WSO Podcast | E184: SE Asian Immigrant at 15yo Breaks into Banking from Non-target and UMM Growth Equity Fund
About
In this episode, Howie shares his story as an immigrant moving to the United States when he was 15 years old. Learn how he picked up English so fast, how he did so well in high school, how he became the first member in his family to attend college, how a back office internship at a bank opened his eyes to investment banking and how he ended up landing that first IB internship. We hear about how he converted the internship into a full-time offer and his risky approach that paid off during private equity recruiting.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 184) 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
Howie: [00:00:19] Different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:25] In this episode, Howie shares his story as an immigrant moving to the United States when he was just 15 years old. Learn how he picked up English so fast, how he did so well in high school, how we became the first member of his family to attend college. How a back office internship at a bank opened his eyes to investment banking. And how he ended up landing that first investment banking internship. We hear about how he converted the internship into a full time offer and his risky approach that paid off during private equity recruiting.
Howie: [00:00:51] Enjoy.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:58] Ok, Howie, thanks so much for joining the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Yeah, thanks for having me. So it'd be awesome if you could just give the listeners a short summary of your bio.
Howie: [00:01:07] Yeah, of course. Happy to. So I was born and raised in Southeast Asia, immigrated to the states. My family, when I was in high school, went to college in the Rocky Mountain area and did a variety of different internships in college accidentally. I like to say that accidentally discovered investment banking and then decided that it would be a good job, at least out of college. So after that, successfully landed investment banking and investment banking job and then spend more in the year there. And now I'm transitioning to a peer associate role at the upper middle market firm.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:42] Very cool. Perfect, so let's start all the way back. Kind of well, even before you moved to the states, what was the thought process where your parents like, Hey, we, we moved to the states? What was the thought process? Obviously, choosing school, you didn't have target school versus non target on your mind, probably when you were. I don't know. What was it,
Howie: [00:01:59] 18, 18 years old?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:01] Tell me, 15 15. Yeah, that's when you were. So tell me, like what? What did you move out to the kind of Midwest area Rocky Mountains? Or did you, you know, did they settle there that, you know, for certain reason? I'd love to hear more. Yeah, it was more of a family reunion type of immigration. So, you know, just my parents decided to move to the stage to
Howie: [00:02:25] Just join my family that were already are already here in the Rocky mountain area. So, yeah, when I first moved jobs, they didn't get a choice of like which state it want to move to.it was totally up to my parents and my family. And so it's just my luck. I like to say it. I got landed to a Rocky Mountain state and went to high school there, public high school. So when the public college as well and I think my thought process there for the college was, I mean, really, I am first person, my family go to college and my parents didn't really go to college either. So it was a lot of like navigating the college process or higher education on my own and definitely got lucky to be able to just find a lot of mentors when I was in high school and they helped me with the college application process. and then, yeah, and then at that point, I didn't really know about the Ivy League, obviously didn't know about the target and non-target school or anything like that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:31] Even in your junior like high school year, you didn't know about this. Yeah, I didn't know. I mean, I knew I knew about Harvard and you know, their names are internationally recognized. Yeah, but not like, you
Howie: [00:03:42] Know, the Penn Wharton or the NYU schools of the world at all.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:48] So I mean, because you did pretty well in high school, right? Like you're a top student and stuff and it was English A.. Tell me about that. I just was English. A second language. Yeah, English was my second language. I didn't speak much when I first got here. I mean, I was able to, like, introduce myself and say
Howie: [00:04:06] What my name is, but was not able to have a conversation or anything like that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:12] That's at 15 years old. Yeah. 15. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So got really lucky there, and I got paired up with some excellent English at second language teachers who I'm still in touch with until today. They taught me like my first very first English words, and, you know, and that's kind of really got the momentum going. Very cool. And so how were you able to do so well in school, in high school with English as a second language? Yeah, I think I just I mean, I realized I thought you might. Were you studying all night where you started putting a lot of our just studying like new English words? And like I would, I remember I would put like stickers of new English words like my fridge on my desk or anything like that, and I made a promise myself I would at least learn new five new English words every day. I did that for like six months or so. And yeah, I went with a bit of luck as well. I can say I can. I have a lot of support. And not only from my parents, but also from my high school teachers. And that got me going. And yeah, and we went to college application time. I just thought, Oh, I'm only sending family as well. And so what? With the family, I'm the only son in the family.
