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WSO Podcast | E173: 2.5GPA to Investment Banking Associate

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In this episode, NonTarget5 shares his path from a non-target school in the Southeast to landing at a top investment bank as an associate. Learn how even at a part-time MBA program with minimal IB placement he beat out kids from Wharton, Fuqua and Darden. Listen to hear how his path of promotions in a corporate role for 7 years played a large role and some advice on what he would have done differently.

 

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WSO Podcast (Episode 173) 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,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:26] Non-target Five shares his path from a non target school in the southeast to landing at a top investment bank as an associate. Learn how, even at a part time MBA program with minimal IB placement, he beat out kids from

NonTarget5: [00:00:38] Wharton, Fuqua and Darden.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:40] Listen to hear how his path of promotions in the corporate role for seven years played a large role and some advice on what he would have done differently. Enjoy. Ok, non-target, five thanks so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast.

NonTarget5: [00:00:59] Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:01] I missed it because I haven't been doing. I haven't done one of these in a while and get back to it now. So thank you for taking the time to chat with me. Absolutely. So it'd be great if you could just give the listeners a short summary of your bio just to get started.

NonTarget5: [00:01:13] True, so I went to a small private school for undergrad in the southeast. I went there for track and wasn't really considered or concerned about grades or what I was doing afterwards, so I changed. My major five times really lacked a lot of focus. You just assumed that everything would work out, which was obviously not the case. But shortly after I had a very brief stint in real estate, Did not like that and spent half of my job trying to find something else. So landed a job as a management trainee for an auto parts distributor, and I've been there for the last seven years, Working my way up from the trainee program to commercial sales to M&A analysis, which is kind of my intro to finance. And then since then I was promoted to category analyst and then product manager.

 

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:04] Very cool, and so tell me what's the latest and then what did you do? Yeah.

NonTarget5: [00:02:10] So in an M&A role, I found I really enjoyed it, spoke with my mentor at the time about what kind of options were out there in finance, and he pointed me to his brother in law, who was an investment banker. And so that kind of got

Who guided me down the investment banking that he suggested. I get my MBA. And so I've been in a part time program for the last year and just landed an investment making associate role.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:38] Awesome, awesome. So let's go all the way back. Let's go all the way back to kind of undergrad. You said you were kind of a little bit lost like you kind of went there for more athletics and for people who find themselves like, what? How did you like? How were you approaching the summers, for example? Were you doing a lot of different internships? Were you just messing around like your sophomore year, summer or junior summer? I mean, you can be honest, like it's, you know, it's just trying to get a sense of what you were exploring and kind of what your your thought process was.

NonTarget5: [00:03:09] Right. So I I was not thinking long term at all. I spent the summers training for track and was not really concerned with internships. I definitely didn't know anything about finance, so I wasn't thinking about that. My assumption was I would follow my dad and my grandpa's footsteps, which is going to the corporate world for a while and then starting the company. So I did an entrepreneurship and management double major and did an internship my second to last semester during school.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:38] And what was that interested in? What type of thing the real estate won or is it something else?

NonTarget5: [00:03:42] So this was actually It was a college and a sports apparel brand. There were a start up

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:52] And your GPA wasn't that high. Correct.

NonTarget5: [00:03:55] Correct. Two point five for both entrepreneurship and management, just to just do the bare minimum to get the peace.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:04:01] And so. You know, it's interesting, because then you said when you graduated, did you have no job lined up or like, how did you get that job in real estate? It was just kind of like, Hey, we'll pay you a Commission or what? When did you when did it kind of hit you like, Oh, wait, a second, I got to start making money.

NonTarget5: [00:04:16] Well, I actually I'd actually secure a job about six months before graduation, but it just so happened that a couple of my friends who were in that job was a security company. They said there's a lot of ethical issues. And I found that out the week before graduation, so I decided not to take it. My dad said he'd always kind of regretted not going into commercial real estate, and he had some friends and I personally was not ready for that because there was really no structure and I didn't. I liked a lot of discipline at the time. And so I wasn't getting any commission checks, really. I realize, you know, it's not very cool to live in your parents basement and not make any money. So I started getting a little bit more focused, and that management training program definitely knocked some discipline into me.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:03] Do you feel like you were just a late bloomer in terms of maturity and stuff like that?

