WSO Podcast | E59: Tax at Big 4 to 15 Years Out of Work to Investment Banking Associate

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Member @shaynepunim2 shares her path as a Big 4 tax consultant to leaving the work-force for an extended period of time to help raise her two kids. How she broke back in and advice she'd give to her younger self.

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WSO Podcast (Episode 59) Transcript:

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:06] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me! As I talked to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. In this episode, member ShaynePunim2 shares her path as a big four tax consultant to leaving the workforce for an extended period of time to help raise her two kids. How she broke back in an advice she'd give to her younger self enjoy. ShaynePunim2. Thank you so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast.

ShaynePunim2: [00:00:55] Thank you, thank you for having me.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:57] It'd be great if you could just give a quick bio to the listeners.

ShaynePunim2: [00:01:01] Sure. So I started out doing my undergraduate degree in accounting and finance. I began first with a big four accounting firm on their tax staff and gained my CPA there with a certain number of years of experience and then kind of pivoted towards my ultimate go goal, which was the finance as a long term career. And so I moved into debt capital markets. But on the investment grade side is loan syndications, and it took some time off to raise my family, returned with a return to work internship in credit rating agency and moved on to investment banking where I am currently.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:51] So how long was your time off there to raise your family?

ShaynePunim2: [00:01:55] Um, 15 years.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:57] There you go. So it's really interesting because we haven't had a guest on. We've had now several female guests. We haven't had a guest on that has taken the break and they come back. So I'd love to jump into that later. But let's start further back all the way in undergrad. So you're deciding to major in accounting was, you know, was business and finance kind of always on the radar for you or it's something that you kind of grew into sophomore year. You're like, Oh. Tell me how you kind of came to think, OK, I'm going to do accounting.

ShaynePunim2: [00:02:31] Well, since high school, I was very interested in finance and knew that that was my ultimate goal and that I wanted to get an MBA in finance, I already kind of had it mapped out that I would do the MBA route. And I had a really good relationship with the Deans at my school because I was in a scholarship program and I was actually advised that accounting would be the perfect foundation for finance, and accounting was really part of the plan is as being a two step plan. So it really is an excellent education. That's very important because you need to understand financial statements and accounting, even basic accounting entries, just broad base so that when you're reviewing financial statements as a financial analyst or investment banker, it makes sense to you. You know how to enter financials into a model. So it really was a great option for me. And as I was researching careers in accounting when I was graduating, I discovered that taxation was just a more interesting entry level option for me than auditing. There's a lot more research and analysis. There are legal aspects to it that I was working with. In addition, people who already were attorneys and had master's degrees and it just I felt like it was a higher level kind of entry level position.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:05] Yeah, for sure. So did you first? Did you do a couple of years there and then went back and got your MBA or how did that work? Or did you go straight through?

ShaynePunim2: [00:04:14] I did a few years at a big four accounting firm, which was really fantastic training grounds, just the professionalism and organization skills that you learn. There are great and I started going back to school at night and really didn't have that much coursework left, so I decided to leave, go full time, got my finance MBA, but I had passed my CPA exam yet not accrued the full experience requirement. So I actually returned to a different Big Four accounting firm just for a few more years to round out the experience requirement because I really felt that that credential was important to having sort of cross the T's on accounting and said you to get that. I really was an accountant and the CPA.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:02] So tell me, was there any actual reason you didn't go back to the same firm as pre MBA as post MBA? Or was it just you felt like the other big four from that you ended up at? Would you better of some sort of how did it, how did it work? I guess when you were because you went, you said you did kind of did the first year of your MBA kind of at night and then you decided, Hey, I'm going to go full time and you finished the second year kind of full time. Was that the

ShaynePunim2: [00:05:27] Show? I think of it that way. I finished. I finished well. I didn't need two full years because this I went to the same school for undergraduate and an MBA, and back then they had kind of a five year program. I had not completed every single course. I needed to do it only five years, so it was like five years plus a semester or summer semester, let's say. So I did one term, and it was really extreme with the hours of work plus trying to do the MBA. So I left and when I was, you know, graduating with the MBA looking at different options, I just felt the need to and I did have a very good opportunity and I worked really for my dream accounting firm, so to speak, the best of the best. That's great. And yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:18] So tell me a little bit about, um. So you were kind of going back, you got your CPA, you're a senior tax consultant. At that point, you're doing interesting work. You do you feel like. What was it like back then in terms of just the culture? The was it the collegial? Were you? Did you feel like you're you fit in there?