Howie: [00:05:30] Only son.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:31] Yeah. What did your parents? What did your parents do when they came out, when they came here? Yeah. So my mom, she's a tailor, so she helps, you know, just making like designing clothing for the for the community. Ok, so, so fast forward, you kind of start applying to colleges. It was just one college. You applied to a bunch of colleges. What was the thought process? Was it automatic entry because you did well in high school kind of thing? Yeah, I think I applied to apply to go to Harvard and Yale the world and got a couple of interviews and ultimately decided that the cost would be a lot to attend those colleges. And at the time, you know, I went by the time I applied to college, I had only been to the state for about maybe
Howie: [00:06:15] More than a year. So my application was to treat it as an international student. So I was the I would be paying, you know, like a hundred grand a year just to attend school, right? So not really something that my family could afford at a time, not even to now. i didn't know that. So when
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:34] You apply, you have to be in the states for how many years, typically before five years to be treated as a
Howie: [00:06:39] Resident. Yeah. Oh wow.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:40] Ok, five years. Ok? So, OK, so you're applying to schools, you're thinking cost matters. Do these public universities charge as much for international or more for international as well, more for international as well? so which is not as expensive, obviously, as the. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. How much were you paying for your? so yeah, for my college, I actually got enough scholarships to go there for free. Nice. Yeah. So like not one big full scholarship I got like multiple ones that added up, and that helps with the cost of attending. very cool. And so tell me a little bit about, you know, why the business? Why did you start going to the business school there? When was finance on the mind and how did you accidentally learn about investment banking? Hopefully. I wonder if it's Wall Street Oasis? Maybe not. Yeah, tell me a little bit about how that happened. yeah. And then a Wall Street racers definitely made
Howie: [00:07:30] An appearance when I, you know, when I got to my sophomore or junior year. But yeah, I think the reason why I decided to study financial business in college is, I think, you know, coming from my original country, we have a different economic system. and I've always been curious about like how the economic system like the market works in the US. I didn't even know that, you know, like one company could acquire another company when I got it and I was like, literally a foreign concept to me. Yeah. And you know, it's like different economic systems have always been fascinated about that and just decided to study that subject just to just really just a point of interest. And obviously, as an immigrant, you know, my parents would not let me just study one major so decided to. So my economics was my top choice. And you know, this had to take up finance as well just because. And so, yeah, I started in college. You didn't. Know what I wanted to do for a while, I thought I would want to go to law school one day because I did debate in high school, you know, and probably saw too many legal dramas like movies. So it said, OK, maybe I'll look into law school. And yeah, so I spent a summer working at like an investment bank in the back office doing legal work, compliance work for them. And that was when I discovered, Okay, I don't want to go to law school and become a lawyer because I've had a lot of unhappy lawyers at the firm. Yeah. And also that's how I discovered investment banking as well. Just being just being around it or being there. Yeah, just being around them. And my role was to like preparing paperwork and documents for the investment bankers
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:20] So that that legal internship kind of back office internship, that was what sophomore summer that was like freshman. That was freshman summer. Oh, that's really good. So how did you even get that? I mean, it sounds like, I mean, it was it was the office close by that type of thing. I just closed. My office was
Howie: [00:09:34] Literally just like maybe ten minutes drive away
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:37] From me, but a freshman summer internship or super hard to come by. So how should all the other freshmen go about it? Did you talk to people? How did you even land it? Yeah. So they actually they recruited pretty heavily on campus. So they went to, you know, they went to our classes to introduce themselves and like they have like on campus recruiting events and things like that. So yeah, their presence, they make sure their presence are known. Yeah. and so did you have to interview for it? Yeah, I did. I did. And how was that? I'm sure it was very much like a y.Yeah, I was pretty.
Howie: [00:10:13] I mean, looking back now, I think it definitely showed up unprepared. Yeah. And you know, I mean, they asked me why I want to do this and I just thought, OK, you know, I like the brand name and, you know, I'm a hard worker. I'm willing to work hard. And you know, yeah, that's I think that's why
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:31] You have to say it again. It's probably all you have to say to get a freshman summer internship. Well, maybe not. Maybe not nowadays. But so OK, maybe for back office is a little bit easier. They were just looking for four people to
Howie: [00:10:40] Kind of work hard, like you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:42] Said, and just be diligent. So you come in there, you say, OK, legal is not for me. Oh, what's this investment banking thing? And then you hear it's hard to get into, Oh, you want it even more now? So going into sophomore year, at least its freshman summer, you learn about it, you know, sophomore year, what's your plan? What do you do differently? You're now kind of doing finance major in economics, but what else? What else are you doing? yeah, yeah. So that's after the freshman internship. I realized that, OK, this is something I want to seriously look
Howie: [00:11:10] Into, and that's when I also realized I had a rude awakening that my school is not really under the radar for of investment banks. So I started reaching out to, you know, a couple of senior guys or alums who had successfully landed investment banking jobs from my school. And that was, you know, in our best year, we would land maybe like five people in this ranking right
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:37] Across, right? Yeah. yeah, we have maybe like a thousand people in the business school. Every year we would land like five and four and a half of them would be in San Francisco or California, you know, while the other person would be like in New York or something like that. So I reached out to them and went to my school is credit to and to their credit, they, you know, the majority of them responded and
Howie: [00:12:02] Was really willing to help me and just show me what they did to get the internship offer to start out.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:08] And they tell you this network like crazy, just network like crazy treated like a full time
