WSO Podcast | E205: WSO's Finance Research Internship | Weekly Meetup #6
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WSO Podcast Episode 205 Transcripts:
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:06] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and Chief Monkey. And this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me as I talk to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. Another fun session giving career advice to the interns. Enjoy. Okay, everybody, welcome to I think this is the weekly the sixth weekly chat since the program started. And Nabeel is back from his long vacation. Just getting to be on the beach. You're up in the mountains. What were you doing? Camping.
Intern 1: [00:00:49] Yeah. This camp and stuff. I mean, looking at historical sites, all that stuff. Trekking, walking. Yeah. Usually it's just stuff.
Intern 1: [00:00:59] I'm just lucky, though.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:00] So.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:01] I haven't been camping in a long time, mostly because I've had little kids, but I'm looking forward to getting back into nature. So everybody, this is your first time kind of being on a weekly call. These are just really open sessions to allow you to ask questions, not just about the internship. If you have questions about the internship, we're here and can handle most of them, but also to answer questions any of you have on specific career oriented questions, whether it's resume interviews, networking applications, mapping your career path, stuff like that. So I think if you can, we can start by opening it up and maybe, maybe you want to talk a little bit about there are some questions around like signature links and stuff like that in the bios or something in the actual article. You want to talk about that?
Intern 1: [00:01:52] Oh yeah. I think we had a lot of people come up and say, we want to link our LinkedIn or whatever profile on the site and say, Hey, you know, this article was written by so-and-so and then connect it. I think so, yeah, we had the discussion. I think we could have a line at the bottom, which you could put at the end of every article saying researched and written by your name and then straight line and then link. Then I'll provide a sample on the group today. So all of you could start just incorporating that if you want to. I think that helps a lot to advertise to potential whoever that hey, I've written these articles and there's actually proof rather than like whatever it was before. So that's one thing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:38] I think it is a good idea. We have no problem doing it. It's it's a good idea to help give the interns even more value.
Intern 1: [00:02:45] Exactly. Yeah. So that's that's the main thing I think we decided on. Other than that. Yeah. Good. Good job by everyone so far. We have a lot of new people starting this last week. So yeah, it's interesting. There's a lot of questions as well that you get to. So everyone's I mean, it's going well, like everyone's excited doing a good job.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:08] Yeah, the team is definitely ramping. I see the hours ramping and the number of articles coming through. I know Josh is one of our main kind of preliminary editors he's having. He's staying busy, so that means everyone's putting in a lot of good work. So I really appreciate all of you guys, number one, helping out with this, but then also just coming here for this this call. So still letting in more people. I think Vinay just joins welcome. Aditya is joining now. Um. But, yeah, we can open up. Does anybody have any specific questions about the internship or just careers in general? And just for context, I'm in California. Nabeel is in UAE.
Intern 1: [00:03:53] Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:53] Alvin's back with his wolf. Hello. Hey, Alvin. I always know who you are because of that. That picture.
Intern 2: [00:04:02] Exactly.
Intern 2: [00:04:03] That's my.
Intern 2: [00:04:04] Trademark.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:07] Ebony. We have a couple more people joining. I'm starting to lose track. It starts to grow. But that's good. So yeah. Does anybody have any questions around the internship itself? How is it how is it going for everybody? And is there any way we can be helpful with that or with specific career questions? Go ahead, Alvin.
Intern 2: [00:04:30] Yeah. So I started my internship two days back this first year, and right now I'm working on my first task. So I had a small question like let's say we have one week, it's like 15 hours.
Intern 2: [00:04:45] Minimum for minimum for one week.
Intern 2: [00:04:48] So how much how many jobs.
Intern 2: [00:04:51] Are we expected to complete within.
Intern 2: [00:04:53] These 15 hours? Like, is there a specific benchmark.
Intern 2: [00:04:57] Or how.
Intern 2: [00:04:59] The question. You want to cover that?
Intern 1: [00:05:01] Yeah, no specific benchmark. But from what we've seen, it takes like for the short articles like 2 to 4 hours for writers, one once they're like a little more seasoned. The first article is probably going to take longer and then it gets shorter. Then you have the long ones which take like anything from 4 to 6, 7 hours. So it depends honestly, and it depends on which topic you take. Then, like if you take the small ones and like keep doing them, it's going to be like real quick, otherwise it's going to take a little bit of longer time. And then based on that, like.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:30] In other words, if it's a super narrow like definitional topic or like it's just what it is and it's hard to like have too many sub headers then yeah, that could eventually that's going to probably take you 2 to 3 hours, but initially up front would probably take you 4 to 5 as you're getting used to it. And then even longer for if it's like a more complex topic that you choose.
Intern 2: [00:05:49]Okay. So like since this is my first dose, so by the end of like 15 hours, I should have completed at least like two tasks, I guess.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:52]Yeah. Ideally at least one if it's super long. Probably one and one half, something like that. Yeah, I'd say two if they're shorter. Yeah.