NonTarget5:  [00:05:08] Yes. But once I kind of once it kind of, I guess I started figuring things out, I figured them out quickly.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:15] Tell me about this management trainee program, you know? Tell me the company, obviously, but just tell me a little bit about like why it was good for you specifically because I know it sounds almost like an FDP program or one of these things where there's like a little bit of a rotation is that is that accurate or no?

NonTarget5: [00:05:28] Yes. So you get you get put into retail stores, you get put into distribution centers, offices, sales team and it's very rigid. And I would say there was a similar, I guess, maybe a little bit of similarity to leadership. They're very hard on you like you would get in a fraternity. There's long hours, But it definitely gives you a lot of good skills and gives you a lot of self discipline. And if you do well in it, it can be a way to springboard your career.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:59] So tell me a little bit about how you even found that job. So you're in commercial real estate, you're getting no commission checks. Are they paying you any sort of draw at all or a salary? Commercial real estate job.

NonTarget5: [00:06:11] The last couple of months I was in that I decided to get a draw and then was out within two or three months and I had to pay it all back. So that's done.

But how much was that like

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:21] A couple, a couple of grand or something like that?

NonTarget5: [00:06:23] Yeah, thing was about three thousand. Yeah.

 

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:26] And so then as you're like, you're at this job, you're realizing it's not a good fit. How did you come across this automotive business and this training program?

NonTarget5: [00:06:34] So I actually utilized my network. A family friend worked at this company, it was fairly high up and said, Hey, you're starting this route. It's every six months to have the program. And there was another program coming

NonTarget5: [00:06:48] Up, so I applied For it and fortunately got it.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:52] And he was willing to put his or her neck out for you, knowing that you had kind of kind of flown through school.

NonTarget5: [00:06:58] Yes, that was a big risk. Yeah, that's great. Definitely didn't put my GPA on the resume, though, and fortunately, they actually did was nice.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:07:05] Did you have any interviews where they did ask? I did not. Very lucky. So you just kept the GPA off kind of had some sections on track in there and some other stuff. And then so. You kind of go into this interview for this place, was it easy to get? Was it hard, easy to get because of the connection or do you feel like it was still tough, tough interview

NonTarget5: [00:07:27] For this training? I think it was still tough. It's pretty rigorous. It was about two month process, seven interviews they send you to almost like a psych evaluation kind of place where they kind of figure out if you are management material or a future leader material. And I guess they can see that there were some potential there. And what do you what were

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:48] The types of stuff? Were they putting you through, like what types of questions and stuff like that? That's different. I usually hear that. So it's  cool to hear a different type of interview

NonTarget5: [00:07:56] Is more like, how do you how do you solve problems? How do you think about things or are you more creative or you more? Do you work more well within a system? Um, I guess management philosophies, which is kind of hard for someone coming out undergrad, but. They definitely focus on those kind of things.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:17] And where did you lie, like where did you fit? Were you a creative person or do you like system?

NonTarget5: [00:08:22] It's funny. They said I was one of the least creative people I've ever come Across, but I did work well within systems and they said I was highly resilient. Other than that, they don't share any other information. It's kind of kind of weird.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:37] Are you typically have you been told you're very left brain dominant then? Your analytical. Yes.

NonTarget5: [00:08:44] Yes, definitely more analytical. Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:46] Very cool. So, OK, so you're kind of going through this. You pass all the tests. They give you an offer. What's what's the pay like? You know, you're in a small region here, small, small city or regional city. I assume it's pretty low for a trainee program, but pretty.

NonTarget5: [00:09:02] Forty five thousand all in

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:03] Forty five thousand all in love it. So you're kind of like, Hey, this is better than the basement, right? You decide to stay living with your parents? Or did you move out at that point?

NonTarget5: [00:09:12] So as soon as I got that first check, I moved out. And this is kind of a funny story. When they told me what I was going to get paid in the final interview, I started smiling because I was so happy and the guy stopped the interview and said, Just a quick tip don't ever smile when someone does what you're going to pay.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:31] That's great advice to everyone is so happy. You probably you probably would have taken it if you had you probably taken it if he had told you twenty five thousand right.