Howie: [00:12:13] Job in addition to your school load. So I did that, so I just made a plan. I would talk to at least three or four new people every week, every week.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:23] So how many people did you have to reach out to get three to four people on the phone every week? Well, I think I by the time I got an offer, the investment banking offered. I think I looked back into the number. I think my response rate was about pretty high, actually 30 percent.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:37] We're offering people 30 percent of the people reach that. You reached out to responded, Yeah. So we assume you're using mostly LinkedIn for this. yeah, LinkedIn, like you know, alumni network, handshake, directory, handshake, whatever I can get my hands on. Yeah. and so you're getting a 30 percent response rate, you're only having an email about 10 people a week. yeah, yeah. So that's
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:00] Great. And so with that, including follow ups, like when you said, hey, you reach out, try to make a
Howie: [00:13:05] Connection, was it over?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:06] Would you try to get their emails and bring it to email and then do like a follow up a week later if they hadn't responded? yeah, yeah, exactly. So I called emailed them like a lot of times. I wish the secretaria like their, you know, whoever they were helping them with. like, what did you say in the email? Just said, you remember like the basics just to give people some guidance because that 30 percent response rate is super high? yeah, yeah. And I think by the end, by the time I got the internship, I looked back. I talked to maybe 80 people in total. wow, you got on the phone with 80 people. Yeah. And that's from sophomore beginning of sophomore year
Howie: [00:13:41] To one to A. Sophomore year. That's when it got me attention because they recruited pretty early that year. Remember?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone listening. That means he emailed probably about 800 people. No, sorry, no more. Like, what would that be? Hundred and two hundred and 240 around 250 people. Yeah, yeah. That's a crazy high close rate to actually talking to that many people. So I'd love to hear what you did because usually I tell people to expect five to 10 percent max. And that's what that's what the good follow up. yeah. Well, I think for me and I want to give a lot of credits to the people that respond as well. I think in my message first, if they have any sort of connections with me, if I went to my school, went to another school in the area, that is kind of a finance juggernaut, if you will. So, you know, our neighborhood school, our rival school has a lot of good placements in investment banking. Ok. So I reached out to them as well where I just say, Hey, I'm also a kid from that area where you talk to me on the phone, very smart. so you didn't just limit yourself to your own alarm. You looked at regional kind of affiliation as well. You're trying to find any sort of connection to help get increase your alumni base week on that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it's like, that's why.
Howie: [00:14:58] Yeah, that's they're pushing, though. Yeah. And also, you know, I think, you know, people appreciated my background, you know, coming from different countries and immigrant learning the language and trying to navigate this whole recruiting process. Such as well, so were you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:14] Saying that in the initial email, were you saying, Hey, I just came here, I came to the states when I was 15 years old and I this is I just learned about investing, making last summer. Yeah, I worked at x y z bulge bracket in the operations. And that's what. It's like a couple lines. Boom, boom, boom. It just looked impressive. Yet high GPA. yeah, yeah, I did, I did. And I think,
Howie: [00:15:36] You know, a lot of people responded to that and I still I'm still in touch with a lot of them. Yeah, yeah. So I mean. Totally 100 percent credits to them, so
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:46] Tell me a little bit about just did you attach the resume or not in the first? no, no attachment or restroom. I feel like it would be a little bit too pushy. Yeah. To push it, for sure. Yeah, yeah. but then I'm sure a lot of them responded, say, hey, send your resume. yeah, yeah. And also, I flew myself to different cities a couple of times as well on my own money just to, like, grab coffee with them. that's amazing. So tell me about that. Tell me about how you so we're using something like boomerang or writing box for your emails to keep on top of it or spreadsheet. What did you use a spreadsheet? Yeah, like Google. and then you'd say, like the initial date you reached out and then you had like an alert on it or some sort of conditional formatting that would. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So in the conditional format, yeah, yeah. but it was more than two weeks from the time I heard from an attorney said, Right, exactly. That's the formatting I did. Ok, and then you'd reach out
Howie: [00:16:36] Again, so you can do
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:38] That. Or what I often suggest is people use something called right inbox or like a boomerang in Gmail. Now it's so easy you just put a reminder two weeks if they haven't responded and it pops right up at the top of your inbox. Super easy nowadays. Yeah. And that allows you to kind of avoid. You can take notes right in it as well, and it allows you to kind of have to build some massive spreadsheet like stuff. It actually is nice to have anyway, the spreadsheet, because you can always go back and you kind of see it all the one, all the contacts you've built in one and one fell swoop, but sorry, continue. So you basically were going through all this and what happened? So you started flying yourself out. How did you get the confidence to fly yourself out when you had like two or three coffee meetings or one? Yeah. so I think whenever I have maybe like two or three people that would confirm a meeting or I would be willing to grab coffee with me in the city, I would just book a flight there. And when I'm actually in the city, you know, after talking with those three people
Howie: [00:17:32] Would have been able to confirm to confirm I would reach out to all the folks that I have talked to have whatever sort of connections within the city. And literally just, you know, I would just be in the lobby of the bank that I want to work for and just, hey, like, I'm literally in the bank. Sloppy right now would have just spend five minutes with me to talk, you know, just whatever. I just want to meet you and, you know, just grab coffee with you.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:56] And this was in San Francisco and New York, is that the two cities? Just go to Los Angeles and New York and you were able to build up enough connections there where you had anywhere between three to 10 people to meet.
Howie: [00:18:08] So would you like book a
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:10] Return trip already or would you leave it open ended?