Intern 1: [00:06:12] The thing is, it's going to take a while when you go back and forth to Josh because you'll be like, oh, some guidelines won't be followed with something that's missing. But then once you get a hang of all that, it gets much faster. That's how it works. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:25] Makes sense. Okay, good. Any other questions you guys can use to chat if you're being shy and don't want to mute yourself? Sorry about the loud, loud noises here. Anybody else. We had a crazy active. Session last week said to be surprised that this week didn't have that. Oh. How about you, Colt? I think Colt's not muted, so that's why I picked on him.
Intern 3: [00:07:01] Even I saw. So I started this internship from 1st of May. But due to my health issues, I didn't started. So I just look at the video and get shown in the beginning. That's how to start that. So I have a question how one to select one topic? I mean, is there any of flow off topic or we just have to start from any other like you started with the cash conversion cycle or.
Intern 1: [00:07:42] Maybe I'll go ahead.
Intern 1: [00:07:44] Yeah. You could pick any topic, to be honest, which is not a sign. You should probably pick a topic that you are a little bit familiar with for the start so that you can write on it properly. You'll have a good idea of how the flow goes throughout that specific topic. So if you like accounting, you pick something in accounting that interests you. If that's what you're asking, I don't know if I'm addressing that question correctly or is it like, okay, okay, it's about picking topics and for the headers, the flow inside the content, like you'll get a hang of it once you write and then read it again and you're like, okay, this makes sense or this doesn't make sense, whatever.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:23] Yeah. In terms of your health. Hope you're feeling better, but no problem to start. You can change your start date with Nabeel, so just send them the date you want to start. And it's not a problem.
Intern 3: [00:08:33] Or is there no candidate?
Intern 1: [00:08:36] Yeah. Yeah, we could. I mean, just upping the UN slack with the new start date and I'll.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:41] Change it from my end. All right, Buffet Farook, you want to.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:51] Ask your question? You ever hand out?
Intern 4: [00:08:56] Um. Hello, Mr. Patrick. Hello, Mr. Haneef? Yes. Hey, how you're doing?
Intern 1: [00:09:03] Good. Good.
Intern 1: [00:09:04] Great. Yeah.
Intern 4: [00:09:07] I feel really lucky to be a part of Oasis. Although my question would be like, can I work for them? Like according to the Indians at the time? Or it should be according to the US at the time.
Intern 1: [00:09:20] Anything, man. I work from UI. So like we have people from like across different countries and timezones. So whatever time works, as long as you put in those 15 hours per week, you could even do like seven and seven in the in the V on the weekends or you could spread it across the week. Depends on what works for you, honestly. So when I was working, I was putting in like only weekends that didn't get much time during the week to work. So that's how I used to do it. But yeah, whatever works honestly. Whatever time is on yet.
Intern 4: [00:09:51] Okay. Another question. Sure. Go for it. Yes. So, you know, the post name is finance research analyst. After completion of this particular internship, which I believe it will be, you know, it would add great weight to my resumé apart from finance research analyst, what all other posts I can work in or all other occupations I can apply for?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:21] I think depending on what topics you write on, I think it could be helpful for a whole variety of topics. So if you're looking if you do a lot of valuation work or, you know, stuff around like financial documents and financial statements and evaluating companies that's attractive to investment banking, equity research, even hedge funds trading, it's pretty fundamental stuff you're going to need to know for all these types of careers. If you want to do something more like working in economics, economic consulting, for example, like an like doing more, the economic terms would probably be helpful. So or if you want to go get your CPA, doing more of the accounting terms would probably be helpful and go work at like a big four, for example. So it depends on which terms more you choose to how you frame your resume and which ones you highlight there. But I would say almost any career in finance, if you pick the right terms that are relevant, can it can be helpful, helpful for that because just it's just building that resume, getting those keywords on your resume.
Intern 4: [00:11:23] And what this we are off and which are the optimal days on which I can work on so that I can review all the documents at the right time.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:35] So it's up to you how you schedule the 15 hours per week. So like Nabeel said, he was doing it all on the weekends because when he started before I hired him full time stolen from his company. But he he was he was doing it on the weekends. And so we're not going to like there's no penalty to doing it on the weekends or during 3 hours a day, Monday through Friday. Maybe that's what you want to do. So it's just up to you. Whatever works best for your schedule, and then you're doing a good job. Then that's when we tend to make make paid offers. So we just hired another person today, paid to help us with other projects in Wall Street, Oasis from the same group here. So it's like I think now we have two full time hires and about five ish part time paid hires from this group, from the group that started. So we continue to try to find great people who are hard workers and can help us not just on this writing internship.
Intern 4: [00:12:32] Mr. Curtis and Mr. Hanif. I recently qualified as a certified management accountant from the Iemma, New Jersey, and I would like to know how this is going to help me, because this is my first formal job which I am in. So I would like to know how it's going to add and how I'm going to add to this particular organization and how this particular internship will be able to add value to my resume.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:03] So I think you're asking about the CM certified. Do you know that designation?
Intern 1: [00:13:11] Cm Right.
