WSO Podcast | E58: Non-target to Credit Analyst at a Bulge Bracket Investment Bank
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Member @Mentor1119 shares her path from a non-target university to breaking into a bulge bracket investment bank. We cover why she decided to go into finance, how she leveraged certain programs to give her a leg up in recruiting as well as the group dynamics involved during her summer analyst stint. Why she eventually left to go to the buy-side, why she bombed a case interview and one tip on how to avoid the same fate.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 58) Transcript:
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:05] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis. Your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me! As I talked to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. In this episode, member Mentor1119, shares her path from a non target university to breaking into a bulge bracket investment bank. We cover why she decided to go into finance, how she leveraged certain programs to give her a leg up in recruiting, as well as the group dynamics involved during her summer analyst stint. Why she eventually left to go to the buy side, why she bombed a case interview and one tip on how to avoid the same fate. Enjoy. All right, Mentor1119, thank you so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast.
Mentor1119: [00:01:08] Thanks for having me
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:09] So it'd be great if you could just give a quick bio broad strokes to the listeners.
Mentor1119: [00:01:14] Yeah, sure. So I graduated from undergrad about three years ago, and I immediately joined a bulge bracket investment bank and was there for about two and a half years or so and then moved over to the buy side at a private debt fund where as an associate for a little less than a year and then I kind of moved over to grad school to do something a little bit different, but kind of just quick overview of my background in finance.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:47] So let's start back at your non target school and you're so did you know, kind of coming like as a freshman where you like, I know I want to do finance or what kind of interested you and potentially going down that road, when was the kind of the first lightbulb that went off like this might be interesting to me. Yeah. So I entered undergrad with
Mentor1119: [00:02:11] Absolutely no idea that I wanted to go into investment banking. I was at a business school, so I knew I wanted to study something within business. I think how I approached my major was, You know, what am I good at? What sounds interesting and what is practical in terms of finding a job after school? So for me, yeah. So for me, I was always pretty good at math. I was interested in economics, but wanted a little bit more practical application of it. So finance kind of made sense. But I was always interested and kind of other subjects as well. I was always good at like history social sciences, so I took some additional miners in those subjects.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:03] And you were right, but you were on a full ride, right? So like money was a consideration like you were. You took that full ride or that scholarship because you
Mentor1119: [00:03:10] Like, Yeah. So I was part of an honors program in my undergraduate university, so I had a full tuition scholarship for all four years. We also had a stipend for study abroad. So I went I studied abroad two times in two different continents, and I had the opportunity really in the financial flexibility to explore a little bit in my undergrad. But ultimately, I was, I guess, when choosing what I wanted to do. I think generally what I wanted was a challenging work environment with very intelligent, driven, motivated individuals. That was just the environment I wanted to surround myself with. And in terms of finding jobs that had those characteristics, I think investment banking came out to be kind of the area to be as a finance major.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:10] So did you know that like did you know that starting out as a freshman or kind of you fell into it like buy stuff? Because I assume did the recruiting for you to start by like sophomore year, like early sophomore or more junior year for the junior
Mentor1119: [00:04:24] Summer? Sort of. Yeah, it started junior year. I think I moved up like the year to the year or the second year after me, but like formal recruiting started for me the fall of my junior year. But before getting an internship or getting that summer analyst internship coming from a non target school, especially internships were really, really important, and internships related to finance and related to banking were important. So I had done a number of other kind of finance internships not directly related to banking, but in finance. How did you find those? How did you finance? So like I did a wealth management internship at another bulge bracket bank. I did like a financial news research internship where I did some research on like distressed debt companies.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:19] You could have done an internship with Wall Street, Oasis, everyone. Always when all of our interns always say they're shocked by, like the whole, the whole interview being about Wall Street Oasis because everyone wants to know about that. But no, it's funny. So, yeah, finance news site. So then another bulge bracket. Perfect. So you're just you're getting something somewhat relevant. At least you're fresh freshman and sophomore year?
Mentor1119: [00:05:38] Yeah, exactly. So was like somewhat relevant, not banking, but it was definitely figuring out what I wanted to do. Like the first two years of school, I didn't even know honestly what banking was or what the job itself entailed.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:51] So how did you get? How did you know what to say in the interview? Like didn't. Did you need to know that by the time junior year came around? Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Mentor1119: [00:06:00] I think how I approached understanding it. Was just networking with people and speaking to older like upperclassmen who had done internships and also friends. I just asked them like what their job entailed, what they liked about it, what they did at. And a lot of people just generally encouraged me to go into banking. They were like, OK, like, if you don't know what you want to do, this is a good stepping stone. You're not going to regret it. You'll learn a lot of technical skills. You'll be challenged.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:32] Do you agree with them now on the other side? yeah, I do. I do agree with them. I think it was
Mentor1119: [00:06:38] Really good advice.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:40] Ok, cool. So stepping back, so you kind of have the stereotypical internships of private wealth management, maybe your software, you are like the finance news site and then, yeah, you're kind of coming into junior year and there are their resume drops at this non-target for a bulge bracket doesn't sound quite like a non-target, but maybe I think you had mentioned before the call that for a certain group of that, this bulge bracket, it kind of was a target there. So you can talk a little bit about that.
Mentor1119: [00:07:07] Yeah, yeah. So for the group that I was in, I was part of credit in the investment bank inside. So we worked closely with like DCM, mostly with leveraged finance.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:20] You explain like what does that mean? Credit like is wouldn't it just be called DCM or why is that different?