Howie: [00:18:12] And just would you do like a
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:14] Round trip like for two days in the middle of the round trip? Yeah, round trip. So how many days like full two days and kind of so I would head out. Usually I would head out because like, the reason I'm asking is because the logistics of this for, like most college kids, is super overwhelming of like, when do you actually book the trip? You know what I mean? Sorry about my daughter. You know she has excited about the podcast. Yeah, something very exciting to tell me, I think. Yeah, yeah. So like basically it would be like the logistics of this. You're in sophomore year. You're taking classes. Tell me how you get confident enough to be like, Hey, I'm okay now. I'm ready to go to San Francisco. yeah, yeah. So I in San Francisco and Los Angeles would be easy for me because, no, that's pretty close to my state. So that would take me like an hour and a half two hours to fly there. So it's not a big issue.
Howie: [00:19:05] So California, I would just fly it out like Wednesday afternoon and I spent Thursday and Friday, Saturday and Sunday and then fly back Sunday night or something like that. Oh, so you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:16] Would do weekend as well. We can meet sometime. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's not. Only two people I know somewhat decently well because I try not to laugh because you get two weekdays. For people who don't want to spend time with you on the weekend, you get two weekends that people don't want to do it. During the work week, you probably get more of the young crowd on the weekends. I don't have family. I get three hours for the yeah, that's really smart. Ok, so you did that for three different cities. Yeah. And tell me how those coffee chats went? Or are there any that ended up being like the reason you feel like you got an internship? Yeah, I think I talked to a fair amount of them and you know how? I think the how I eventually got an offer was I met with a Alan in New York and then he introduced me to another friend of his that he went to business school with in the city. And then I talked to that person on the phone as well, and then that person introduced me to another friend of his who was currently
Howie: [00:20:18] Working at the bank that I ended up getting off with. So that was the person that introduced me push my resume through it all was my fifth degree connection or something.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:28] Fifth degree? Great.
Howie: [00:20:29] Yeah. And yeah, so I got to talk to them and talk to that person. And like next week or so I heard, you know, I got an email from HR to say, Hey, we want to schedule a first round with you. And it was
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:44] Just right over the phone at this point. yeah, I was over the phone at that point. I talked to that. So that entered that where you super nervous. Was this like your first real first round interview or did you have some others that bites as well? Yeah, I think it was like on paper with my first round to me because I mean, I interviewed all the banks before and I kind of talked to a couple of associates and all the banks, and it just fizzled out the conversation and they didn't really have like. I guess, like they also came from a non school like myself, that's how I found them in the first place. I didn't have enough pull to
Howie: [00:21:20] Pull me in.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:21] You know, they're usually like super days, though, for like non targets or something. Yeah, yeah. But didn't they help you get into that or no?
Howie: [00:21:28] So they I mean, at least what I hope they could, because you need to have at least like a beep or both kind of voucher to pull your pull your nut Type kit résumé through the door. And then, yeah. So I did have a couple kind of unofficial interviews with Outer Banks, but that was, you know, that was the, I guess, the first official interview.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:50] Either way, it was good practice, right? Yeah. And so as you kind of started doing some more of these trips, these calls and these kind of informal informal
Howie: [00:21:57] Interviews, did you start kind of
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:59] Rapping and practicing the technical questions and getting ready or like, what's the like? What was your thought process kind of leading up
Howie: [00:22:05] Into the summer
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:07] Internship? Kind of. You had that first round interview and then like, were you ready? Already ready? Yeah, I think so because I had my first round back in, I think in March of that
Howie: [00:22:16] Spring. Yeah, of my sophomore year. And by that time, I had been prepping continuously since my freshman summer internship.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:27] People are going to be listening to this and stress out just hearing how much work you put in. No, it's good. It's good because no, no, it's actually good because people, a lot of people say they want it and they come in, they think. But then to hear the step by all the steps that you took to kind
Howie: [00:22:43] Of land, it
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:45] Is really kind of eye opening. So you're basically kind of going through all of this.