ShaynePunim2: [00:06:42] Him back in the day, that's kind of funny.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:45] I refer to my own experiences back in the day to, you know,

ShaynePunim2: [00:06:49] I would I would kind of I would liken it somewhat to I b maybe we weren't working 100 hours a week, but we were definitely putting in probably 70 to 80 hours a week. And during tax season, you may be at work six weeks straight. Literally, yeah, without a breather. So it was very collegial. The junior people all helped each other, but we also had very good exposure to senior managers and partners. You were always involved in every meeting. So really top level experience. But I always knew my ultimate goal was not to stay in accounting and become a tax partner. I really wanted finance from day one and as it was by year, you know, five as an accountant, I was chomping at the bit to just accrue the experience requirement I needed as a tax professional. It's a little different than as an auditor. So that's why it took such an extremely long time. But to get the CPA, that credential has carried me kind of like people get a CFA. The CPA has carried me as a credential all these years. People look to that as an accomplishment, so I'm glad that I pushed myself to do that.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:05] So you were coming out of your MBA, so once you kind of went full time, tell me a little bit about the recruiting there for it. Was it a time where you didn't have much trouble because you had that, that pre MBA experience in the tax? And it was more like a just show up and the interviews weren't tough? Or was it something where you had to prep and it was nerve wracking? I know it's a while ago, but just to give the listeners a little bit of a taste of that.

ShaynePunim2: [00:08:30] Sure. I would say that it was much less stringent than it is now a process coming out of undergraduate. It was extremely easy to drop your resume in a box, and a couple weeks later, you had a bunch of sheets up on a wall of who wanted to interview you and I. I had 11 companies interested in interviewing me and by company nine, I was exhausted. I said, That's not fair. Coming out of finishing the MBA, I really didn't push as much of with finance recruiting because I knew that I needed to go back for the additional years to get the CPA. So I basically just applied directly to the firm that I was most interested in, interviewed and was hired. It really was not a major effort.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:26] Got it. Ok, fair enough. So you're working there, you get the CPA and then what's that? You said you're chomping at the bit. How do you kind of approach this search? Is there? Do you feel like there's a big barrier to CPA back then jumping to finance? Or was it something that was pretty common there?

ShaynePunim2: [00:09:42] There surely was. Through networking, I began to have some kind of informal to somewhat formal interviews at the larger banks, and I did meet with a lot of resistance. I surely met up with young professionals who looked at me and said, Why do you want to switch now? You have an accounting background. And I thought if a career is potentially 30 to 40 years, I five years should not spent in one area should not limit me going forward. So to me, I just feel that tenacity is what ends up paying off.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:24] So how were you doing this networking? Were you just using alumni networks where you how did you go about it? Like just creating that list of people to get in touch with

ShaynePunim2: [00:10:34] Friends and friends and family? I had some family members that were. One was in HR at one of the large banks and she calls on her senior person and they kind of got me in there. I found, fortunately, that once I get in the door, if I can get a phone call with someone, I tend to be invited back, which is just fortunate. So there were a couple of banks that I started to speak to and actually, then you would just you could go to the school and they had listings. I went back to NYU. Let's say sorry, I went back to I went to NYU, so I went and looked up the job listings and there was a position posted that was great for exactly what I was interested in doing, which was debt capital markets, which seemed like a super option for me. So I was interviewed and many of the people actually that work there had also attended the same university. So I think that was helpful.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:42] Great, and so in those in those interviews, I assume they weren't. Giving you a ton of technical accounting questions, were they? Was it mostly about fit or was it mostly just, you know, why? Why were you in tax for so long? What was the questions they do? Remember any of them like specifically what they kind of harped on?

ShaynePunim2: [00:12:01] I don't remember there being a tremendous amount of technical questions. It was probably more fit and just being comfortable with what I had done there and I had done a certain amount of modeling, even though they were tax models. You're developing these models that. Calculate complex through the tax laws and such they're built around the tax laws, so yeah, I think that that level of analysis was appreciated and just the Finance MBA was highly respected in the CPA. There just was an incredible connection with all the people there. There was a real comfort level. Once again, I was the only woman I think that even interviewed and I did not interview with a single female. It was all male and it was great. I never had an issue with that. It was really a good fit and a fantastic experience, and I was thrilled to be offered the position.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:06] So did you end up having to take a pay cut or was it a pay bump from there, if you remember?

ShaynePunim2: [00:13:11] I think that it was approximately lateral start, but in the long run, it definitely was a superior pay scale and

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:22] For sure. So OK, so you break into debt, capital markets, you're at a good bank doing that type of work. Tell me what was that? What was that like because you were there for a while?

ShaynePunim2: [00:13:32] I was there for seven years. It was absolutely fabulous. It was transaction oriented, although for loan syndications on the investment grade side, everything is certainly not based on a company undertaking a transaction very frequently. This is just basic financing. Sometimes it's backstop credit facilities. Sometimes you simple working capital facilities, but they're extremely large, so one bank will not lend alone. They hire my bank as lead agent and we pulled the syndicate together. We have to price it correctly, get it through credit committee and we have to sell it. So there's a lot of similarity to investment banking in the process. We didn't really model companies from scratch the way you start with the financial statements, we were looking more at leverage ratios and coverage ratios and the like. So you're doing a lot of.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:32] Where are you getting the projections from for that? Like, are you just are you given to them by management and you just haircut

ShaynePunim2: [00:14:37] It from the company themselves? Or sometimes an investment banker who may be working on the transaction and they'll send us the projections and we work in, we create our own model off of that. Got it. That would show, you know, the cash flows and such that to pay off the debt and such.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:57] Make sure that they could pay it back.