Intern 4: [00:13:12] Cm Yes.
Intern 1: [00:13:13] Yeah, I've heard of it, but I'm not like very into the thing. I think it's mostly management, accounting, accounting, right?
Intern 4: [00:13:22] Most of it's management cost and forecasting. Budgeting.
Intern 1: [00:13:26] Exactly. Presentation and then like understanding how to save costs. All of that stuff, right?
Intern 4: [00:13:32] Yes. Yes.
Intern 1: [00:13:33] So I'm just wondering, I mean, while writing, you could write on topics like that because economics should have some stuff there, accounting as well. Something, you know, like I would go a long way one.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:44] Managerial economics, FPGA type terms.
Intern 1: [00:13:47] Yeah. Yeah. So something you understand that you could write on? I think you'd actually be an asset. Me, like I should know a lot of stuff about those topics, so you could start writing that. And then if you want to learn, you could again write on topics you have interest on, like which field you want to go. Because I think C CME means you're looking for a cop, corporate, etc.. Or like what are you looking for in terms of career?
Intern 4: [00:14:16] And initially I thought that I would be well equipped as an accountant. But the point is that if I choose to be an accountant, my growth will be limited. But if I personally believe that if I go towards PHP and A and budgeting strategy and forecasting that would really add to my career. That's what I personally believe.
Intern 1: [00:14:40] Right. So, yeah, so that's the thing. So then you'd have to look at topics that deal with that. We have a lot of them actually, because a field is a huge, huge field. There's so many things like economies of scale, fixed costs, variable cost, like you've studied, I'm sure you've studied all of those stuff. So you could just pick those topics and then write on it. And then there might be stuff you want to improve on, like while working in PHP and stuff like probably one exposure to other fields. Maybe, maybe you might not have explored IB like some other field. In that case you could write on them.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:17] So the strategy as well, if you want to end up being doing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:20] Strategy.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:22] Thing, like there's lots of things you can learn. They're like Porter's Five Forces and all the different frameworks that that consultants use. There's probably terms there as well, I believe, right?
Intern 1: [00:15:32] Yeah. Yeah.
Intern 4: [00:15:33] Sure. I learned about investment banking first through the oasis of Google. Doc, there was a section with which we have to elaborate what investment banking was. Then I felt that this is all CMS about. So I thought maybe, maybe, just maybe, if I take this internship and I get through the courses or something like that, I can push myself towards investment banking. Would that be possible somehow?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:00] Pretty tough. What school are you at? Where? Where are you?
Intern 4: [00:16:04] I am currently in Hyderabad, India.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:08] And you have I mean, first off, there's going to be visa issues, right? It's going to make it tough. So I don't know in terms of trying to land that the accounting certification doesn't really necessarily help you that much. It's more about getting into the right school, being a finance or econ major or an accounting major to know in Europe specifically if you were to go to school there doing a fifth year master's is pretty standard before going into your analyst years. So it's not it's not that it's impossible. It's not that it's impossible. It's just going to be tough because of more, more visa issues if you actually want to go and work there. And there's also banks in India as well. Right. So like you could just stay locally and try to do. Yeah. So. So when you just said Hyderabad has Goldman Goldman-Sachs as a branch office. Right.
Intern 1: [00:16:59] So it depends. Again in India it's again the university is there, right? So if you get into the top universities, you do you do get into Vista. So it depends more like certifications. The thing is when, when IB is are like BS wherever they go to hire, they go to the best schools rather than search for people with certifications. Just because it just removes a lot of it's easier for them to recruit from that. You don't want to. It's like a return on investment kind of thing. You don't want to sit with a lot of people and then, you know, have to eliminate a lot of them. So they go to the best schools, find people who can talk well, can do the technical as well, etc., done stuff, and then they hire.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:38] And even even even being at the top school, it's a low acceptance rate.
Intern 1: [00:17:42] Exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:43] For you to say like, oh, I have this accounting thing. Like they're not going to care if we're just being honest with you. You know, like it's nice because you actually learn something through it and it's relevant skills. So that's good makes somewhat more attractive. But for banking specifically, and I'm not very well versed in the recruiting in India specifically, so I'd be I'm talking a little bit, but my guess is it's probably similarly competitive there, if not more. Yeah.
Intern 4: [00:18:08] Thank you so much, mister, because it's so much.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:11] But, I mean, look, this this this internship, the goal is for it to help you kind of broaden. Get you a lot of exposure. And the good news is, with this internship, it will help you land more interviews, generally speaking, around careers and finance, not just banking, but equity research, valuation, associates, all that good stuff. So, Brandon, you want to ask a question? Brand is is Brandon has his hand up.
Intern 5: [00:18:38] Hey, is that my Brandon?
Intern 5: [00:18:40] That's here. Yeah, that's you.