Howie: [00:22:50] You do that. You obviously passed
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:52] That first phone interview and then what happens? They fly out for a Super Day. Yeah. So they flew me out to, like you said, a non-target Super Day. Yeah. And yeah, you know, I spent a day interviewing there. Yes. So the first round was all technical questions. Mm hmm. So did a paper elbow and a paper acquisition model pass with that round. So my bank, the bank, did a pretty interesting way of interviewing people. They so they would pull us out, had a first round technical interview and then they would ask you to stick around. If you pass that technical round, they would invite you back for two more rounds of, I guess, behavioral slash. So we're like half the kids cut. yeah, yeah. I had no idea what was going on, right? So a bunch of us would be sitting in a coffee shop right next to the bank, just like you didn't know who was cut or, yeah, we didn't know what was going on. It was no process like squid games kind of thing. And like, yeah, so like whenever, like, you know, somebody's phone popped up like everybody was started looking nervous because like, Oh, is that person getting called back into the bank for another round interview? Or it's just like their parents are calling whatever is going on? Oh my gosh. Yeah. Ok, so you got a callback in that callback? And then was it more behavioral, the second and third round kind of thing? yeah, more behavioral, less like people stepping more like my understanding of the market and like stocks and things like that. What's going on in the news, things like that and why I wanted to invest in banking? And at that point, I knew I had my answers down to like to the teeth, right? So yeah, so those last two rounds were somewhat easier for me to handle. Yeah. did you feel like your delivery was good? I think so. I think you had you were genuinely, like, very interested in it. So it wasn't hard to convey. yeah, well, because like I, I had to really, you know, find my way into investment banking, like find my own resources and study materials and study interviews. So it was not just like a couple walk down to the Career Services Center and apply as a bit of a resume you could apply for if you needed the financial aid. We have a financial aid program for all of us. We go now to our interview course. A little plug there. yeah, yeah, no, no. I wish, I wish I. I knew about that when I was like interviewing because I had to like, really
Howie: [00:25:18] Take senior guys and the junior guys and myself from high school alpha learn just to like so they can send me there like LBO resources and materials and all that stuff.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:29] Yeah, that's cool, man. Well, so you're kind of getting through and then so tell me about like the final round. There's like, OK, leave or what do they say? Okay, thanks. Bye. You can go home now. Yeah. So they told me, Yeah, yeah, they tell you right away, you got it. no, no, no. So did the two rounds. And then they said, Oh, you know, it's nice to meet you. We'll be in touch. And then it was on my way to the airport to fly back home. And then, you know, I ride when I just entered the subway to call me and say, Hey, man, like, yeah, we, we like you, we want to give you an offer for some internship. and so you said yes right away. Yeah, so I would say, OK, that's pretty cool, I still want to talk to my parents. Can you give me like a couple of days or so? And, you know, obviously coming from a non target school, they, you know, you don't have a lot of leverage. So they just say, OK, I you that was, you know, I got the offer on a Friday. Yeah. And they told me to get back to them on Tuesday and Wednesday. So like, OK, that's actually wow. I would have said, like, yes, I take it right. Is it because the location like you're being far away
Howie: [00:26:31] From it was at the concern? yeah. So I think I mean, you know, I still thought I could do a little bit better. You know, I like the bank, but obviously it's not like I just I thought it. Maybe OK,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:45] I had read too much. Wall Street always isn't that. Hey, yeah, get on the boutique or bulge bracket bank? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I just got definitely going for the bulge bracket there. And you know, and then I started Type kit.
You didn't have time, right? So yeah, yeah, yeah. And I talk to my mentors as well, and they said, OK, it's a good place to go to split up and coming. And, you know, in New York City, it's pretty easy to network people. So that's just one lot of mentors told me. So how to take the offer? great. So you take it. You kind of get through. So what are you doing? Your sophomore? Is this for a sophomore? So what are you doing sophomore summer then? yeah. So I'm going so. So I got the you got the junior summer offer. that's right. Before I got before you had your sophomore summer. Okay. so before I went to my summer internship, so I got my sophomore internship in January of that year and I got, you know, the junior internship in April of that year. yeah. And so, yeah, it's so weird. But OK, so tell me about the sophomore summer around. What did you do with this strong campus recruiting? What was that?
Howie: [00:27:56] So that was so I thought that, you know how to position myself as a strong candidate. I want to have also another great brand name on the résumé and knew about the company. I ended up interning at the fortune five hundred, fortune five, even the company. So a lot of people knows about the company, and I thought I wanted to like work in their Corp Dev team as well just to be able to understand like what it looks like from the investment banking customers point of view. Mm hmm. So, you know, I got the offer for the Senate leadership for my sophomore year. And then, yeah, I mean, and then two months after I got, I got the junior investment banking summer internship as well.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:43] So you have to go do this other
Howie: [00:28:45] Kind of internship
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:47] And whatever. Corporate Finance Corp. finance, which is totally different. But you know, you kind of want to do banking. Yeah, at this point. So was it tough to do all the work there or was it was it OK? and I had a great time. I think, you know, in hindsight, I'm glad I did it because, you know, corporate finance, you know, it's pretty chill. Yeah, pretty nice life, really. I mean. Yeah, yeah. My boss would yell at me if he sees me in the office past like five 30. He will tell me to go home, right? it's amazing. Yeah, that was a new city as well. So I had a good time. that's awesome. That's awesome. So you're kind of going through there you come in junior year, you keeping your GPA, you already have your junior summer. So any prep kind of thinking towards, Hey, after this junior summer
Howie: [00:29:32] Internship, maybe I can
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:34] Lateral or leverage a full time offer into another offer?