NonTarget5: [00:09:42] I would have taken honestly, I would have had to find a room that I couldn't afford rent on my own.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:47] Did you end up going with the remainder you found you got your own place?

NonTarget5: [00:09:50] I look at my own place at that level. That's the great thing

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:53] About low cost of living area. Ok, so so you're you've got a forty five thousand dollars salary. You're whatever you're out of school or a little less than a year out of school, you did the commercial real estate thing. You didn't work out. You start here suddenly, you know. But tell me a little bit, what's the percentage of people who get that job? Is it like 20 percent of the one out of five applicants get in?

NonTarget5: [00:10:13] Yes, it's pretty small. Actually, there was my class was actually the biggest ever at the time. It was 15 in the whole country. And it's a it's about an almost a 20 billion dollar company. So it's a big company.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:25] Ok, so you're getting in here, they're ready to work, you. What's the first thing is they do you get there the first day? Where are they train you at all? Like, is there like some sort of groundwork for the first month or are they just

throwing you to the wolves

NonTarget5: [00:10:38] After you to the wolves? I had a six month rotation in the stores and then six months in a distribution center and offices, and in six months with the sales team.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:47] So it's like a two year thing.

NonTarget5: [00:10:50] It was about a year and a half, a little over

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:52] A year and a half to six months, six months. Okay, so retail, so you're like stocking shelves, you're just like working, you're doing like

NonTarget5: [00:10:57] Tough work deliveries. Yeah. Working the counter, stocking parts, all that kind of stuff.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:02] Yeah. And then the next six months, what's the second one?

NonTarget5: [00:11:05] You're working in the distribution center, so it's a little it's more stocking and pulling and loading trucks, but also there's work with offices.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:14] So tell me, like how much was it physical labor versus the working with offices and like, you know, communication?

NonTarget5: [00:11:22] I would say it was probably seventy five percent physical labor, twenty five percent working in the offices.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:30] And so at any point during this kind of rotation, are you thinking to myself like, I can't do this long term? Or are you thinking, Hey, this is great?

NonTarget5: [00:11:36] I always tell myself it's just short term, I don't have to do this forever and trying to keep in mind that people are watching me at all times. So I was trying to do a good job and they would they would test me at times and put me on really difficult, physically demanding assignments at times. But it's like hazing a little bit. It really was.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:56] Yeah. Tell me about tell me about the most physically demanding thing they made you do. Um, it was one week where they had

NonTarget5: [00:12:04] A records room. And it had not been. Cleaned out in over 20 years, and I'm not exaggerating. They had records in there, you're only supposed to keep the records for five years. There were records from the seventies and so my assignment was to clean it all up, organize it and come up with a system to where that would never happen again. I had a week to do it ended up clearing out thirty five pallets of this garbage. It was pretty insane, but I got it done, and actually I was sent a picture last year of the room and it was just as how I left it. That was pretty encouraging. They were happy with it.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:42] The system the system has kept up. It works. Yeah. That's awesome. How did you get through that? How did you even know how to do that? It's just like, Hey, figure it out, kid, and you just like, we're like, OK, I have a week to do this. Like, how did you even did you have anybody helping you or is it just you?

NonTarget5: [00:12:59] He allowed me to get one temp worker. And so I had to leverage my lack of creativity and come up with a plan.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:07] Love it. Ok, so you're going through that. Tell me about then what's the trainee program is coming to an end? What's the what's the next step? They bring you in a room and offer you something?

NonTarget5: [00:13:16] Yeah. So everyone kind of gets placed based off where there's needs of the business just so happened that a few people have been promoted out of sales. And so I was able to manage our commercial sales team. And so our that sales

team is more geared towards the wholesale customers and store owners. And so I spent about a year and a half in my territory traveling around working with store owners and their wholesale customers.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:44] And so what does that mean? Like, you're going shaking hands, meeting people and then giving them a price or something like that, like helping working with pricing?

NonTarget5: [00:13:51] Yeah, pricing is part of it. So the store owners, we would work a lot with their top wholesale customers, so we would sign them up on programs that would get them better deals or reduce their costs. How did you learn

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:06] How to do this like you're doing physical labor one second, the next second, you're traveling and shaking hands and then doing all the stuff. Is there anybody leading you? Is there a person kind of next to you or you know what I mean? Are you going into office and somebody is kind of a mentor?