Intern 5: [00:18:42] Okay, cool. So. Yeah, I just have a few questions. One about the internship. If I'm writing an article and let's say, like all the competitors are, their articles are all below, like the 2000 word mark. It would be reasonable to expect that mine will end up being below 2000. Like I know the topic I'm writing about right now. I could probably make it even 4000, but.I don't want to
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:05] Yeah. I think there's diminishing marginal returns to keep adding, adding and adding. I think the most important thing is that you're trying to have a balance between being thorough and being succinct. So I'll give you an example. So let's say you have something like cash conversion cycle. Like the example that I did with the bill and you start talking about it that's related to Aperture and all these other working capital stuff. You don't want to make the ah section, the accounts receivable section like bigger than the accounts receivable article. There's other articles that are competing. Right. So, but you want, you have to talk about them, define them, give examples, all that stuff specifically around cash conversions, cash conversion cycle. So it's not like you just write as long as you can about everything somewhat related, it's more like, hey, try to keep it focused on that. Give examples of that specific term and that specific topic and then move on. And yeah, that's fine. If other people are like, say the top articles like 610 hundred words and there's a bunch of them like that, and you do like 1000, that's fine.
Intern 5: [00:20:03] It's specifically like so obviously an acquisition I could write about because that's the one I'm writing about right now. I can write that into like whatever length, but all the ones that I've looked up are in the ballpark of about like I think 1500. So I don't want to term.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:16] What's the term.
Intern 5: [00:20:18] Acquisition but just acquisition.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:19] Oh yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty broad term. So I can see how you could get on and on and on.
Intern 5: [00:20:23] Yeah I could, yeah I could do like.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:25] Oh like what is an acquisition or what's.
Intern 5: [00:20:28] The what, what is an acquisition, you know, or even like NPV of acquisitions and how to calculate that. Like I could make this endless list, but I don't think it would add value. I think you can do it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:39] I think you're using Google there to. So when you type in, make sure like another good hint to you of how broad to go is. If you go to the sheet and you type in the word acquisition, if there's a bunch of other topics that are more narrow on acquisitions, you don't want to be like overlapping and writing whole articles within articles on there.
Intern 5: [00:20:56] Yeah, I was going to ask one more thing on this really quickly. I noticed that in our spreadsheet we don't have anything for explaining a stock acquisition or a cash acquisition. Those are probably really short pieces to write, but.
Intern 5: [00:21:08] Maybe they're.
Intern 5: [00:21:08] Like searchable terms that we might consider adding.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:11] Yeah, absolutely. Love that. Yeah. I mean, you can, you can suggest it to Nabeel and we can add those rows.
Intern 5: [00:21:16] Yeah, I think, I think I did. I'm trying to be busy, but I just wanted to make sure I got it out there. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:20] You just got back from vacation. He's drowning, so he's trying to catch up. Okay.
Intern 5: [00:21:23] Sorry, buddy.
Intern 1: [00:21:25] No, no problem. I saw your message, so. Yeah, I'll add that.
Intern 5: [00:21:30] Cool, cool. Yeah, I just didn't know if it, like, I've never used, like, before, so I just didn't offer one, but. And then, yeah, if I now that I've done that, if I could ask some questions about I had this coffee chat recently and I just had some questions about some of the advice I was given. So like what? I don't know if this is true because it was pretty anecdotal, but like I was saying that like equity research, if I ever consider getting into that pool from like a slightly older pool, then maybe like an investment banking does. Like he said, a lot of the people in his team, he's at Jordan, they're pulling like 29 year olds on average. Is that like generally true? I've no idea.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:04] It's a good question. It wouldn't surprise me because equity research tends to be like a it's a much smaller kind of niche industry. And so they like to see like if there's an analyst, analyst, analyst, first of all, is like the senior part of equity research. So it's very confusing.
Intern 5: [00:22:20] I should say. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:21] Yeah. So Equity Research Associate is like supporting the analyst. So it's a reverse of like the traditional front office investment banking, but it's so small and so specific and so niche and there's so many like industry specific, like knowledge and expertise you need. It wouldn't surprise me if it's older, so it's like you could work as investment banking for several years in like industrials or, let's say, like consumer package. It's something, something kind of niche. And then like that would be an attractive profile for the analysts covering those companies. Right. And so but you probably need to be working a couple of years, not going to be pulling you right out of undergrad with no experience. Now, I'm sure there are equity research associate programs that do pull out undergrad. So I don't think it's like universal, but it wouldn't surprise me if it skews a little bit higher. I don't have data on it, but that doesn't surprise me. And I never worked in air. But he's probably right somewhat. It's it was.
Intern 5: [00:23:14] Yeah, it was one of the things I was looking at because he was saying a lot of the firms that are people I've done coffee chats with recently are saying they're now looking more into the MBA area. And very few, except for the big banks in Canada, are looking at undergrads at this point.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:27] That makes sense and makes sense. I mean, I kind of I'd push you to go banking first anyways.