Howie: [00:29:37] Or, you know, were you just thinking,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:39] Hey, I need to be prepped for this junior summer banking internship? What was the thought process going into it? yeah, I think for me, I just wanted to focus more on getting a return
Howie: [00:29:48] Offer from a junior internship. And that was that. And then I thought, OK, maybe if I want to lateral to maybe a bigger bank, then I can decide after that. And then obviously, I spent a summer internship there and I really liked people when I got to work with, you know, it's pretty strong M&A focused platform. And, you know, we I get all the interns got to work as generalists as well. Yeah, I got to work with like many different industries.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:18] So yeah, I've done a lot. Yeah. What would you say in terms of like pitching? Were you pitching like half the time, 20 percent of the time? oh, maybe like sixty five percent of the time as interns? yeah. Oh yeah, OK. So but then then you're kind of getting through the summer. What was it like 70 hour weeks? One hundred hour weeks? What was it? oh, it was pretty bad. That summer was pretty. Yeah. So like
Howie: [00:30:42] I would say, 75, 80 hours a week on average. Yeah, yeah. And you know, it was everything that I heard about and more, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:51] So and when you live it, it's different, right? yeah, it was really cool. Like, I honestly, I always had a great time just to like, I kept hearing about the word investment banking and some bankers and all that stuff. And that's somewhere I was there, right, just like being able to see everything that I worked so much for. So that was really cool.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:12] And what were your what was your thought as you went through the summer thinking, Oh man, this is this is a crazy work hours where you thinking, Oh, I can't do this? Or are you thinking, I can do this? oh, it's like I thought I could definitely do that. I can do it. yeah. And so halfway through the summer, did they give you a review or how did you know you were going to get an offer? Yes, they did a midterm, you know, halfway through the summer review and there was nothing that raised a red flag. So they were just OK. Yeah, we like you, keep doing the good work. And then, yeah, I mean,
Howie: [00:31:41] I heard about me getting a return off or maybe a week in advance. So yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:47] And so you get the return offer. Do you accept on the spot at this point or what do you what? Oh, you know, I say about this coming out of this. so, Tom, yeah, I would need a couple of days or so to decide. And then at that point I thought, OK, maybe I'll try to see if I can go directly to the buy side. Yeah. And at that point, I thought that if I want to do investment banking, I'll go back to the firm because I really like the people that I got to work with. Yeah, but if not investment banking, I would try my best to go straight to the buy side. Yeah. And I am talking about private equity, specific equity, private equity straight up, trying to get a product, not hedge fund, not hedge fund or anything like that. yeah, because I didn't know what hedge fund was at the time. I'll bet you anything like that. Just like, you know, I'll just always still learning along the way. yeah, I know. I mean, you're still an intern. So, OK, so you're kind of coming through here. And so I
Howie: [00:32:40] Mean, I'm looking at the timing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:42] This was summer of 2019. Mm hmm. So I'm looking at the timing, you know, probably there weren't that many analyst programs, private equity.
Howie: [00:32:51] Yeah, that was not a lot. There were some,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:53] But it was
Howie: [00:32:54] Starting to grow. But.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:55] So tell me about how you even went about that. so I just reached out to a couple of people that I had known during my networking. Yeah, period. And yeah, it just really didn't work out because they had so few spots and they would be almost impossible to get me in for even just an interview because you never would
Howie: [00:33:18] Be looking at the Warren kids and the Harvard and MIT. So Stanford kids, so that that that that that to lift for about a week and a half or so. And then just like, OK, I'll go back and do investment
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:35] Banking and accept your offer. Yeah, OK, but you kind of already knew you were interested in the buy side kind of early on. Yeah. Specifically, was there a certain reason for that, did you feel like, hey, it's just kind of the path? This is the most kind of lucrative or kind of path that's most well-worn. What was your thought process on that?
Howie: [00:33:55] Yeah, I think I think I had always been thinking about becoming an investor or working as an investor one day. I think when I was in college, I worked for a student investment fund and I just really enjoy that work and just be able to, like, look into different companies and learn about the business model. And I put the skin in the game and, you know, see that pays out in a couple of years versus an investment bank is more like salesy. You finish a project you might not pay by the company, you know, forever or ever again. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:35] Ok, so you're so you're kind of starting. You finish up school. I'm sure it felt good to have the offer locked up and your senior year. It's probably a fun year. Yeah. And then kind of as you're prepping, you graduate, as you're prepping for your analyst stint, anything you do beforehand, any advice to listeners kind of to besides vacation and sleep to get ready for investment banking? Yeah, I think just really talk to the people who are working in the industry and understand clearly the pros and the cons of the job. What you want to get out of it and what you're willing to trade for it. I think a lot of people, I think, you know, in my class that started with me, investment banking, we started with, I think. 50 now, 60 people in our class, and yes, yeah, six, zero people in my year, in my class from investment banking
Howie: [00:35:31] And then seven to eight months and we lost like 15 or 16 of them. Wow. So a good amount of people quit and obviously COVID had something to do with that, too. But you know, it's not, you know, it's not like it's a nine to five job, obviously. And you've got to understand like, that's going to be tough times and demanding hours, but you get what to get back in return like, you know, obviously your résumé looks good and you get paid well and you get to learn a lot and work with a lot of interesting people and interesting projects. So I think that would be my biggest advice to anyone who is considering investment banking or go into investment banking is, you know, it's not it's not a rosy walk at all. I mean, I it was a lot of like stressful time when I, you know, when I was in investment banking and, you know, a lot of people that was not pleasant at all to work with, yeah, yeah. But you know, is it's it's it's only athletes, maybe like a two year program. So just maybe just, you know,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:32] Look, why don't you start kind of private equity recruiting was happening earlier and earlier and earlier, and then COVID hit and then suddenly it was like delayed. So tell me a little bit about how you kind of went into the twenty or twenty one private equity recruiting because I know you, you have an offer at
Howie: [00:36:52] A, yeah, upper middle market
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:54] Fund, right? So just tell me a little bit about your thought process there in terms of like how to how you positioned yourself coming from, you know, not a bulge bracket or name brand as big a name brand, still a good name, not his name, brand kind of place. yeah, yeah. I think I think I definitely did. you just lean on your networking prowess again?