Mentor1119: [00:07:26] So it's different in that we're not like. Well, we're doing the fundamental credit analysis of deals
that the investment bank will have to hold on to on its balance sheet. So in essence, we're managing the credit exposure of the investment bank on all deals that we have.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:49] So you're like supporting DCM almost or is it more like an internal risk function like group? Should I think that it's
Mentor1119: [00:07:57] Kind of like supporting them? So in terms of what we actually did like, we would put together all of the credit memos for LBO deals for M&A financings instead of. I think some banks have their leverage. Finance teams do that. We like as an individual analyst, would be solely responsible for the memo for whatever X Y and Z LBO or whatever X Y and Z M&A deal. Yeah. So I'd say yes, part of it was a risk kind of function. But then also part of it was closer to banking because we also were involved with like structuring and originating ok because we were the ones who kind of had to manage that exposure on the balance sheet for the bank. So like, we had to make sure we were good with the credit terms and the ultimate credit agreement
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:54] That totally makes sense. So it's kind of a blunt a little bit of you're kind of almost like the bridge between a few different divisions, it sounds like, yeah, yeah, it's kind of like a
Mentor1119: [00:09:04] Hybrid between like risk Iby. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:08] And do you think is that common across the bulge brackets there, like most places have that as like, how should I did? Most of them have like the same terminology in terms of how they call it, like credit, like for people who are interested in potentially doing that. Yeah, I mean, if you don't know, it's fine. I don't know. That's why I was asking, Yeah,
Mentor1119: [00:09:28] This is just me kind of speculating a bit from what I've heard from people, but for other places or other banks, what I've heard is the credit team may not be directly involved in the like the initial transaction. So they're not actually working on the LBO or the M&A. They'll manage the credit exposure from like a portfolio management perspective after the deal is done.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:57] So like you guys are brought in earlier and so did you. Does that mean you actually got some modeling experience? Yeah, yeah.
Mentor1119: [00:10:04] So did you do modeling for memos? Yep.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:08] Very cool. And so you'd be looking at like specifically the actual credit, like modeling out the company, seeing if they could handle like what the what the exposure was and all that like on a company level, exactly
Mentor1119: [00:10:19] Like repayment meant like leverage
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:24] Financial ratios, making sure nothing look to whack. Ok, so you're let's go back to your story. So you're kind of coming in his junior year or your non target kind of has a little bit of a some alumni at this bulge bracket for this specific group. So there is a resume drop or how did that work? Yeah. So there was a resume drop that was
Mentor1119: [00:10:52] Like a couple of months after when I applied. So I actually didn't apply through on campus recruiting. I applied through like woman's program, like a women's program at that bulge bracket bank, and I think the still exists. But a lot of investment banks have earlier, like women's kind of pipeline programs,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:13] Women's and women's and diversity recruiting. Yeah, and that definitely happens now early, some, some even freshman year. Oh, really? Yeah, but definitely sophomore year, even though all of it's kind of shifted now to sophomore year. Yeah. But yeah, no, you're right. So, so OK. Great. So you applied through that, not even through the resume drop. And did you were you already in a process then by early junior year like fall?
Mentor1119: [00:11:40] Yeah. So like early. I think like I got my offer probably beginning of November. Latest OK,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:47] And so were you excited? Were you nervous? What was the thought when you got that offer? Yeah, I mean, a ton of feelings, right?
Mentor1119: [00:11:55] Because like how it works is like when you have a summer almost position, you hopefully want to go back as a full time analyst if it works out. So at your junior year, you're kind of making a decision as to what your potential full time job would look like. Like making a decision for two years down the line. So I think that was just like kind of stressful but also exciting at the same time. So I had a couple of other interviews at the same around the same time that. I ultimately just turned down I didn't proceed with because I like the offer that I got. I like the people that I interviewed with. I thought the job was interesting and I kind of like I like the industry group that I had wanted to be in and had early indications that I would be placed into that group. So that certainty, definitely. And the people that I met with help me make the decision ultimately.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:05] And did you feel like the other processes you were in? Was it also through women's programs or was it through the school as well? Or were they just other just processes that were just going before you? Yeah, early in your junior year.
Mentor1119: [00:13:23] So I think some of them were through women's programs and then some of them were through like on campus recruiting.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:30] Do you feel like talking to people who didn't go through those programs? Do you feel like it gave you a significant leg up or do you feel like it was you would have made it through either way?
Mentor1119: [00:13:41] I think it still gave me a leg up talking to those people because like I started kind of grabbing coffee and networking with these people, maybe my sophomore year when I still didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. And they just gave me like a great idea of what to expect, like what they do on day to day, and also gave me some tips.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:06] Would people be able to do that if they weren't in one of these programs? Could they like? Make those same connections or similar connections on their own. Do you feel like it, just be harder? I guess it's not all set up. It's not kind of set up for you. Maybe we what do you mean like the coffee chats you're doing your sophomore year? Do you feel like other people would be able to do that too, like if they didn't have, if they weren't part of this program? Oh yeah,
Mentor1119: [00:14:29] Totally. I think people are very receptive to meeting with students, especially if they have an interest. Yeah, I think it definitely helped that I reached out to people who graduated from high school, but I think I also reached out to people who did it, and they were also very receptive. So how I approached it was I reach out to someone who graduated from high school, and if the coffee chat went well, I would ask them if they could introduce me to another person, maybe on the team that I wanted to be placed into or someone who was doing something that I wanted to eventually do. Yeah, and that was the best way to meet as many people as possible, because then you have a direct referral from someone that that person who didn't go to your school knows.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:17] Yeah, that's huge. Always asking for that additional person at the end is such a nice little hack that can get you so many more contacts. Yeah.
Mentor1119: [00:15:25] Like keep the conversation alive.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:27] Yeah, yeah. The chain right. The chain of connections, the web. Yeah, so great. So you had it sounds like you had been doing some of that work. You leveraged some of these groups, which is really smart to give yourself kind of a little bit of a leg up in terms of getting those connections. But you put in the work and then when you were doing the actual recruiting where the interviews tough, were they technical or did they surprise you at all anything that was surprising about them? Or were they like, super like, please come join us? Or what was it like? It was a mix, I'd say so.
