. Yeah, 80, 80 hours plus a week about.

Dan: [00:28:56] Yeah, it was. And it was traveling to conferences and going to meetings a lot more. But yeah, all of a sudden you go from leaving work at.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:29:04] Were you doing Pitchbook data work at all? Were you? They wouldn't let you touch the models, I assume initially or they did.

Dan: [00:29:11] I could open up the model and try to learn it myself.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:29:15] But they were you doing any pitch, pitch, book work or was it mostly like you just helping any way you could? Yeah, I would do pitch book

Dan: [00:29:22] Work, but it would be very specific to sort of the niche that I was. I was in and I would work for a product maker. Yeah. So I was kind of a it's kind of a unique

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:29:34] Role on sharing your pay. Like, was it significantly less than the IBM analyst? I assume the bonus was much less, but maybe that base was similar.

Dan: [00:29:40] Yeah, I was in the six figures. It wasn't. The bonus was less, but it wasn't. I think it was probably a little more than half of what a regular

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:29:50] So you're so all in all in six figures, so like what? Like 80 something,

Dan: [00:29:56] Maybe something like that

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:29:58] First year. Ok, that's pretty good. That's a huge jump.

Dan: [00:30:02] Huge jump. Yeah, I went from making

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:30:03] I mean, you're working about 30 extra hours a week, but you're also getting paid for it

Dan: [00:30:07] And you're learning. I think that's yeah, that was a big thing. It was like, you know, I was learning. I was learning things I didn't know I was learning about the business, and but I still wasn't learning

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:30:20] In the moment. Yeah, exactly. You weren't on the deal. So you wait two years working this these long. I got to work on a couple of deals here and there, but it was like, it wasn't

 

Dan: [00:30:31] Really I wasn't getting evaluated the same way. And so that's ultimately like when you're really just working for one person as opposed to being in the analyst pool where you're subject to the roundtable and you're going to get ranked against your peers every year. It's a very different situation in terms of the pressure in terms of the learning.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:30:51] Looking at those kids as they're going through, they're not sleeping and working really hard. Did you feel like how did you feel you stacked up in terms of do you feel like I can compete or you saw the stuff they were doing and you're like, Oh man, I still have a long way to go.

Dan: [00:31:03] I felt like I could compete. I did, yeah, absolutely.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:31:06] Because you were putting in the hours, right?

Dan: [00:31:08] I was a little older than these kids at this point, I was like, I can do this work like this isn't, Yeah, I'm going to need to learn it, but I'll like, I'll put in the hour. And so that was a tricky conversation to try to move over.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:31:20] That's what I want. That's what I would dive into, because that's what a lot of kids find themselves in that tricky conversation. So how did you approach the guy you've been working for over at this point? What was it a year and a half before you had this tough conversation? It was almost two

Dan: [00:31:32] Years, and he was like, you know, he wanted me to. Stay another year with him and then. And then, you know, probably, you know, get promoted. I was like, Jesus, I'm going to get promoted and like, he's like, then you could, you know, then you could go and be an associate and, you know, do execution kind of thing. And I'm like, Well, but then I wouldn't have learned I wouldn't have been working on the deals. And so by the end of that second year, I wasn't learning as much. And so that was really for me, that was kind of big in terms of like. Me re-evaluating.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:32:09] Time for it, it's time for a change, yeah.

Dan: [00:32:13] Yeah, it was time for a change. And like I said, I felt like. I could do the work, I just

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:32:19] What did you say? How did you convince him? I'll let you be an analyst.

Dan: [00:32:22] Yes, he was a good guy. I mean, I think I had to have a couple conversations I talked to, you know, important people in my life about it and like how to have this conversation. I think it's hard when you need to have the sounds. Sounds simple, but. I mean, what I would what I would say to kids, especially kids who are interviewing and stuff like that, we need to have these important interviews, these important conversations with people. It's always good to talk it over with someone else that you trust first and say, Here's what I'm going to say how does this sound? Because you're in a kind of like an emotionally heightened state and you're like, Well, you know, you're almost kind of conflicted in terms of how your ideas are going to come across about something. Mm hmm. So, you know, I remember like here, here's what I'm going to say to this person. And I think I was talking like maybe my mom and my brother or something. They were like, Well, maybe say this instead. You know, say, put it this way or that way, you're kind of, you know, you want to burn any bridges, right?