yeah, I think so. I think I talked to them a lot. I'm still in touch with, like I said, a majority of them I talked to, and that's kind of how I learned about what this time private equity is on a day to day. Yeah, and I definitely got lucky in terms of the recruiting timeline got pushed back. So for me, it got pushed back by a year, right? So I think it would have been a totally different story if it had started just right after I finish my training or something. Yeah, and I still think it's pretty ridiculous to ask people to sign a job. It's not going to start two years after. Yeah, but you know, I think I got lucky there and as a start spending more time in investment banking, I thought, OK, this is the kind of industry to
Howie: [00:38:02] Want to go to not buy. I want something more specialized and, you know, just having more ideas. Experience under my résumé has really helped with my story and what I want to do and what I want to work in investment banking. I think hunters, I think I think they liked that they vouched for me, and that's how I got a couple of pretty good interviews and eventually converted one.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:27] So it's awesome. Yeah. So was it during this whole? Was it during the crazed weekend? Yes, right? Yeah, yeah. Nine eleven is when it started. Yeah, let's talk about let's talk about that crazy weekend and what it looked like and how you dealt with the stress and how basically you just got called on a Friday or what happened. Yeah. So I think I had started putting in more hours to prep a modeling test, you know, in my doing my first year in banking. So every time I have like some downtown, you know, I spent like two or three hours just doing an LBO model from the same or something. I would try to do that maybe at least once a week or twice a week. It's not too busy. So by the time that, you know, I bought a time thing, like by the end of my first year somewhere I started hearing about, OK, I firms might want to start interviewing post-Labor Day because that would seem like a perfect timing for them.
Howie: [00:39:29] And, you know, by that time, I was technically ready for it. I just didn't know yet what type of firm I want to go for, what type of industry. Yeah, I want to go for. And then, yeah, so
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:43] You were in touch with recruiters at this point. Yeah. So they reached out and of summer, you know, and just introducing them. So and I
Howie: [00:39:50] Think, you know, neither. Not that love had entered new or nobody knew when it's going to kick off.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:58] And then, yeah, I was shocked at that. That actually COVID actually delayed things. I thought they would use it as an opportunity to go early again. Yeah, yeah. So what I did actually was a lot of smaller private equity firms. They actually start interviewing during my first year in investment banking. So like. October or even November, my first year. So six months before the official process kicked off. Yeah, so I actually I went on, I apply to all the private equity firms that I have no intention to go work with. I work for just to prep. Yeah. So I would interview with like a lot of them, then do a lot of practice, I guess, like practice, but actually real interviews. Yeah. And that's how I got a lot of prep out and just started getting offers from those I didn't. So I went to like two super days. Yeah, that's like all virtual. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't, you know, I didn't really convert. Yeah. Yeah. No, that that really helped me get ready for sure. That's great. Why don't you think you converted? Then you just didn't have the reps? Yeah. And then I was really interested in the for, Like, super passionate about. I wasn't. Yeah, I mean, there would be place in some city to have never been to or I have nobody there and they
Howie: [00:41:15] Place a heavy premium on that as well because, you know, they're more boutique like PE firms, they want people to have connections there.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:24] Cool. So you're getting some reps doing LBO, modeling, testing all that stuff. So then. We can happen is we can have a 911, right, you said, That's right, yeah. So and what happened? Yeah. So I think it was a Saturday Night Live, and I think Toma probably kicked off the process and I didn't get of it from them. But I just heard from my colleagues at the bank. And then Sunday. Um, you know, a lot of injuries started calling me as a hand like this from these firms want to interview with you on Monday. But I at that point I said, I want to go to a different type investing and not just general this traditional buyout. I want to go into more tech growth, be investing or private equity type. So I told them, OK, yeah, I'm not really interested in these, these firms.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:17] You wanted to go more growth equity. Yeah, I want to go more. I want to invest in companies that are growing and not
Howie: [00:42:25] More less focused on like financial engineering. Yeah. And so I turn now a couple of interviews, which was nerve wracking at the time because you never know when they got to come up again. Yeah. And yeah, and I started hearing, you know that my friends and colleagues having offers from upper middle market mega funds and that was OK. I don't know if this is the right strategy to go about it. Yeah, but you know, I just really just like thought of myself. Yeah, I have no intention of going to even the KKR of the world or Blackstone the world. Why wouldn't you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:01] Just for career, just for career trajectory? Why wouldn't you? You just felt
Howie: [00:43:04] Like you just didn't want to be
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:07] In a big fund like
Howie: [00:43:08] Or what was your thought process? yeah, it's for me. It's more like the strategy that they that they focus on. I would go to, you know, like they're taking off Grove or Blackstone grow, but not like the traditional generous buyout in New York. I had no intention to go into those funds. Yeah, yeah. So I passed. I passed on a lot of interviews and then eventually I heard about the firm that I ended up getting an offer from. And yeah, it was like, exactly what I'm looking for. So, yeah, yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:38] And so you interviewed with them and you were ready. And given that it was a growth equity, more of a growth equity shop or fund that you were interviewing with. Did you have to do an elbow? yeah, I didn't. Lbo, you did model.