Mentor1119: [00:15:57] The first round was a mix of both behavioral and a little bit of technical, but more conceptual than like spitting out a formula right or memorizing and repeating DCF. It was like, OK, conceptually. Like what type of company would you rather lend to and why? And then for the Super Day, then it got technical. So I think there were maybe three or four interviewers and two out of three or four were technical as in kind of go through a DCF, walk me through DCF, walk through the formulas like what happens if this
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:42] And you were right, you were ready for that. You kind of expected that, yeah, yeah, I
Mentor1119: [00:16:46] Did. I expected it to be pretty technical because credit at this bulge bracket that I was at was a pretty technical role, right? So I was advised by people who had interviewed there and also worked there that I should expect to have, like a typical investment banking interview. So I prepared all my technical the same way that I would have for any other IP interview.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:14] Good. So you weren't caught off guard? That's smart. Yeah, that's another huge plus of networking. And not just going in into it blind is people are pretty much going to tell you what's coming if you listen.
Mentor1119: [00:17:25] Yeah, exactly. No, the networking helped a ton.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:28] So you're kind of going through this. You get to the Super Day. Tell me what that Super Day was like. What was it that you get in the office? How are you feeling your sweaty palms? Or are you just like, very confident going in there knowing? Or had this been like your second Super Day? Had you already done something so you felt more confident or?
Mentor1119: [00:17:49] In New York, summer analysts, I've done several days before
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:52] You cut out there for a second. Can you start? Start over again, just describing this day? Yeah, yeah.
Mentor1119: [00:17:58] So it was my first like junior summer analyst, Super Day. I think I've had maybe like one before that, but I was so nervous. Like, I think the night before I was sitting there memorizing all the formulas for like a DCF model and fear that I could be asked every night anything like, oh, like, how do you calculate whack or what's the cost of equity and how do you calculate that and what's being done?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:29] So I was like, So how did you get yourself like under control as you walked into that office? Hmm. Like, did you just take deep breaths? Did you do a couple of shots like before going in? Like, what did you do to calm down? I made the morning of I was like, OK, like, you got this? get it together. Get it together. Yeah, yeah.
Mentor1119: [00:18:52] Really, you don't know everything, but that's fine. And I think just like the people that I met during the interview were genuinely really welcoming and friendly, and they did not make me feel like I was there to just like, recite every and anything that I've memorized. I think they, like, genuinely wanted to get to know me as a person, and that helped a tremendous amount when I started going through all the interviews because I'm like, OK, like they're going to throw in one or two technical, but it's really a conversation between you and the interviewer. It's not them just trying to grill you. And yeah, like know for sure. Make you crack.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:30] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there are nightmare or horror stories of like the good cop bad cop interviews or like one person's giving you all these technical, the other ones, the friendly one. But it's good. It sounds like you didn't have that, which is which is good. Yeah. Yeah, which is great. So, OK, so you're basically get through it. There are a few technical thrown in there at the Super Day, but you survive and tell me, what do they do? They give you the offer right then and there for the summer analysts position. How did that work or left later that day? Yeah.
Mentor1119: [00:20:06] So let me try to remember. I think it was on a Friday for Super Day and they didn't give me the offer on the spot. But after I sent out my thank you emails that evening, I had a sense because I got responses from my thank you emails, which usually means like they like you enough to want to respond to your email. Mm hmm. so I kind of had a sense like I got the offer on Friday afternoon evening and then Monday I got the official call and the email that I got the offer.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:40] It's funny you say that because I always feel like the thank you emails like you can't read too much into it. We've had people on W stuff for years been like they wrote this What should that? What does that mean? It's like, Dude, you can't. You don't. You're not going to really know until you either get it or you don't get it. but everyone listening don't read too much into the responses. If someone responds to your thinking email, that does not mean you have the offer. Yeah, because yeah, I think
Mentor1119: [00:21:04] It's always mixed responses. It's hard to tell. Yeah. But I think when they're clear, it's obvious as it. I think I think email,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:15] They were like site friendly back or whatever. Yeah, yeah.
Mentor1119: [00:21:17] It was like, Oh, you did a good job during the interview.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:20] Good. Ok, yeah, it was. It was specific. Got it.
Mentor1119: [00:21:23] Yeah, yeah. So it's hard to be like, OK, like I did a good job. I think unless some, yeah, like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:28] Something weird happened. So, OK, so you get the offer on that Monday. You're super excited. You're already in junior year was the rest of the year. How did you go about prepping for the summer analyst position? Did you do anything or did you just feel like, Hey, I got it, I'm going to enjoy my junior year, keep my GPA up? And then just kind of like, go into the summer and work as hard as I can because I know, you know, it can be pretty competitive. I think most bulge bracket bulge bracket banks bring back the majority of their summer analysts, though for full time. Is that correct? I mean, for your for your look like they I think they probably my guess they hired 90 90 plus percent or extended offers to 90 percent or was it less than that?
Mentor1119: [00:22:13] I think a little bit less than that if I look at my entire intern class.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:17] Ok, so 70 ish.
Mentor1119: [00:22:19] Yeah, I think 70 percent. Ok.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:23] That's a little nerve. It's still nerve wracking because there's a there's a small minority, but a minority that that doesn't get the return offer. So tell me how you went into summer analyst kind of with what was your thought process? What was your kind of game plan? Yeah. So how I.