NonTarget5: [00:14:19] So I had I had an office time about once a week, but the rest of the time the there was someone that was managing who actually used to do that job. You wrote around for about a month and that was all I had to do was just figuring out.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:35] Very cool. It's interesting because it's interesting they just throw you to the wolves like that, given that like it's a pretty important role not just to manage, but the pricing, especially like how do they know you're not going to just get taken advantage of in the margins? Go to go to shit.

NonTarget5: [00:14:47] Yeah, it's a lot of throwing to the wall. There's not really a lot of meat left on the bones. Have you been thrown to the wolves? So many times you've got to really adapt. It's quick.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:55] And so then after that rotation, you're after a year and a half there. You're still with this company at any point. Are you thinking, Hey, I should go do something else?

NonTarget5: [00:15:04] I mean, I had gotten promoted, I let's see, since I've been there, I've been promoted four times within six years. So yeah, I felt like there is a clear path to being maybe executive one day as long as I want to stay there. It's easy and big companies for people to hide, so for proactive people, there are certainly some opportunities I thought that I could. I can leverage that for sure. So you're wholesale manager type and then tell me about how you suddenly got into this mergers and acquisitions kind of corp dev role. Yeah, our corp. Yeah, Corp dev. Because that's such a seems like a weird jump. All of a sudden, it's like your sales.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:44] You're managing salespeople, shaking hands, and then they're like, No, here, open a financial model. Tell us, should we buy this company or not? For how much?

NonTarget5: [00:15:49] Exactly. So total 180 again,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:51] And it's not like you're a you weren't a finance major, right? You were. You had, I guess you had, you know, entrepreneurship and management. You had no, maybe you had some finance classes, but it's not like you're used to building an M&A model.

NonTarget5: [00:16:02] I say right, and I had not spent one day in excel before that role.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:07] So how did that even come about? Like, talk to me about that. I think that's really interesting, that internal transition from going from one, you also moved at that point. So like going from one region to the next and what even like, why did you put your hand up for that and tell me what that role? Because I think there's a lot of listeners who oftentimes don't know how to get into that role, because I think honestly, probably the reason or one of the main reasons you landed an investment banking job is you had this part on your resume.

 

NonTarget5: [00:16:33] Yeah. And I mean, so working with career resources at the MBA program I'm at right now. They made sure that you need to highlight that that role,

Right? So. Honestly, I think part of it was. I had done a good job in the training program, in the sales program, and they wanted to expose me to as many different things in the business as possible. They realize, you know, maybe he might crash and burn here, but he's least he's going to see a part of the business he hadn't seen before.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:09] Are they? Are they grooming you here to be like eventual CEO? What's the deal? Why are they giving you so many promotions and how are you doing so well?

NonTarget5: [00:17:17] So I think there is a level of grooming here for trainees that do well and continue to do well and stay with the Company. There is definitely a clear path to executive management assuming you keep producing. Yeah. So they are I think there is a level of that, But I definitely think they wanted to expose me to different areas of the business. They had just acquired a giant company in Europe, and they are also acquiring a bunch of small groups in the States. So it wasn't traditional. I'm an alien like you would see an investment banking, for example. It was more. And work with our store owners or potential store owners and forecast their store pals out five years based off our stores or other independent stores close to them, things like that,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:02] There's really more DNA for potential acquisition. It's almost like

NonTarget5: [00:18:06] I would say it was more like that.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:08] Ok, but you're smart to actually have called. I mean, did they call it a merger? Mergers and acquisitions role? Or did they call it that? Or were you smart enough to put that on your resume and change it? No, they called it that. They call it even better. You don't have to. You didn't have to fudge it on your wrist.

Right? Very cool. Ok, so you're kind of doing that. You're looking at you're looking at potential acquisitions, though, right? And evaluating them based on forecasts or no.

NonTarget5: [00:18:30] So I was evaluating stores, but it was really again more just working with the owners and showing what was possible if they join our program.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:40] Got it. So you're putting together almost like the pitch, right?