Intern 5: [00:23:33] Yeah, I know for sure. I want to. I want to. But I think in the Canadian environment, what I've seen is it is quite possible to get straight into like P or R and both are kind of interesting if I'm being honest. So. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm looking at. The other thing I was going to ask is and then I'll let someone else have a turn. But in terms of like extracurriculars for if I wanted to get into this private capital market, are there any sort of extracurricular learning things that are really well recognized worth putting on a CV that I just haven't found?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:05] Private market, like private equity type stuff. Yeah. Private equity or private debt. Yeah. We have a well, we do have a private equity deal process course that's coming out very soon. And so yeah. So I would absolutely save one of your credits.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:20] As you go.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:21] Through these internship for that because well, it'll be an expensive course, but it's also going to be a super valuable course for anybody looking to understand like what an associate does in PE. So it goes everything from like a nondisclosure agreement all the way through funds flow. So like investment committee, Eli Lilly. Basically all the steps that you take a deal through. So it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool, of course. So I would. I would, yeah. Once that comes out, it's probably early June, about a month away. So I'd save a credit for that.
Intern 5: [00:24:49] Oh yeah. I'll have some built up by then.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:51] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Other than that, the LBO modeling probably is helpful. Most helpful. And then specifically, like, I don't know anything. Any sort of like certifications. I mean, unless you're talking public markets like Bayside, CFA, maybe, but.
Intern 5: [00:25:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm doing like the CFA. But I've been told so many times by people up from recently that it's just like it's a, it's a check mark on a box, but they don't really care anymore.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:17] Yeah, they don't. All right. Thank you. Yep. Thank you for the question. Tony said, Hey, Patrick, I had an idea for Wall Street. I just wanted to get your thoughts, thinking we could add a quiz or two that could help users come to know more about themselves. Rich in regards to finance. Let's see. So you're saying add quizzes to the pages tonight? Is that the idea?
Intern 6: [00:25:51] Oh, yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:52] Sounds interesting I think it could be cool helps engagement. Question is can we do it or how long it'll take the developers to get to get allow us to do it. Yeah. It's a good thought. It's a good thought because these are resources. These are kind of like longer form instructional pieces. It'd be good to see, test their knowledge at the end, see if they actually retain the info. It's a great idea.
Intern 6: [00:26:17] I'm pretty sure the document from Rutgers, I believe, that has an investment and investment risk tolerance quiz that we could adapt our quiz from. And I think that would improve use and in fact would give a lot more and get more use to the website.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:31] Are you talking specifically that that term, the investment risk tolerance?
Intern 6: [00:26:36] I mean, that's the one that came up in my head right now, but I don't mind any of the quiz as well.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:40] Yeah. So sorry you're breaking up a little bit. You're saying you can embed that quiz or we could just use that to base our quiz off of.
Intern 6: [00:26:47] We could use that the base of our quiz.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:49] Got it. Yeah, I'm more open to that. I think it would be cool to add some nice depth to the the topics. And I think you have for sure. I think it just makes it makes it better content. So we're always open to that and making better user experience, better content for all game. Thank you for the idea. Ahmed said, I'm having the same issue in Canada. Any other questions?
Intern 1: [00:27:12] Yeah, I think if he call up.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:15] So like. Mention the description about Mr. Pearce providing referrals after you complete the internship. How does that particularly work? Can you explain a bit about that? Sure. So once the internship is completed, we'll make sure you have your credits, send a congratulatory email, and then you can request direct connections through LinkedIn. So you can say, Hey, you're connected to X, Y, Z, can you please introduce me to them? I'd love to have a chat with them and learn more about their job. So it's a networking connection. Usually since it's coming from me, usually they'll they'll say they'll agree and do me a favor to talk with you. I know. I just put some one of our interns in touch with one of my mentees. So there's there's plenty I have over 30,000 or 30,000 connections on LinkedIn. So usually there's somebody in there that would be a good match to talk to. Look. That's helpful. Anybody else?
Intern 1: [00:28:14] Yep. I think Colt had something in that same person. That's something about.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:23] Colt was asking about length. Question Yeah, sorry. Can you answer that?
Intern 3: [00:28:29] Yeah. One question regarding Lent. I understand and have experienced that some topics are hard to generate two key keywords for. And I'm curious. Any ideas or parts to increase overall ward counts. I understand that as of now, some topics do not have to reach to care as long as a workout is about 20% higher than our competitors. Thoughts. Tyson Fury. Of not really.
Intern 1: [00:28:49]I mean, cost to increase topics would be covering something more in depth. One is just examples, like examples, examples, examples because examples are helps to explain stuff to the audience. Like for everything, if you have an example, it's just that much easier because you can illustrate how each of them works in real life and that automatically adds to the word count. So examples under each header maybe, or like each, every one or two headers, right. You can explain a concept would be great. That's a natural way to add words. Other than that, honestly, just looking at Google, seeing if there are questions you've not answered, which you could answer related to your topic, that would be great. Something I've seen a lot of interns do nowadays is adding and I think you at the end that's also pretty helpful. You could you could add having a few section about the topic and then how all the questions and answers that adds words to I'm just thinking what else could you do? I think I think that's I mean once you do this much like could easily be above what most competitors do anyway. So. Yeah. That's that's probably it.