Mentor1119: [00:22:39] Well, I think in terms of return offers, it also depends on specific teams within the division. So they could just like over hire interns and not or like they don't really have a choice sometimes in terms of how many interns the team gets. So there might be three interns and they really only have two spots. So I didn't want to take any risk of looking at like the statistic as a whole that 70 percent get return offers.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:08] I think it could be luck to write like if you're just in the wrong group and they don't have any seats and then you don't, you haven't built a connections right at the other groups. So, yeah,
Mentor1119: [00:23:17] Yeah, exactly. Like, a lot of it could also just be luck, like it could be really random. So I didn't want to take that risk. I was actually really, really afraid that I like wouldn't perform well on the job or wouldn't get a return offer. So I spent my junior year taking as many classes as I could that were relevant to what I'd be doing in next summer. So I took more advanced accounting classes. I took more advanced corporate finance classes. I did.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:52] That actually helped, do you think?
Mentor1119: [00:23:54] Yeah, I think it did help. It definitely did. Ok, like the accounting classes, I think helps the corporate finance. Definitely.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:05] You just became more familiar with the terminology and all that stuff. And yeah, yeah.
Mentor1119: [00:24:09] And just like practicing doing very simple like financial analysis and those classes helped like, yeah, even just understanding what like operating profit is or what EBITDA is or how to calculate it, even though, like, I couldn't calculate it quickly, I at least knew what it was.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:30] So tell me about let's this jump to your internships. How was that? So you get there. You're again, super nervous. Probably first day. Yeah, and you ended up getting into one of the groups, I assume that you were interested in. Yeah. And so you start there and do you feel like there's anything surprised you about the day to day?
Mentor1119: [00:24:53] I think what was most surprising was how little technical skills I had even coming as like a finance major.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:04] Mm hmm. Ok. What do you mean by that? Why did you say that? Yeah, because I mean, like
Mentor1119: [00:25:11] Everyone studies the people that they hire, like everyone studies different things, but they're usually pretty quantitative. Yeah. But I had thought that since I studied finance specifically, it would be directly related to a lot of the technical day to day work that I'd be doing. But it really wasn't because it was like that times one hundred on the job.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:36] Give an example like of something. Yeah, where you thought it would help. And then it was just like completely different. Yeah, like
Mentor1119: [00:25:45] Something even as simple as spreading financials for a company. Because like, even though the concept is the same, like in school, you get an overly simplified version of it of like everything really like in school, you'll have like revenue, cost of goods sold, gross profit. Maybe you'll have Cigna after, maybe not, but then like it's like five or six lines. And then when you go to work, you have a financial statement that has like 10, 20 or 30 line items and you're like, What is all this like? I don't know any of those, you know, nothing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:30] Do you feel like it's a disservice that the finance courses are that dumbed down? Or do you feel like it's where you just need to start out? I think it's where you need to start out, I think, yeah, like
Mentor1119: [00:26:43] Because like as an undergrad, I think you definitely need just the conceptual framework first before diving into the details. And I think that did help because it gave you a bigger picture of what you're ultimately doing. Mm hmm. And then when you're in? When you go to the job, then you can dive into all the little details,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:09] So were you super stressed because like you were like, I don't know any of this and then. Like trying to pick it up on the job and be useful as a summer analyst.
Mentor1119: [00:27:19] So like definitely was really stressed, but like, so is everyone else. And other people also having studied finance or like engineering or math? Yeah. Like, no one really knew what they were doing
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:31] And say, how many hours do you think you were working that summer? On average?
Mentor1119: [00:27:36] On average, I probably went in every day at like eight thirty, and then I laughed no earlier than like no earlier than 10, 10, 30 a lot. And then I
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:50] Work 60 70 hours a week.
Mentor1119: [00:27:52] So yeah, at least 60 60 hours.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:56] So not the worst internship ever, but still not easy.
Mentor1119: [00:28:00] Oh yeah, I definitely worked a lot of weekends. So yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:05] Ok, so tell me as you're kind of getting through the internship, you're put on a few projects, I assume, and you're trying to be helpful to the analysts. Tell me how you made yourself useful or try to make yourself useful. Did you just stay out of their way? How often were you bothering the analysts when they did give you something to do? How did you kind of handle that balancing act?
Mentor1119: [00:28:27] Yeah. So I think as a summer analyst, as an intern, it's really important to just show initiative and just like positive energy and eagerness to learn curiosity without being too overboard where you're burdening them more so than you're helping them. So what I did, how I approached it was just like, OK, like what? What can I do to help make their life easier? Working on this deal, I can do something as simple as just like maybe just spreading the numbers for them so they don't have to do that and they can focus on like X, Y and Z other things. Or if they're putting together a diligence list, I'd offered to add questions or to the diligence list or like read through certain materials that they may not have time to read through. So just kind of like finding yourself, like finding areas that you can be helpful in and taking initiative, also showing curiosity and kind of being like, you know, I genuinely want to know about this and I want to learn about this. How can I help you? Ok.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:30] Yeah. And so did you. Um, I guess, did you feel like by halfway through or when did you feel like, did you feel like you were helping or did you feel like you're more of a burden? Probably changed, probably switched by the end. You probably felt a little bit useful, Yeah, I guess. I think they did.
Mentor1119: [00:29:51] It actually put us on anything really big until at least like middle to mid end of our internship when we had gotten a better grasp of the technical aspect of the job.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:05] Were your analysts working super long hours?
Mentor1119: [00:30:08] Are some of them were some of them, weren't it just dependent on their deal flow? But yeah, like some of them were definitely working a lot and those are the ones that we were staffed with. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:22] So how did you know? How did you know you were doing a good job? How did you know you were in line for a return offer? Or did you know until like, when did you kind of get that sense of like you were doing? Ok, you're on the right track and then it'd be great to hear. Yeah, how, how and when you got notified about that?