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:33:18] That's right. So you're kind of trying to walk the tightrope of still being appreciative, but also saying, you know, you want more and you feel like this like an analyst role would provide that additional learning experience to actually be getting the transaction experience. Yeah, exactly. So. So what did he say? So you had the first call he was. He's like, I'll do another year and the first conversation. How did you say, Hey, do you mind chatting for a couple of minutes? You kind of walk into his office

Dan: [00:33:44] And

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:33:45] Have that kind of relationship? So you had so it was easy to talk to him, but.

Dan: [00:33:49] That first I talked to him and then I talked to the group kind of HR manager. We had an internal H.R. manager in the group and. You know, I said this is what I want, but ultimately, so I did, I did that and they, you know, I ended up getting dinged in terms of my experience level because they were kind of like, Well, you don't have the deal experience. So we're not you can't just transition over like that. And you know, I was OK with that because I knew I would be learning again. And I was able to what do you mean you got

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:34:20] Dinged like for an associate role or

Dan: [00:34:22] Something? No, they dinged me. So I really done basically two years at that point. But instead of being an analyst, three, I was like, Well, you're going to go back to an analyst to. Yeah, that's fine. You lose a year. It's not that.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:34:35] Yeah. So OK, so you were like, That's fine.

Dan: [00:34:38] That's fine. I was actually, I was still kind of hard to take to a little bit where you're like, Oh, this is, yeah, you have an ego. You're like, Well, what about this? But. I'm. So, yeah, and then I would say

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:34:52] I wouldn't call it a ding, they were just like, Hey, you can't go analyst three, you just got to all this too. But do they offer that right up, right

Dan: [00:34:59] Up to the analyst one. So they were almost like digging me a year and a half to. But were they

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:35:04] Did they offer that to you right off the bat?

Dan: [00:35:07] No, they didn't. They were like, I was like, I'm going to move. And they're like, That's fine. And it was kind of like I stayed in my position. And then a few months later, they were like, you're not ready to, you're not ready to be an analyst. Three, Right?

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:35:18] What do you mean? You said, I'm going to move?

Dan: [00:35:22] Right, so when I when I had the conversation with my boss, my boss and then the manager, yeah. They're like, are you sure you want to do this? And I was like, yeah, absolutely. I'm very sure they're like, OK, we support you. We'll start. We'll ease you into things. But they didn't exactly tell me right then. And they're like, where? How my evaluation was going to work and everything like that. So ultimately, when they moved me back, it was it was kind of it was hard for me to take to a certain extent. But ultimately I got over it quickly and I

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:35:55] I kind of moved on. And so the initial thing where they said, OK, yeah, we'll support you, then when did they tell you they were going to make you an analyst, basically analyst to start another one? Yeah, right. So it was like a month later,

Dan: [00:36:07] Two months later, it was like probably three or four months later.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:36:11] So but had you been doing any sort of kind of front office work in between those three or four months?

Dan: [00:36:15] I had, but it wasn't like a ton. Probably the best. Yeah, and it wasn't like this was actually really, I would say, like one of the most important things about investment banking. That's so interesting to me is like, there's a lot of internal politics. Hmm. So like building relationships internally in a group with different managing directors. Different VP's different associates as an analyst. Yeah. Is like so important. It's literally like the most important thing that you can do. And so ultimately, that's why I was able to have success when I when I transitioned over despite having that original kind of setback where they were like, Well, we've got to move you back because you're not ready. I was like, You know what? Like, I can prove myself. I can learn. Let me start kind of back closer to the bottom and I'll try to kick ass for for as long as I need to do that.So tell me about like, so you're

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:37:16] There then for another. I mean, you're total almost there for four years. So you're now in the front office for. True front office Iby analyst position for almost two years, right?

Dan: [00:37:30] Yeah, I think it was like ended up being like a year and a half.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:37:32] I want to get to private equity recruiting before we had to call this so. So tell me a little bit about. So like when that came on the radar? Yeah, let me just say quickly. Like I would say, you know,

Dan: [00:37:42] I was able I was really lucky. There's a lot of in within banking there's. Within a group in banking, sometimes there could be managing directors who are or senior vice presidents who are doing coverage, who do very little revenue and you might not learn or maybe in the group I was in, it was an industry group. So there was different products. There was equity, there was M&A, there was debt. And so I knew that M&A is where you learned the most, right? It sounds like at first I wasn't getting put on the best stuff. I was getting put on a like maybe some equity stuff. And I was like, I'm not learning about learning like, this isn't what I came here like I wanted to. I want to learn. I want to learn. So I talked to one of the MDS that I wanted to work for about it. He's like, OK, like, I got it. But like, for like nothing. You know, it took over a month and then finally randomly, they needed someone on one of their deals. For like the weekend, because they were like underwater. And I was like, let's sign me up like, this is what exactly what I want.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:38:46] And it was an M&A deal.