NonTarget5: [00:18:45] And I definitely loved working with entrepreneurs like that, working, getting exposure to executives in the company and with our suppliers. There was a lot of acquisition rebates from our suppliers that I was reconciling. So there's a

Pretty good exposure to different people.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:00] That's great, so then you know, what's interesting about that is at that point, I would have assumed, Hey, you're going to go to business school and you're going to go now, try to get investment banking, get you were there for another over three years. Yes. Doing other stuff. So tell me a little bit about why were you only in seventh in that mergers and acquisitions role for seven months? Why did you move so quickly to something else and then tell me a little bit about the progression and when the decision of, Hey, I want this MBA and I know you said somebody had was in investment banking and that kind of started that path. But let's talk a little bit more about that and kind of why you thought it'd be a good fit.

NonTarget5: [00:19:35] Yeah. So the reason why it was such a quick stint in that position, they'd already started the giant acquisition before I got there. And so I was just kind of helping us. Things died down with that, but also they ended up taking out. I was technically in the product department in that role. They ended up moving everything. All of that worked strictly into the finance department, so I stayed in product. But then I moved into a category analyst position, and that is when I started investigating more finance related roles because I really enjoyed that. And yeah, I stayed on as category analyst while after I'd spoken with my mentors, brother in law, who's an investment banker, decided, you know, maybe an MBA is the right thing to do. I didn't do it. The first year that he told me about it, I kept because I was getting promotions and think it was totally necessary.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:31] But at this point, can we talk about pay and each step so is forty five, forty five when you're on trainee, then as a wholesale manager, I assume that was a big jump. But tell me what? What was that? Sixty five, seventy five? Fifty five. Just a ten thousand bone bump, and you're managing all those people.

NonTarget5: [00:20:49] Twenty five. Wow. I have a bigger percentage bone like I can get up to a twenty five percent base salary of my bonus, which was

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:58] Up to around 70, up to around 70 K.

NonTarget5: [00:21:01] Right. But they kept they would always find excuses to cap it. It's a very cheap company.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:07] Ok, so a year and a half in, then you get the merger and acquisition rolls at a bump pay bump.

NonTarget5: [00:21:13] Yes, I got bumped to sixty five. Ok. And then they considered the category analyst role. A lateral side did not get paid pay for that. And then once I got bumped up to product manager, that was seventy five.

 

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:26] But still and you're not so you're still not even you're

still not hitting six figures here.

NonTarget5: [00:21:31] No, I've never been paid more than a first year analyst, an investment bank.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:36] So you're very happy about this jump to investment banking. Oh, I am thrilled. I've got a different perspective. Can you tell me what can you tell me? What your yeah, you have a different perspective. Can you tell me what your offer is? I assume it's one twenty five or even better for base salary, so

NonTarget5: [00:21:52] It's a little higher than that with a good sign on bonus. And then end of year bonus is kind of up in the air. I think they've been healthy for the last year or so, so I'm hoping for at least six figures after the first full year.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:05] Yes, I mean, you could be doing you could be clearing close to three hundred thousand plus, right as an associate or yeah, I mean more than

NonTarget5: [00:22:10] Tripling, almost maybe quadrupling your pay when I'm at.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:15] Yeah, which is just insane. So it just goes to show you. So I want to get into this, this MBA. So you took a while and your brother in law was like, kind of like, what are you doing? Go, go get an investment bank. Was he pushing you hard for it or what?

NonTarget5: [00:22:28] So he so he's it's my mentor, his brother in law. He he's a he's a big dog in the area, does extremely well. He loves to talk about what he does and he got me excited about it. So the more I talked to him, the more I wanted in. So after about a year, I applied to a part time MBA program in my area.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:51] And why did you do that? Why not just go to a full time program? It's just for financial reasons.

NonTarget5: [00:22:58] Uh, that's a small part of it, but he was brutally honest, he said, I think you can definitely break in, but it's not guaranteed. And if you're getting groomed for this product manager position, you might want to check out a part time program because there's going to be a lot of on-the-job learning in that product manager job. And so I didn't want to miss out on the on the learning there. It's definitely a great job in our company. It can lead to further things. But I think on the job learning the location of where the Program is in the flexibility of it. Mm hmm. Knowing what I know now. I might consider the full time more just because when you're working, you don't get to do those summer internships, you miss out on that.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:43] You don't get summer internships. I'd say you don't get the full on dedication of prepping for interviews. I think it puts you at a huge disadvantage in a part time program. I mean, my guess is, you know, it's a good school, but it's not like a top target for investment banks. Maybe a little, maybe in the in the southeast, it's not bad, but you know, you're talking a handful of banks, you're not talking 30 40 banks,

NonTarget5: [00:24:05] Right? Yeah, maybe just a handful of banks will recruit at this particular school in this area, and that's about it.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:13] That thing that being said, given your trajectory, your pay, you were getting promoted a lot, but you might have had a tough time with your undergrad GPA and all that stuff to get into a top school.