Mentor1119: [00:30:40] Yeah, I think in the first half of the internship, it was really hard to tell because no one knew anything and everyone was just trying to learn as much as they could. Yeah, I think during your mid-year mid-summer evaluation, that's when you get a sense of like how you're tracking and whether or not you'll get a return offer. But that doesn't one hundred percent determine that either. So you kind of have to keep working even after a mid-summer. So I think I had a sense, probably towards like the middle of the second half of my internship that I was probably going to get a return offer. I think like the other two interns on my team, technically there were only two spots for my team, but got three interns. So there was always that like just complete random walk of, you know, everyone's doing well, but we just don't have spots for you. And that was mostly like, I think that was the biggest risk for my internship because all three of us seem to be tracking and doing pretty well
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:59] And but one didn't get the offer. Huh. But one person didn't get the offer.
Mentor1119: [00:32:04] No. So like I think in the middle of the second half of the internship, they just figured out that they would. They're going to hire three interns instead of two. Ok, so that's when we had that's when all three of us had a sense that we'd probably get a return. But up until that point, I think we were all like, Oh, like, who's going to be my mother? And another job?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:26] Ok, that's good. That's good. So it wasn't too stressful once they said, No, we're going to get three, we're going to bring in three. So. So tell me a little bit about. Yeah, just how that whole transition going into senior year with a with a full time offer, did you accept immediately? Did you try shopping it? What was that whole process going to that? Because I know it's I don't want to keep you too much longer. Yeah. So I actually and I want to get into the actual job. I want to get into the actual job a little bit too, so. Ok. So I
Mentor1119: [00:33:00] Didn't chop. I kind of I enjoyed my internship a lot. I enjoy the people I work with. So I took the offer maybe like a week or two after I got it. And also studying abroad the semester after. So I didn't have time to shop. I kind of had to take what I got, but I was happy with what I got.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:17] So yeah, it must have been exciting and you probably enjoyed your time abroad a lot more. Yeah. Oh yeah, amazing. And so then you come back your senior year, you finish up, you graduate. And then is it the same set of nerves kind of after you had done the internship? Or did you feel like you were a little bit more ready since you were at the same firm, same group?
Mentor1119: [00:33:39] Yeah, no. I definitely felt a lot more ready. I knew the people I was going to work with. I knew what to expect at least, or what they expected from me. So it made it a thousand times easier to join a team of people that I know.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:53] And it seemed the base salary was like the typical I don't know what it was back then, like seventy five, eighty thousand, I think it was eighty five, eighty five. Yeah. And so then from there was the expectation, like the hours were going to be 60 to 80 hours a week. Or was it considered like a group that was or yeah, division that was pretty rough or something that you know you you'd be depending on deal flow, it could get up to 90 or 100 hours. Or was it more like you 80 tops?
Mentor1119: [00:34:23] I don't think it ever went to like 90 or 100. It was more on the moderate side till like 60 to 70 80 on a bad week, but like 60 to 70 and then weekends, maybe once, twice a month. Yeah, not too bad.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:40] Yeah, really. Not too bad. Yeah. So you're kind of starting this. You kind of have some familiarity, which is nice. You start there. Anything unexpected, anything interesting or any funny stories? Well, I
Mentor1119: [00:34:56] Think what was interesting was like we I did not expect to get along so well with all the analysts and my team. Like, we kind of just formed this like awesome bond. And like, we're all so different. But when you work with each other and you like, we also sit trading floors that we sat trading floor style. So yeah, you're like sitting on top of each other and the amount of time that you spend with each other, you just become really, really close. That was like definitely one of the best parts of working so much.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:31] I miss it, honestly. I used to have the bullpen and you have now I work from home and I'm like, totally isolated. Yeah, it's tough.
Mentor1119: [00:35:41] Yeah, it's so different because that's only like that type of culture is only in banking, I realized, because when you when I went to the buy side, it's like completely different. It's very
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:53] Individual. So yeah, we'll get there. But tell me a little bit about so the day to day, was it just your on a specific deal? You're doing that analysis, you're working with the associates in the VP's. Was it more? Was there a lot of people on each deal at your bulge bracket or was it pretty thinly staffed? It was pretty evenly stuffed.
Mentor1119: [00:36:14] So like when
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:15] You were VP and an associate on it. And yeah, yeah, OK.
Mentor1119: [00:36:20] Usually, it'd be like if you have an associate, you won't be. You wouldn't have a VP on it. You'd have like an ED, right? Sometimes you work directly with an IED. It just depended because it depended on like who covered which, like which seniors covered which industry groups. But yeah, so
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:40] You were there for a good amount of time? Tell me, did you think of doing by side recruiting on cycle was your group you're ever getting looks for by side on cycle or one? When would that? When did you kind of start thinking, OK, I might want to actually jump from the sell side of the buy side and, you know, make that leap and start prepping for it because you were there for over two years. So you know, you spend a good number of a good amount of time as an analyst.
Mentor1119: [00:37:09] Yeah, I think for the first year, I wasn't really to I wasn't too interested in moving to the buy side. I like the industries that we covered. I like the clients that we worked with. But I think as I became more senior and just like was just like knew how to do my job a lot more efficiently, I felt like the learning curve kind of tapered off at a certain point. And then I just wanted something more challenging and more interesting, more exciting, kind of faster, more deal flow, too.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:53] Ok. And so how did you go about thinking of where you'd go or how did you start kind of doing that networking or their research? Yeah.
Mentor1119: [00:38:01] So I kind of just looked around my team and in our division to see where people kind of went and left for because every like for most of the analysts and division, I think after like two years or so, people left for the buy side. So I kind of just like spoke with them, Ask them what and why they wanted to leave.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:31] But was there an option like we ever offered an associate position to stay? Yeah, yeah.