Intern 3: [00:30:12] Yeah. Or for example, my my.
Intern 3: [00:30:14] Question kind of pertains towards asset.
Intern 3: [00:30:18] Acquisition, which was the topic that I was writing on.
Intern 3: [00:30:22] And while writing on that topic, I realized that I can go into a lot about asset acquisition, but it kind of pushes me towards various other forms of acquisition and how I was structuring it, I guess. And I. Also mentioned the 20% one, because in this last group I recognized that and I am about 30, 40% above the competitive pages that I was kind of pulling from my information from. But I'm kind of at the point also where I feel any additional content, text or information might kind of appear on the edge of redundancy. And I just wasn't sure. Yeah, just that's yeah.
Intern 1: [00:31:03] That's when you realize you've done a good job.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:05] The most important thing is that it's if you are a reader coming to this page, would you find it helpful or not? Period. Right.
Intern 3: [00:31:10]And I believe so. It's going to take a couple more read through it just to make sure.
Intern 3: [00:31:17] But I believe.I'm at that point.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:19] Perfect. And then I think you can call it and you can say, ready for review. And then once you kind of go through the check checklist, make sure you have what you need in there and then ready for review and we'll we'll get people on it.
Intern 3: [00:31:32] Perfect. Thank you.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:33] Thank you. Did I miss any other questions?
Intern 1: [00:31:39] Oh, there's one above. Hey, I won. I've won. Yeah, I'm just.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:46] I'm interested in buy side finance, and I just completed my first year in undergraduate. I'm wondering, what all can we do on the side, apart from academics that can help us in getting a good hold of how private equity buys out or investment fund function? Like What skills can a sophomore learn specifically that can help?
Intern 1: [00:32:06] Feeding a balance sheet, feeding financials. Writing research papers on places like what is that Alpha something right.
Intern 1: [00:32:14] For the.
Intern 1: [00:32:15] Alpha seeking alpha gravel thing that you can have. Like there are a couple of good places where you could have a portfolio, which definitely goes a long way if you are looking at like your hedge funds, stuff like that. And if people see that you have like a long track record of looking at stuff, probably it's a little bit like market.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:34] So investment banker, are you talking about private equity or are you looking in the public markets at all? Nice work. Nice name. Investment, Banker. I don't know. I don't know if you're still here. Let's see. Are you still here?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:47] Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:48] Yeah, you are. Cfa. One new message more on private equity. Yeah. So for that, I think taking our private equity interview course would be helpful. Taking the private equity deal process course we're about to release. Definitely do those LBO modeling course. Do those because a little good on the resume if you have those and you can specifically list out what you learn there. But to get into private equity, where where you located? I know you're in Canada, so I'm not as familiar with the Canadian market, but I know you can get an investment banking in the US or in Canada. The path to private equity tends to be much easier. So many PE funds pull from IB. You can go straight. There are smaller funds that will pull their have analyst programs now as well. So I think another thing you can really focus on is actually just making connections in the industry. So that means networking, networking, networking. Especially at funds where they have analyst programs to talk to other analysts that have kind of done what you what you want to do have already made that path and done it successfully and try to figure out try to emulate what they did, try to learn more about what they did. My guess is going to be like they talk to a lot of people. They were just super sharp. I mean, very hard to make the jump from undergrad to straight to PE. Did you are you at a target school? Are you at Ivy? Or any other target school in Canada. There's the one, Robin Wright. I don't know if you're very familiar with Canadian Target Schools. Not really. A tier 1.5, I would say. Yeah. So.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:34] Rothman So yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:38] So I mean, all I'd say is just make sure a lot of people, especially young people like freshman, sophomore year or even junior senior, there's a lot of overconfidence. I'm going into thinking, well, I know all this stuff. I'm super smart. I have a high GPA, so like that job is waiting for me. In reality, it's not waiting for you. It's still incredibly competitive. You're going up against, for example, for you, you're going to have kids against Ivy at Ivy. And guess what? The kid with the super high GPA at Ivy, a ton of a ton of those are also never landing the job they want and they're getting rejected. So keeping that in the back of your mind, not to be overconfident, to stay humble and to to realize, like how long of a path it may be to get to where you want to go and be willing to put in that work goes a long way. Yeah. So to actually to actually realizing that. But yeah, I would also try to be a little more focused besides huge. So like try to be if you decide banking is the right path to get to private equity, definitely don't be in your interview saying I really want to go by side. Yeah, because they're just going to see you as a flight risk and they know you're going to leave after like a year or so and peace out.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:56] And then they had to fill that seat again. So remember, banker for life, that's all you just got to say. I want to be a banker for life. Um. Mcgill, UBC, THC. Says Ivy is fascinating and horrifying at the same time. Thanks for the response, though. You're welcome. Yeah, ibis is fascinating and horrifying. I'll just say there's such a dearth of demand for junior resources right now that you are all in a good spot if you show knowledge. This this internship puts you in a great spot to get interviews. So really improving your ability, your skills and interviews is super important. And the way you get good at interviews is just talking to a lot of people, and that's networking and that's the same skill set. Talking about your story, why you want to go into filmmaking, why this specific bank, all that stuff that you know you're going to get asked. Not having a generic bullshit answer in the interview or in the in the networking calls will go a long way. So to actually getting interviews and making it past the first round and get into the final rounds to the super days. Any other questions? Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:08] People are already landing. I'd be interested for 2023. I don't know. How the hell does that work? It works because there are target schools. They got in on campus recruiting and they get they get hit up. It doesn't mean you have to you have to give up. It just means I'd start networking. And so when people say, like, what do you mean networking? Well. Linkedin. It's funny because I see people I've been working, I've been networking so hard and I look at their LinkedIn real quickly and I see like 35 connections or something and I just start laughing. Because you can send out 150 connect 100 connection requests a day. It takes maybe an hour to do. So like, why wouldn't you be sending out 100 connection requests a day to people who are in the industry you want to be in? Just to try and build that, even if it's a very weak. Connection. What happens is as you start building that network, suddenly other people who are looking to connect to you or not, they see that you're connect with two or 300 people in IP. So you'd be like, Oh, they're all connected, so I'm going to connect to them or to click and your response rate will start going out. What would you say is a good number of connections on LinkedIn? I'd say for an undergrad getting up to a couple of thousand, you should be able to get a couple of thousand pretty fast.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:23] Sounds crazy, but like, if you're sending out 100 a day, go. It should. You should be getting like ten a day, ten new connections a day. So do the math. That's 500 and a year. Right. So. Yeah. So tonight, that's the whole point. Like, what's the downside? It takes it's so fast. The Senate can actually request on LinkedIn. All you're doing is building. You're building a very weak connection, admittedly, but it takes you like 15, 20 seconds. So it's like you start doing that. The goal of those, by the way, is not just to make a bunch of connections. We connections. The goal is to then to take those connections that turn into connections. You get their email off of their profile. You start creating a spreadsheet, you can start sending mail merges. To those people basically saying, hey, I'd love to have a blah blah here is know I will go to this school. I do this. I'd love to actually hop on a call for 5 minutes. Whatever time is good for you. Whenever it's best for you to be able to have something at.
Intern 3: [00:39:23] No.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:24] No. Sorry. I thought you were going to say something.
Intern 1: [00:39:27] Oh, no. So that's how it works? Yeah. Just having a sheet. We have. We have a template as well, right, where we have that Rolodex kind of thing on Excel where people can just say, When was the last time you responded? What's the status of the connection? Is it called? What is it? Is it warm? And like every once in a while you got to you got to respond. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:47] And this is where having a background in sales is really helpful. You can think of like trying to get a job as selling yourself. And so when you think of like a funnel of, like. You know, if someone's only sending five connection requests a day and they think they're doing a good job, they're top of funnel this big. So what are the odds that somebody is going to actually accept the requests, actually get on a phone call, actually get them a first round interview? It's tiny. But if your funnel suddenly goes like this at the top, yeah, it's going to get super narrow, but there's going to be a few. They're probably going to land a few interviews from that. Um. Do you think it would make sense to randomly send a request to people working in your industry and ask them for a conversation? Absolutely. I know it works. From over a decade of experience. There are people who want to help. Many of them won't want to help you. 95% of the people probably will never respond. Or 98%. But 10% will respond. And out of that 10%, maybe another 10% of those, maybe 1% of the people will actually get on a phone call with you. And if you do a good job asking interesting questions, not generic questions, and you seem really motivated, they may actually ask for your CV or ask for your resume, and from there you suddenly now are going to be hearing about you're going to keep up to date with that, then you're going to tell them everything you're doing. It can really help you. Got it going to sit and do that during the summer and keep you updated with my progress. Awesome. Tonight. Good to hear. Albin says there's a CFA equity research challenge coming up in September. Would you advise me to take part? And what might the perks of winning it? I would say that since you're a CFA.
Intern 1: [00:41:32] And honestly it depends, it will set you up really good if you're looking for a kind of role because you'll have experience. It'll give you a good experience of what an equity research looks like from the buy side. I think that's what the competition is about. And yeah, for those of you who've not seen a report, who have not worked on one or whatever, this will give you a whole process like how does it work? You'll get to sit with stakeholders through the depending on your chapter like the company you are analyzing. So know how that works too. How do you reach out to people? So it's a good experience overall, but again, what are you looking to do with it? You can get all these certifications, but if you don't want to be in l don't want to be part of all this, you could spend that time networking if you're looking for it, be like, you know, so like what exactly are you looking for? Matters more like you could have a lot of stuff that you could do, but you've got a time limited, right? So you've got to use it in the best possible way. So that's the question. Is that the best thing you could do in that time then? Yeah, definitely. If not, like what else do you have to do? I like Patrick said, like if you want to go network takes networking takes time, but it takes a lot of your time.