Howie: [00:43:49] Yeah, yeah. They still forced you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:51] To do that. Yeah, yeah, they didn't. Yeah. So they give me so they give me a two page same, and they just asked me to build an LBO model blank from form excel. So. And how long do they give you to do that? Two and a half hours. And how long did it take you? Oh, maybe two hours. Ok, so did you have a nice sensitivity table in there and nice pivot table? Yeah, showing the returns and all that. Yeah, all the good stuff. Was it a go or no go on the investment? Do you remember? I recommend it. Go. Yes. Interesting. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:24] Cool. So you kind of got through all that. Tell me what? So this was like once the major recruiting had happened or this the fund that ended up reaching out to you? Was it like later in
Howie: [00:44:34] The week or what was the timeline? Later, later in the week? After all that, the mega funds were all mega funds when they reached out week after
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:42] The week after, they said, Hey, we're doing, we're doing our rounds. You said, yes, I want to do this one. So great. So then you started. What was your thought process like? I know you're thinking, OK, I don't want to do this megaphone, but what was your thought process of like having that strategy of being more focused? Do you think the
Howie: [00:44:57] Recruiters appreciated
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:59] That or do you think they were annoyed? You know, I think some recruiters were. I think I want to say they were annoyed because they just want to place me and they. I don't want to put words in their mouth, but I think, you know, I can totally understand if they thought that, OK, I'm being too picky coming from my background and my school. Yeah, but you know, I mean, it didn't really matter much to me because, you know, like, that's just going to be me putting in the hours. So might as well, you know, worth investing in something
Howie: [00:45:29] I'm excited about.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:31] Love it. Ok, well, congratulations on the offer. That's that seemed like a very high risk but high reward strategy because you're going to a fund that you're excited about. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about it. So just before we call the pod. Any final words of wisdom? So did you. You didn't finish out your full two years, correct? Yeah. So tell me a little bit about that decision and the thought process of kind of ending a little bit early just to have some time. Or was it was the fun just saying, hey, you got to come now? Yeah, they were open to
Howie: [00:46:00] Me starting early, and I knew that because they just raised a pretty big new fund just recently. Yeah. And I think for me, like I said, I'd always wanted to eventually get to see what work as an investor like. So I thought, OK, I so my class, the class that got hired the same time I did what my thought process is, you know, they're not going to start for an out of six months, right? So they're going to start in the summer of twenty two. If I get a Hester ahead of them, if I start earlier, they'll have like a six or seven months ahead of them. Yeah. And obviously, you know, I. Thought a lot Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:44] You had to forgo probably a hundred thousand dollars bonus, though half of it. Yeah, half of it.
Howie: [00:46:48] Yeah, yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:50] Yeah. So that's an interesting decision. I mean, interesting thought process of like jumping early. Did the bank with or hard feelings on when you left or was it OK?
Howie: [00:47:00] Yeah. So my bank, my team, they were pretty numb to the pain of people leaving at that point because, you know, people were leaving out of the
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:10] 60 out of the 60, how many are kind of still left there. So by the time they left, they're probably like maybe 40 is people left. They're still not even two thirds. Or maybe half. Yeah, maybe half. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because everybody got their first year bonus and then they just dispersed. So, but yeah, know a lot of people went to my site as well. So I think I don't know what's up with investment banking, but there's just appearing to be a trend where people
Howie: [00:47:43] Are starting or quitting earlier. You know, I know a lot of people that started their P job a year and a half in a not even two years after banking. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:55] Yeah, I know for sure. Yeah, there's been a lot more of the trend of people just leaving after one year. Get the bonus and they're done. Yeah. Any words of wisdom kind of looking back on your past and the amount of work you put in to get to where you are and a lot of people would love to be in your seat, so I'd love to just. Any final words before we call it. Yeah, I think I would say, I know I get this
Howie: [00:48:22] Advice to, you know, Kids who now reach out to me on LinkedIn. I think I would obviously, you know, you have to when you want to get the kind of job like investment banking and private equity, you have to keep networking with people and ask them for referral and things like that. But at the end of the day, try to get to know them as a person as well. You know, if you have the time to do that. Definitely try to do that because I think, you know, a lot of people reach out to all the folks on LinkedIn. Just it's pretty cookie cutter trying to just talk to them on the phone once and say, Hey, your bank is recruiting next week and you push my résumé. I would do that for them. I would push their résumé for them, and a lot of people would. But that wouldn't build a sustainable, you know, concrete relationships going forward. yeah, there's a lot more
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:13] Value to being in building genuine relationships, quality relationships with a smaller subset of people. Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, I think that's a lot more to someone than just what they do. A lot more interesting stuff about someone and just what they do, right? So I try to ask them about what they do for fun and things like that and just trying to build a genuine relationship with them. Because I know, like I said before, I do appreciate people that, you know, spent time talking with me on the phone when I was, you know, literally fresh off the boat. Yeah, we're learning about finance and things like that. So yeah, I mean, that's why we always say the interest section of the resume is more important than people realize. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally agree. Awesome. Howard, thanks so much for taking the time and sharing your story.
Howie: [00:49:57] Yeah, thank you for taking the time.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:58] And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street Oasis. If you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis dot com. And till next time.
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