Mentor1119: [00:38:37] So I was tracking for associates, so I was a little bit torn between leaving and staying. Yeah, yeah. so I was tracking and but I like thinking about what I was going to do as an associate didn't really interest me as much. It just felt like I'd be checking analysts work and more. So managing then like having to think critically about companies, about transactions, right? And like the more like intellectual side of It, I'd say. and that's what I felt like the buy side had. Or that's the sense that I got from people who left for the East Side, which was like, OK, like, you aren't just serving the clients and doing what they want you to do. You're thinking critically about businesses that you would or wouldn't invest in and why, because now you have skin in the game like you can actually lose money. You can pick and choose which companies you want to invest in or not. And that, to me, just was a lot more interesting.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:46] So your learning curve had tapered a second year. That's very common. And so you kind of started to gain that sense of maybe the biocides interesting. You started talking with people who had been in your group previously and had made that jump and then tell me how you kind of really ramped it up. Did you just continue just to talk to people more and more and saying, Well, you know, I might be interested and kind of get the job through your network? Or did you join any you start talking with recruiters? How did you kind of go through that process?
Mentor1119: [00:40:10] Yeah, I think I mostly focused on recruiters and LinkedIn, so I didn't go through the typical private equity recruiting cycle my first year. I don't even know how it is. It's like the first half of
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:24] Your it's crazy now. It's like literally this year it was right after they got out of training. So September. Yeah, for a job that's two years away, you know, or almost two years. Like, what do you even notice? You don't know anything. They might as well just give. They might as well just give the offers to the people who land summer internships. Yeah, I think that's what you're doing. You're just you're just screening them for anyways. It's like we can talk about that craziness. I mean, that's for another conversation. It's absolutely mad. But what's going on there? But.
Mentor1119: [00:40:59] Yeah. Like, I felt like I had a more a little bit more thoughtful process, OK, In terms of like actually thinking, OK, what do I want in my job? What excites me? What motivates me? I want something challenging. I want something more critical, et cetera. So I reached out to recruiters and I found out about recruiters through friends and through other ex colleagues that left because typically by side recruiting is pretty exclusively done with recruiters that are hired by the buy side fund. So like recruiters reach out to me. I found recruiting companies and I reached out to them.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:41] So yeah, we have a recruiting arm as well. So and so we started a few years ago and we have a good number of, you know, most of our clients are by side, you know, lower middle market and middle market. Yeah, I mean, it's something new for us. But yeah, absolutely. I agree. I mean, most of these places are, you know, if they're smaller from five to like 20 professionals, they don't typically have a dedicated HR like a large bulge bracket banks so that they lean on recruiting companies to help source and screen candidates. But yeah, so you're so OK. So you started talking to some recruiters, you kind of started getting pitched different roles and tell me was, were the recruiting meetings? Did you go into them like assuming they were interviews? Or did you like, did you prep for those or did you feel like it was more? Or did you use them more as an exploratory type meeting?
Mentor1119: [00:42:34] I think in the beginning, I use them more as an exploratory type because I didn't know what kind of opportunities there were on the buy side. Yeah, especially for debt investing. They're just like, there's a whole range. You can be in private debt, you can be in like more hedge fund like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:53] Like distressed,
Mentor1119: [00:42:55] Distressed. Yeah, most distressed, structured finance. Like it's I mean, there are tons and tons of different debt credit products, kilos. So like, it's not as straightforward as like private equity, where like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:11] Lbo buyout shop. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, plain vanilla LBO, it's a little more, yeah, nuanced funds where,
Mentor1119: [00:43:18] Yeah, exactly like, where do you want to be on the capital structure, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:21] So how did you think about that?
Mentor1119: [00:43:24] Um, so how I approached it was I think part of it was just based on my previous experience and then part of it was just what I want, like what I was curious about.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:34] So what were you? What were you curious about? Like, what did you kind of gravitate toward?
Mentor1119: [00:43:40] I gravitated more towards eventually private debt because I wanted both the aspect of like, really, really diving deep into companies while also kind of being on the debt side and not being in private equity, not owning the company. So like getting a balance of breadth and depth. So like in private debt, you'll have 15 portfolio companies that you know pretty well, but you don't know it, as well as someone in private equity who actually owns the company. But they only have like five portfolio companies, I would think Max. So you still can have and develop a bit of industry experience covering 15 different companies. You'll kind of start specializing in different nations
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:34] And your security or unsecured with meds or anything like that. Yeah.
Mentor1119: [00:44:38] So I gravitated towards I think I was open to opportunities because I had some experience and like distressed companies as well. So that was interesting to me. I think it just eventually came down to what opportunities were available at the time that I was looking. Sure. So I wanted something that was a little bit lower on the capital structure. I thought that would be a little bit more challenging or interesting than just
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:05] Kind of like a senior secured term note and like low, low interest.
Mentor1119: [00:45:10] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a plain vanilla like first lien senior secured, like CLO, like sale of funds. Yeah, it's a little bit more like that. They'll invest in like the first lean term loan. Be publicly traded. Very liquid. Yeah, you have to like dive too deep into the company, like pretty large company, larger companies at least. So yeah, so I ended up like finding an opportunity at a middle market private debt fund. Yeah. So like having the exposure of really diving deeper into companies while not owning the company, but having a little bit more like quantity like volume. Yeah, that's awesome.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:55] Yeah. So when you started this, was this the first interview, like with the company that you took or was it had you been interviewing, you know, for several months? Tell me about that process. Like, did you interview like 20 companies, five companies only to one two three? I think three. Yeah.