NonTarget5: [00:24:23] Yeah, that is true. How was your

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:26] How was your GMAT?

NonTarget5: [00:24:28] So that's I'm glad you asked. Yeah, I actually didn't take it. I instead, I wrote a letter to the admissions director and explained why I was ready for the program. I had a good story about my GPA. Look at my resume. I'm on track to do some great things at this company. I think I'm ready now. And so she ended up calling me into an interview the next week, and I got offered the next day

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:56] Without  that. This is for the for the part time MBA program. Yes. Yes, that's thing is like, I get the sense of like it's the part time is great in the sense of. It's a little bit more of a hedge, right, you're not taking all this risk of like taking on tons of student loans and all that stuff. I mean, maybe you had some loans still from it, but at least you're bringing in some cash while you're studying.

NonTarget5: [00:25:20] Yeah, that's definitely a plus to it. But if you if you're someone who is dead set on an investment banking, I would I would strongly consider a full time.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:28] Yes, you tell me. Yeah. So tell me how long? It's a full two year, three year program. What is it? How to this part time? So it's part time.

NonTarget5: [00:25:37] It's two years. But I will be finishing in just under a year and a half, so I'm taking additional classes on top of the class. I'm already doing and working. So that is actually a pro for me. Is that shown investment banks that I'm willing to grind because I'm working about 55 hours a week, plus at least 10 hours of class, plus the additional class, plus all the investment banking prep I'm doing and whatever free time I have left.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:07] Yeah, so they love it. They're like, Yep, that's perfect. It's about what you'll be working at a bank, right? Right. So, OK, so that's great. So you kind of convince them. Tell me a little bit of how you got these interviews. Was it you said your brother in law's mentor or it was, you know, tell me how you how you ended up landing any interviews, networking. So how would you go about it? All that good stuff.

NonTarget5: [00:26:31] I led with my mentors, brother in law for the regional boutique firm that's in the area. And so I would name drop him. And end up getting into the super danger. From there, I leveraged My colleges or my MBA programs network. They have they have a mentor program, and it just so happens that one of the heads of the investment banks here went there for undergrad. And so he is now a mentor for me, and that got me in the door at that bank and then our career resources manager previously recruited for the bank. I ended up getting an offer. So I had some irons in the fire, probably about four or five banks and got my offer last month.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:22] And which was it the one that your you had the strongest connection?

NonTarget5: [00:27:28] I would say I had the most connections I spent the better part of six months in networking there. Yeah, just calling hiring managers, calling recruiters, staying in touch. How were the super days? What were they like or

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:40] How many side of the four to five banks that you kind of start off with? You had first rounds with all of them. Yes. So first rounds

NonTarget5: [00:27:47] Of all them, I made it to two super days before I got my offer and the other super days I called them and told them I'd already accepted an offer, so I didn't. That was kind of the end of this process. And so and so how were you?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:00] How were you prepping with this besides Wall Street versus investment banking interview? Just kidding. I don't even know if you use it. Just name dropping there. But yeah, tell me, how were you prepping like technicals mostly behavioral. I mean, you had a good story, like you said with the promotions and the.

NonTarget5: [00:28:16] Yeah, I did not want it at the time I started. I did not know about Wall Street races. Sorry to say I did not use the sources. I use Wall Street prep a lot. And so I was working on my accounting value for my valuation modeling investment banking prep. So I definitely I was definitely weakened at technical, so I invested a lot of time in that. Yeah, I felt like I could craft a good story. I think something that's kind of underrated for people that are looking to break in. I think you need to be very good at communication, both verbal and written. I think that was something that helped me kind of stand out know when I'm in the super heading into the Super Day at the bank I had an offer from, they sent an email out to all the participants and I look in there, I see Wharton booth, Stern, Darden King and Flagler Football, and I'm like, Man, this is kind of intimidating, but I knew I'd put in the work. I just had to go and execute. Fortunately, I did. But yeah, there's a lot of resources out resources out there. I know there's the Rosenbaum and Parol Investment Banking textbook. How did that come together?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:25] Yeah. And so how did you kind of beat out all those top MBAs? Well, if you like you were, you were you were competitive on the technicals, you knew the financial modeling, all that stuff, you had taken those courses. Tell me about like, So technical as you were fine. You just nailed it.