Dan: [00:38:49] It was never a deal. And I just was like, all I can do is do a great job this weekend. And I, like, stayed up all night or whatever. Like, you know, the whole I was there every day, Saturday or Sunday, like you kicked ass on it and they were like, Oh, I was like, I was like, OK. They're like, OK, you're going to just stay on this deal. Like, I was like, That's amazing. And so that was my mindset. And. Like. I. You know, like so, yeah, I'd had a setback, But I was like, let me go and work on the most difficult thing. That I can find, because that's where I'm going to learn the most, and despite having like, I might have really bad hours working on this deal, but like I'm going to learn and you don't always learn, you know, in banking, like some things are going to learn some things you won't. It'll be administrative.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:39:38] Yeah. So it's hard to get those opportunities to get that deal experience on your resume. And that's critical.

Dan: [00:39:43] Yeah. And then so like, I just stayed really focused for that team, and I was able to work on three consecutive M&A deals for them and they're really successful. And they  were like, you know, they wanted me to  stay and had me, you know, got me promoted and everything there. So it was right before I knew ultimately.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:40:06] So you got the analyst to promote their.

Dan: [00:40:10] Yeah, I was offered it. Yeah, I left three months before it got

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:40:15] Triggered. Yeah. But so tell me, when did P even come into the radar? I was your mentor kind of came back in the picture here. It was like.

Dan: [00:40:21] Yeah. And she was like, Oh, your regular analysts were all like, That's like, you should think about P and I was like,

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:40:29] What was her background? Did she go IBP?

Dan: [00:40:33] She went straight to pea soup, was like,

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:40:36] So she was always guiding you to get to get there, OK?

Dan: [00:40:39] Yes. I don't know. I mean, she's just one of the smartest, hardworking people that

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:40:45] I want to bring her on the pod next. Yeah. So. So go, OK. So go on. So, so you. This was kind of on your radar. When did you start talking to recruiters? Did you have to do most of the kind of networking to land that you were at a you're at a boutique, a good name, but it's not obviously like the recruiter aren't pounding down the door to recruit you, especially again the recruiters, especially for

some of the larger upper middle market and mega funds, are still looking at your school. You're still looking at your major. They're still looking at your GPA even three or four years out of school for you. What is it, five years out of school at this point?

Dan: [00:41:19] Yeah, I was five.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:41:21] Yeah, it was five years. You started playing hard, yeah, man. How do you start letting in?

Dan: [00:41:26] Her private equity recruiters are some of the it's really it's really tough.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:41:32] There's a formula and they know what the megaphones and the mental markets want to see, and they're all they're doing is taking a risk if they put a non-traditional candidate there. That's why even take that risk because they're selling, they're filling the seats. So tell me how you actually got interviews or an interview that you turn into a PE offer.

Dan: [00:41:51] Yeah, so it's a great question, so I would say that. Been working on these three M&A deals in a row. I started to really build some momentum internally and build confidence in my skill set, which really helped me. And so. I had spoken recruiters for the two years preceding, and I was kind of like, Oh, I would get in bounds and they would I would say, Oh, I'm interested, and I wasn't getting a ton of interviews, but then all of a sudden right before I was getting promoted. You know, I was getting more I was getting having more of these conversations, and I was able to say, look like I have this promotion offer, I'm still interested in this, but you know, no pressure. I think maybe that gave me a little bit of it was good to have that not a backup plan, but it was good to have another alternative there to take a little pressure off in terms of like this is a good option, too. Yeah, for me. And so. I would say, though, that I got two interviews. I that year, I had a few I had a few interviews middle market pay funds, middle market, yeah, middle market cap firms, a lot of them. I sourced through networking, though, and one in particular where I got very close to getting it. Mm hmm. That would have been staying in New York. Was literally me. Writing someone on LinkedIn and saying that I wanted to grab a coffee with them and then go in and going and have a coffee and I think the big key here is again, like, you go in confidence to these meetings and you're not really asking for something you're just saying like, Hey, like, I just want to give you my background. I'm not going to be like, please give me a job, please. You know,

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:43:43] I got you into the process. They got you into the process.