Mentor1119: [00:46:17] So of the three that I interviewed, you interviewed with the first one, I ultimately realized it was with a CLO fund. I ultimately realized that wasn't what I wanted to do and also just walking into the interview. I didn't really know what to expect.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:35] Ok, so you didn't do as well. You didn't do as well on that on that one. Is that what you mean?
Mentor1119: [00:46:40] Yeah, that one wasn't my best you.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:45] You bombed it. Let's be honest, you just bombed it. I didn't think I didn't know anything is like, I didn't bomb it, though, because they still offered you the job
Mentor1119: [00:46:55] Person who is responsible for hiring me. Got it. Or the person I would have had to work with.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:00] Got it, OK.
Mentor1119: [00:47:01] But I apparently did really well with the other two, but they weren't the ones who were looking for an analyst or associate.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:09] Great important lesson. Important lesson. Do well with the one person that is making the decision or you're going to be working for. Yeah, yeah. No.
Mentor1119: [00:47:18] Like, I prep all my I prepped all my deals, but I didn't know what deal to pitch. I was like, OK, if I'm speaking with a consumer person, I have to pitch a consumer deal. I can't pitch the challenging and tricky health care deal that I worked on, so I picked like a super easy, plain vanilla consumer deal, and he was not impressed. So I was like, Oh, and then I spoke with the health care person who wasn't hiring, and he was like, Oh, like, yeah, like, it sounds like you would really fit in. And like, I was like, very positive at the end of the interview, I'm like, Oh, too bad, I'm not working.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:53] Yeah, that's funny. Ok, so how was your first one? The second one was the one. You were the third one.
Mentor1119: [00:48:00] Ok, so the third one is the one that I got the offer with, and I took the second one I got really close with, but that one I messed up at the case study round.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:11] How do you mess up and what was the case or what? You know, broad strokes? Yeah.
Mentor1119: [00:48:15] So the case was to basically put together a really, really short, condensed investment memo in three hours. And also to like build model in the same time. So like build the model, put together an investment memo and do all of that within three hours, like quickly screen a deal.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:32] And why do you think you messed up? I think I
Mentor1119: [00:48:36] Messed up because I didn't know the industries that like I didn't know the industry that I had to write the memo for because it was industrials company, I never looked at an industrials company in my
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:49] Life. Yeah, so you were in deep, deep water right from the beginning
Mentor1119: 00:48:55] Project like the case and I was like, Yeah, funny, Like is my first industrials company.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:01] I looked at their like it shows on your case now. Just kidding. So, yeah, so when they did, they review it with you after you're done with those three hours, they make you do it in the office?
Mentor1119: [00:49:11] Yeah. So I was in a conference room for three hours. They gave me a laptop and they gave me like a sim and some public filings, and they were like, OK, put together a memo and tell us whether or not you'd invest. And yeah, so like I spent, I spent like one third of the time putting together, like building the model and then the remaining time understanding the company and the industry, which was the hardest part.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:36] How did you build the model? Did you put like, how did you even know what type of debt to put on or it was in the same like it was the offering was there in terms of whether to invest or not in the debt. Like, no,
Mentor1119: [00:49:48] We had I had to structure it. Meaning like,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:51] Did you make it up off? Did they give you like good prompts or did you have to like completely make it out? Like, were they like, Oh, there's a subordinated debt below the standard? And they gave you that, and here's the interest rate and all that. No, they did. No, you know, I
Mentor1119: [00:50:07] Had to structure it myself.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:08] Like, Just make it up, just make it up based on what you would do or how you would structure it based on the company in the financials.
Mentor1119: [00:50:13] Yeah, yeah, exactly. I had to take a leverage level. I had to pick a pricing point, OK? Based off of the model that I built
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:20] And you knew nothing about industrials. And I, yeah, oh my god.
Mentor1119: [00:50:24] It was so bad that my cash flows were all negative so like to like.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:33] It's like, Are you sure you want to put this much leverage on the company? You're like, Oh, yes, yes. Never mind. Ok, so it didn't go so well. No. How should people avoid that? How do you how would you suggest people prepping for that type of case? Because you can look at you can do elbows, you can do all this stuff. But the case is actually pretty common nowadays, and we try to do it in our core and our private equity groups try to give examples. But I feel like it's hard to just, you know, like you said, you didn't know industrials. So how would you prep for something like that?
Mentor1119: [00:51:10] Yeah, I would say apply for jobs that you have some industry experience in because that can make like the biggest difference. And if you don't learn about that industry, it's like if you come, you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:26] Knew this fund, you knew they did industrials investments. I mean,
Mentor1119: [00:51:30] I knew that they did. And I think most a lot of private, a lot of middle market private debt funds typically have a pretty big industrial exposure in their portfolio. Got it. But it was either industrial or technology where the case is. And I just, yeah,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:51] I didn't mean to bring you back to that nightmare .No, it's OK. It's funny. And looking back on it, yeah, look
Mentor1119: 00:51:58] Like I wasn't that bad because I had a friend who was close, like, who had a friend there and he was like, Yeah, like, there's like, you're really junior. And they wanted someone more senior. I was like, Are you sure?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:07] Sure. That's a nice way to put it. Yeah, yeah. I was like, OK, sure. Anyways, OK, so you end up for the third phone, you end up doing better. But is there another case that you had to face in that one? Yeah.
Mentor1119: [00:52:23] So that case, it was better also because it was a take home case. So they gave it to me on like a Friday afternoon, and I had to present it Monday morning at like eight a.m. before their investment committee.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:36] Was it similar like a model with a like an investment memo that you put together?
Mentor1119: [00:52:41] Yeah. Yeah, it was similar, but much more detailed. And this one, I'd say, was challenging in the sense that I had to present it in front of the entire investment committee instead of just like a couple of principles, like three or four kind of mid-level guys. I had to present it in front of like the CEO down
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:01] To how many people apply 10 10. Yeah. That's very intimidating.