NonTarget5: [00:29:44] I honestly, I did nail it. Granted, they weren't too to I mean, it's fairly basic. Yeah. Walk me through a DCF. How do you get the free cash flow? What are the valuation methodologies? We're good candidates. I had all that prepped like I did. Great on that. I definitely focused a lot on my story and tried to highlight areas where I might not be as strong in this as the ideal candidate. But here's how that better prepared me and will make me a good person long term.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:19] Interesting. Yes, you played up the Hey, I'm here to stick it out, I'm here to make a career out of this right now.

NonTarget5: [00:30:24] That was that was a big part of it. Yeah, I think they

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:27] They're they get burned so much with the associates coming and leaving so fast and they want somebody kind of stick around long term. So maybe you convince them that you were a banker for life.

NonTarget5: [00:30:37] Yeah, and I think that and make her for life, but also, you know, I've got a lot of good management experiences. I've been put in some difficult positions. I think they can see that I can handle tough problems, but also tough hours as well. Yeah, yeah. Which is important.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:54] That's great. So you nail the technicals, the behaviors you had the. You have the right story sort of allowed you to kind of. Be competitive with a lot of these top MBAs when you know your school, although

In the southeast, isn't near the level of those schools in terms of placements, right? Right, exactly. So tell me. Yeah. You excited or nervous?

NonTarget5: [00:31:15] I am so excited. If you look at a lot of my post recently on Wall Street races, I'm always trying to encourage people. I know there's a lot of negativity sometimes, which is typical of most forms. I mean. Yeah. On a car forum, people are just going to post about car issues they're having and how it fits right in the investment banking forums. You see a analysts, they're going through the grinder. So yeah, I try to encourage people to think long term about it. I think it's a great career for people based off of my research. I'm very excited to start next year.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:49] I'll be curious to hear, like once you're a year, maybe we could do another podcast just to get an update of like, what's it really like on the inside? The expectation versus reality? You know, you'll be like the pay's amazing. But while my lifestyle is right, it's pretty rough, so I'd be good to get like an honest assessment. Maybe we can do that in a year or two.

NonTarget5: [00:32:08] What's interesting I actually met with I had coffee with one of the guys that interviewed me last week, and he was really encouraging. It sounds like the culture is great. That's awesome, people. Since the pandemic, people don't have a problem taking work home, starting at six and being with their families. So that'll be good for me. Someone who's married with a kid? That's great. I know my wife was kind of worried about that, but she done.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:32] Yeah, well, you can go home, have inner, put the kid downd and then go back to work if you need to write late night. Great Wall, non-target, five anything in any of their final words of wisdom before we call it.

NonTarget5: [00:32:44] Yeah, I would say if you're looking to break in. You can't change the past and certainly if you've got a good GPA at a great school, that can only help, you don't. I would encourage everyone to get it as high of a GPA as they can. But if you don't, there's ways in. I think one of the best ways you can get in actually is I think everyone should have a mentor, whether you're in or you're out. Doesn't matter what field you're in. I think everyone should have a mentor. I think I think it's huge. It helps point people in the right direction. There's wisdom there that you wouldn't otherwise have.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:16] So for sure, for sure. Yeah. For those that don't know that are listening, I think we talked about it, but we have over nine hundred mentors now in our The Wall Street mentors service. So if you are looking to chat with somebody, you can find. Basically, anyone with any sort of background from any region in the world they're from that's making private equity, Corporate Finance Corp, venture

Capital, you name it. We have people who have been there and done that, so take a look if you're interested. All right, thank you so much for your time, and I think this is really helpful.

NonTarget5: [00:33:50] I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:51] All right. And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street Oasis. If you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis. And till next time.

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