Dan: [00:43:46] Yeah. All of a sudden, this person who had worked in my bank before and so I knew kind of knew that way a little bit, yeah. But didn't really know him very well at all was like a day later. He's like, Oh, Yeah, like, send me your resume. I'm like, OK. Two days after that, I get reached out to by another person on his fund. And he's like, Yeah, like, why don't you come in for an interview? So just literally like that? Yeah, like, I hadn't asked for anything. I was just like, I think you did well at this.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:44:15] How many? How many people were you? Are you paying on LinkedIn like that per week, would you say?

Dan: [00:44:21] Not that many, obviously was probably one, five. Just one or two.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:44:26] Yeah, let me get coffee. Were they converting to like one coffee chat a week or something?

Dan: [00:44:30] Yeah, probably one out of every, especially if it's someone who has worked in a group before, I think for the most part they'll go grab a coffee with you for 15 20 minutes or

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:44:39] However long is this the is this the firm you ended up this first or no, this one you said you almost got? No, I didn't get it. You get to the final rounds to a second round.

Dan: [00:44:47] No, it was a second round. Yeah, but you know, it's private equity. It doesn't take much to knock you out of a private equity recruiting process. I'll say that having kind of come through a few, it's really competitive.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:45:02] It is. So you end up getting the role that you ended up accepting

Dan: [00:45:05] The one that yeah. So the one that I got actually like I said my. The boss when I first got to this boutique was a product banker, and like I was interviewing, I would I would email with clients a lot. And so this was a client who when I first started there like it had been three and a half four years earlier, was very close with my boss and. You know, I had email with him a ton of times, like send him, send them, send him that, always try to be very professional, to speak to them on the phone, et cetera. And so, you know. Randomly had talked to my boss, my old boss, about this interview I just had and said,

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:45:56] You're  out in the open that you're recruiting me.

Dan: [00:45:59] Yeah, some it's actually really interesting because some MDS in banking are very OK with it's really bizarre.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:46:06] Yeah. And some are overprotective and curse you out. Yeah.

Dan: [00:46:11] And they see what they see folks as future clients, too, if they, you know, go to the right.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:46:15] So that's how he saw it.

Dan: [00:46:17] Yeah, that's how he saw it, and he was like, yeah, he was like, oh, yeah, like that, they're looking for someone now. Their other associate just left. And so things move really, really quickly there. And I was able to land that role and been in that role for about a year and nine months.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):   [00:46:37] Was it tough or was with the relationship? It was basically pretty easy, like the job was tailor made for you? Did you feel like you were in a very competitive process or because the relationship was so strong with your MD?

Dan: [00:46:47] I think it was hard like I had to do. I had to do a model and I had to do a presentation. But I think once I got past that, I felt like and then I went there in person, it was it was not in New York, so this was going to be a relocation. I would say this to folks who are recruiting for P, especially for coming from a non-target like just be open to relocation. And it can be temporary. Like if you do a great job like you'll have a lot more options coming out of that, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So that's fair.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:47:19] So do you feel like? So you had the modeling test, all that stuff, you passed all that stuff, and then it was kind of kept your options open. But did you did you feel like let's talk about pay a little bit? So you never talked about kind of how much it jumped from when you're kind of almost like the assistant to them to the front office? Did the bonuses obviously jump significantly? So you went like one hundred and twenty first year to like 140, then up, then it probably jumped closer to two hundred, something like that.

Dan: [00:47:47] I think it was because I got dinged. I didn't.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:47:50] Oh, you kind of went back. You were like flat.

Dan: [00:47:52] Like, Yeah, I barely went up. Yeah, I barely went up. And then my last year because I was getting promoted like I had a feeling I was going to get really good comp. But the policy in my bank was that if you're alateral higher, which I was wasn't in the two year program and you left before and I got my job offer in March. Yeah, bonuses are in August. So if you left before August, like, that's it, you're out of luck. So I never really got that last bonus. It was all worth it in terms of in terms of the things that you're working at just obviously better hours, you're learning more. What are your hours now like you're doing probably

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:48:32] 80 plus previously, right? If not more.

Dan: [00:48:36] Yeah, the hours are a lot better, although I was traveling a lot, obviously coated, got a lot less hours are probably. In the 60 ish a week region,

Patrick (CEO of WSO):     [00:48:49] What's your do you mind offering your pay for middle market job on?

Dan: [00:48:54] Yes, so I'm in a I'll say this, I'm in a low tax state, so the pay to pay is a little lower. I'm below two hundred, but I'm above 160, so I'll give you that. And it's kind of in there. And so. But it's definitely very different in terms of I would say, there's more pressure in private equity in terms of the actual work you're doing. There's less people to kind of ask questions or check your work and more lonely. Got free, more of a lonely existence, more politics. Yeah. But it's been really good, and so, yeah, I feel very lucky to have kind of had the people in my life that have kind of. Helps me along the way, and I think

Patrick (CEO of WSO):     [00:49:50] What's next for you, business school?