Mentor1119: [00:53:07] 15. Maybe, yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:09] And like an associate, I was intimidated to do that. So I can't even imagine, like just not even having the job and you have to go to your interview.
Mentor1119: [00:53:17] I know I walked in like we were in the conference room. It was filled with people and also all men because I'm like women. It's super intimidating. I'm like, OK, this is so weird.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:30] But you had do you feel like you were confident because you knew you had done the case really in detail? You knew. Were you expecting them to like, grill you on it?
Mentor1119: [00:53:37] And yeah, I expected them to grill me on everything. So I like spent every hour of my weekend on that case trying to anticipate every and anything that could have come up.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:49] And so do you feel like you had anticipated most of them or any curveballs that kind of threw off? I think
Mentor1119: [00:53:56] I anticipated most, most of them, but the only things that I couldn't anticipate were just like comparable analysis because I came from a bulge bracket banks, so I had no resources to kind of put it to perspective, the company, because, yeah, like I didn't know middle market companies. And so they asked me a couple of questions in that sense, but they didn't expect too much because they knew where I was coming from. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:25] Ok, so how did you hear about the offer after you kind of survived that gauntlet? You come out and like, they call you that night, they call Mentor1119: [00:54:40] There was a third round, Ok? So when I got invited to the third round, I kind of knew that like they probably were going to give me the offer. And the recruiter gave me a sense looking good in
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:56] That it was looking good. Yeah, yeah.
Mentor1119: [00:55:01] Like, I also got a thank you, Bill. Well, I got a response for a thank you all saying like, Oh, you did good with the case, like you did a good job on the case. And I was like, OK, I think this is like a positive because it's a partner sending it to me. Yeah. So I kind of had that sense. And then when I went to the third, like the final round interview, they gave me the offer, like the CEO, gave me the offer on the spot. Mm hmm.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:55:23] So you feel like you had to accept it right there because the CEO's presenting it to you?
Mentor1119: [00:55:27] Oh my god, I was so scared. I didn't know what to say.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:55:30] Agree. Like, this is awkward. Like what if you're like, I'm actually to have a final round later today at another club? What did you say? Did you say like, thank you. I'll get back to you like or did you say, I'm be excited? Thank you. Like, I mean, I think that's so awkward when they try to do that. Yeah, I know it was a power move. It's very much a power move. So tell me how you handled it. So I kind of just
Mentor1119: [00:55:57] Just thanked him. I tried to say nice things about the phone. I was like, Yeah, like, this sounds like a great opportunity. It sounds very exciting. Sounds like something that would be great for my career.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:09] And then was he best about that? Or she pissed when you said that, but you're not accepting?
Mentor1119: [00:56:16] No, he was. He was understanding. I think he knew. Yeah, but he had asked me, like, specifically like. Well, like, are you going to accept the offer, not just here's the letter, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:30] So what did you say? He said yes. And I was like,
Mentor1119: [00:56:34] I don't want to give a definitive answer, but I'm leaning towards, yes,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:39] Fair.
Mentor1119: [00:56:39] I think so. I didn't want to completely.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:42] I think we want to. I think we want to write. I don't want to give a definitive answer, but I'm leaning toward yes. I think that's a great quote. We'll use that for everybody. If you're put in this situation, which is it can be very awkward and especially if you know you have other if it's not your number one choice and or you have other endeavors coming up, just say this exact phrase. Ok, fair
Mentor1119: [00:57:08] Enough. A lot to say. Like, yeah, totally and completely lie if you're going to reject them.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:57:14] Of course, leaning towards yes is good. Ok, well, it sounds like, well, see you accepted the job. You started there soon thereafter. And you didn't stay there for you a little almost a year. You ended up leaving deciding you wanted to kind of take a pivot and go to graduate school for something unrelated, which is totally cool. Yeah. Was it? Was it the industry itself was the firm itself that kind of made you want to feel that way? Did you feel like you were burnt out after doing the analyst years and then jumping straight to the buy side? What was your. Or was it just really just a separate passion that kind of was pulling you? I think it was like.
Mentor1119: 00:57:55] A confluence of so many different factors altogether, like I liked what I was doing, I think fundamentally like I like learning about companies, industries, businesses and investing, but I didn't want to focus on the domestic middle market for my entire life. Ok, so I actually moved to different country to study for my grad degree because ultimately I want to still work in some type of finance space, but maybe investing in like investing with an impact or like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:58:36] Impact, investing social
Mentor1119: [00:58:38] Or sustainable finance. So kind of using my background, but having it go towards something that's more meaningful for me personally, and that's just the aspect of the job that I always felt like I was missing regardless of where I was at the bank or on the buy side.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:58:54] That's great. Good for you. Yeah, yeah. Thanks. I mean, you're going to be doing this for how, however many years, 20 years, you might as well do something where you feel good about it, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Mentor1119: [00:59:06] And I thought about like how long my career is going to be. I have another like 40 years, at least, hopefully in my career and like, where do I feel like the industry as a whole is moving towards or will be moving towards in those next 40 years? And I think sustainability definitely is going to be an area that's going to grow in the span of my career. So why not take that step to kind of be a part of that or to help create that?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:59:32] That's great. Yeah, I think you're you have a very bright future ahead of you and it's exciting. I'll be watching and I hope. Yeah. And let me know if I can never be help. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge and your wisdom, grace.
Mentor1119: [00:59:49] And thanks for speaking with you. It's great talking to you and also hearing about also different products that Wall Street always offers. I didn't know that you guys offer all
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:59:56] These things we have. Yeah, a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff keeps us busy. Yeah, yeah. 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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