Intern 1: [00:42:41] Even though it looks easy, like, oh yeah, I'm going to send connection requests, getting down to coffee chats, arranging stuff. All of that takes a lot of time, following up with people, making sure you're up to date because it's not enough to send. Yeah, it's important to stay organized, have like a prop excel chart, maintain it. It's not just randomly sending connection requests and forgetting about it, you know, and then once they accept, what did he do with that? And then following up, following up, following up. Even if they don't reply right? Like each follow up increases the response rate. And who knows, like one person responding back might be the career changing response. So you've got to follow up. So yeah, that's time consuming too. So it depends honestly. Like what? What do you want to use your time on if you think you can do like that, plus this like awesome. If these are the two things you want to work on, like if that's the only thing you want to work on, awesome. But like, only you can decide for yourself honestly, depending on where you want to head.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:33] Yeah. My my goal is for all of you coming out of this internship and doing all these calls, is that when you get access to the free courses, ideally once on like the investment banking interview course or private equity interview course and the networking course comes along with that. Please don't ignore the networking course. There's templates in there. It's super valuable. It's like the most important life skill and it ties in. If you do 50 calls with investment banking professionals before your investment banking interview, you're just going to be so much more well versed in terms of what to expect and how to speak in the lingo and everything. You're just going to sound more intelligent. You're going to sound more like a better fit for the job. And that's for anything not just about banking, equity research, even if you're just if you're going to big for transaction advisory services, anything. I'm going to be, I think. Tzachi. How do you say your name? Esau says. Can we get an Excel template to the networking process?
Intern 1: [00:44:30] Yeah, I think they're on the site. I'll get it up here. Plus, you'll also get it as part of the part of the interview costume. So you get it both ways? Yeah, I'll just put that on my list.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:49] There's another comment here that I think is important. Um. Do you have any opinions on search funds and working there as an intern? I think it looks good. If you are targeting the buy side and private equity funds, it looks like you're trying to get some experience. So I think it is a positive to your CV, not as good as working at an actual fund that has committed capital. But yeah, it'll give you a little bit of a sense of like how people are looking at deals, how they're looking at specific sub industries, what makes it good potential deal, what doesn't, stuff like that. And then just getting into the process of seeing how banks are marketing their their companies and stuff like that. So I think it's helpful because you probably are going to get exposed to a lot of relevant stuff that you'd be doing at any sort of. Typical private equity fund, not just a search fund. And then you also mentioned you can also make equity research reports of your own, like pick a stock and make a report every 2 to 3 months. You can send it to various industry people and get some valuable feedback along with connecting with them. That's also a good tip, especially if you're looking to go to hedge funds or equity research.
Intern 1: [00:45:56] I mean, you could even put like financial models. You can do all that stuff and put on LinkedIn. I've seen like a few people do it and it's always a hit because everyone's like, Oh, share this, share this. And then you get into touch with those professionals. But it's very few people doing it. So I think it's a good time to start if you haven't. Because I think that's a new avenue, again, to not talk and have a conversation. Right.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:17] It's just hard because a lot of people don't have the skills. To do it well, like you've got to show off once you have it and to get it.
Intern 1: [00:46:25] Once you finish these courses that we give, then you could start doing models, you could use it. And like we do have examples like real life example, you could use it for something else, right? Don't use the same examples that we use, but like use it elsewhere and then see what you know what how do you interpret it? Like, what do you think it is, etc. Put all those comps, spread those comps, spread the models get and then share it. Like people are going to say, Oh, this person knows how to model. There you go. And then if you keep doing that, then like one is a push, right? Like you're going to push for connection. One is a bull. This happens to be the pull part of marketing where people come to you for content rather than you going elsewhere and like pushing stuff and saying, Hey, connect with me. This is the other way around. People will be asking you to connect.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:10] So that see, is it possible to get some more courses during our internship today? I think with seven courses you're getting based, you're getting a ton. I think you're getting almost all the main ones you would need for any career. So. No worries. So I think for you there are other questions. Around investment banking, private equity, hedge funds, careers. My experience is obviously skewed towards the US since I grew up. I did my banking stint at Rothschild in New York and then did four years in private equity. So I'm a little bit biased and I don't know as much as from the European side, but I've interviewed and talked with enough bankers and private equity and finance pros from all around the world that I know just enough to be dangerous. So yeah, there's any other questions and maybe we'll call it. If not I, Trung. So we're near the end of that call. We'll have a recording go up. I'm. Anything else in the bill that you want to close on.
Intern 1: [00:48:21] No, I think that's about it, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:23] Yeah. Yeah. I think I hope that was helpful for everybody. Thanks for all the questions for the people who join will be. Yeah. Do the courses come with certification. Yes, they come with certificate of completion once you get through them and you pass the assessment. So yes, you will have that. Thanks to you tonight and everybody will be back on next week. This recording. Ah, the one from the previous week. I'll get it posted to the to the group chat so if you guys want to watch that one as well. That was a pretty fun, lively discussion last week as well. So enjoy it. And thanks again so much for all your hard work. And we will talk in one week.
Intern 1: [00:49:01] Yep, I will. Good day, everyone. Goodbye.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:04] 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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