Dan: [00:49:52] Yeah, I think business school is probably going to be next. I think I wrote down some notes, I don't know if you want me to just blast off things. So I said control what you can control, right? So it's really easy to get swept up, I think, for people in. What they can't control in a in a recruiting process and an interview process in a career in general, right? There's always so many variables like investment banking and private equity, like someone's going to have a conversation like in maybe you rub someone the wrong way at some point or you do something wrong and you have to kind of like. Look at like if you have a setback, right, whether it's in an interview, whether it's in your job and you will and investment banking and private equity, I guarantee you will have setbacks, you will have things that you mess up like to just look at it as a learning opportunity and just try to make yourself better and not take things personally and, the other thing. One of the things I wrote down was I wrote, Walk towards the fire, right? And it's something where I think a lot of people in investment banking. I like because I had worked so hard to get to get there, I'd been like. I had a bit of a complex like I like, I'm going to work my fucking ass off. No one's going to work harder than me. And. And so I made it my mission to work on the hardest things a lot of the time I knew I could learn the most, and I think a lot of kids, maybe if they land this job early in their junior year and they've studied finance, like maybe they're kind of like burnt out by the end of their first analyst year. And they're kind of like, I don't know. So you know, what I would say to people is like that internal competitiveness in a bank white does ultimately matter because like, you're going to get more experience, you're going to be more confident in the interviews that you go to unless you do on cycle recruiting, in which case, like you have your job like right when you get there. But. You know, focusing on learning, focusing on being competitive, like really like, yeah, you're getting ranked against your peers, like you want to, you want to not be you want to at least be middle bucket like you do not want to be in the bottom bucket. That's fair. And the last thing, yeah, the only other thing was. I wrote embrace the suck. Embrace the suck, and that means like. You know, if you're doing a job search, you're doing a networking search, if you're a sophomore in college or a junior in college, it's all fun. It's not fun, right? You're like emailing hundreds hundred investment banking hours a week or investment banking associates and trying to get them on the phone for ten minutes. And it's not fun doing that right? It's work. But if you embrace it and you say like, well, this will suck now, but it's going to really help me in my life down the line. It can go a long way, so it was kind of a

Patrick (CEO of WSO):     [00:53:14] I love it. Yeah, and I think it's it's great wisdom. I just think it's hard. At 20, I think at twenty one, twenty two years old, a lot of a lot of kids feel like they know a lot of kids feel like they're doing a lot of work, but they've never really worked 100 hour week. They've never really worked a hundred hour week to think, Oh, I got all these classes, I got sports, I got all this homework. It's, you know, I'm used to this schedule. But now when you work a hundred hours a week, it's very different to hear about it. It's very different to limit. And so when you get into that world, you realize that like an extra 10 20 hours of networking per week is during college is actually pretty easy, right? In comparison. So like if you if you relatively speaking with people think I want investment banking, I usually challenge them. I said, Are you sure you want it because it's brutal, like, are you sure you really want this or you just want the pay? That's a great point. And if you can't, if you can't even be bothered to stay up late and network while you're at school, how are you going to not be miserable in life? Like if you can't find it? If you don't find it interesting enough to talk to people about their careers, then you're probably about this because you're really actually passionate, interested in it. It's going to be tough. Getting really

Dan: [00:54:23] Tough. Yeah, truer words have not been spoken, I think it gets yeah, people see like the glamorous side of it and yeah, it's hard, man. Like you're  at work at 1:00 in the morning trying to figure out really complex shit sometimes or an important analysis to a client or to a buyer. Yeah. One or two in the morning. And that's what I mean about walk towards the fire. Like, you don't hear about that in the interview, right? You don't hear about the like. It's just you at 2:00 a.m. It's important and like, you've got to figure it out. Mm hmm. But I enjoyed that challenge. Like, I embrace that. So. Yeah. right. Exactly. Like you said, if you can't find the time to network, it's going to be a struggle for you, for sure.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):     [00:55:11] Well, I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate all the wisdom that you shared with the listeners. And yeah, thanks. Thanks for everything.

Dan: [00:55:18] Absolutely my pleasure. Patrick, thank you so much for having

Patrick (CEO of WSO):    [00:55:21] Me. 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 Dotcom and till next time.