ShaynePunim2: [00:15:00] Absolutely. That's pretty important in that you're not too close to your covenant levels. It was really a fabulous job because it was a smaller shop, although we were very highly ranked in the league tables and competing with the largest banks. It was a smaller shop overall, and everything from start to finish was on our plate. We didn't have a separate group that was negotiating the credit agreements or doing the pitches versus working on the actual transaction or calculating the fees. It was all on me. I even used to plan the bank meetings and pick the food and worry about that audio visual and pray that

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:42] Everything didn't even have an admin back then. They just threw them on you.

ShaynePunim2: [00:15:46] We had secretaries, we had some analysts, so you would have someone to assist you. But when you're at the associate level, it's kind of an interesting thing. You're everything from secretary to managing director when you're an associate and you better know how to fix that copy machine at two o'clock in the morning because there's no one else to do it and the bank books might be needed the next morning.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:07] So, so do you feel like your experience prior? Had you been managing people at all prior to the Big Four, once you were kind of a senior post MBA?

ShaynePunim2: [00:16:16] You had not managed people previously, and it's something that I loved and still love mentoring and training students who are just out of undergraduate usually. That's definitely something that I fell right into naturally and absolutely love.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:37] So tell me about that, is it? I guess you were. You were kind of an associate was the expectation that you would become a vice president there or how does it? What was the track there or was there a track to partner or to director?

ShaynePunim2: [00:16:51] There's a track to managing director and it's, I think, fairly similar to I be where there are. People come as analysts, you can most certainly stay on and become an associate, there's not sort of a demand to return for a master's degree. Potentially there is now, but then there really wasn't that demand, so to speak. But you just follow up to associate VP and MD.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:23] Got it. And so was that in the cards for you? Did you think, Hey, I'm going to make it all the way up to MD

ShaynePunim2: [00:17:28] One day here? That was at the end. I really I really, absolutely did think that and wanted to do that and felt really supported by the group there. They mentored me as well, and they kind of pulled me along. It was not an aggressive environment. It was busy environment and an intensive environment. I worked with honestly, people that were brilliant. I still think they're brilliant. I'm still in touch with most of them. But you know, I  waited a very long time to start my family, and when I did, there just wasn't the same kind of flexibility then as there is now for new moms.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:09] So tell me a little bit about that. Like, so what was it like then when you I assume you were you married when you kind of joined? Or did you get married then and then did children come

ShaynePunim2: [00:18:21] Started married, which was probably a fortunate thing. Yeah. So I started there and I was already married, and I worked for six years before I had my first child. I took a leave, came back for a year and then chose to stay home. It was

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:43] So different. First off, how many do you have one? How many children do you have now? I have two. You have two. So I have three children, four, two and ten months and I'm drowning. So I can't imagine with a real job like this or you have to go in the office. So you had

ShaynePunim2: [00:18:58] I used to go in on two hours of sleep for weeks on it, week on end. You know, I had a new baby and new babies wake up in the middle of the night. They need to

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:06] Eat. How long was your leave on the with your first baby? Because you went back, you said for a year, how long

ShaynePunim2: [00:19:11] Did you take? My leave was actually five months because I put together all of the possible vacation and time off I could between one year and the next, and I actually left a few weeks before I was due. I have friends who pushed it to the very last minute and had all kinds of emergencies, and I just said I I'm exhausted three hours a day of traveling. It was a lot going into Manhattan. Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:37] So okay, so you're so you left a couple of weeks early. You're you have five months, you're back. You do it for a year. And then what kind of was the OK, I'm not doing this anymore or was it just, you know, the stuff at home just to trying to balance everything? What was the thought process of I'm going to take some time and just be with the kids? Financial everything. I mean,

ShaynePunim2: [00:19:59] You know, you never expect to stay home a significant amount of time. It was a combination of exhaustion and just hopefulness that somehow you're just taking a short period off and you'll be back there. Just unfortunately, there wasn't any sort of flexibility where they could allow me to work. Part time people weren't really bringing home laptops and able to plug in on it day to day basis like that.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:26] So I think you would

ShaynePunim2: [00:20:28] Have done that. It's different now.

Spea Patrick (CEO of WSO)ker1: [00:20:30] Do you think you would have done that? Like, would you have been? Would you have been happy to be part time? Do you think it would? You would have preferred that?

ShaynePunim2: [00:20:36] I begged. I would have been thrilled. I never wanted to leave. I know it sounds awful. It's not because I don't love my children and being at home, but I truly miss working. I absolutely love my career. That's why I put off.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:50] Yeah, I don't know how I don't. I don't know how stay at home dads or moms do it because I if over the weekend I am exhausted with my kids and just the mental stimulation, like it's a different type of mental stimulation. It's like trying to figure out, OK, how am I going to, how am I going to juggle this? But it's like you really miss the work aspect too and the interaction with adults, right? I guess you have that with playdates and all that. But still, it's

ShaynePunim2: [00:21:18] No, it's don't even go there is apples to oranges. Yes, completely different. I miss it tremendously. Although in the years I was off as my children began to be in school and such, I got extremely involved in various volunteer work. I was on board of trustees.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:40] I what was the gap between your first and second child?

ShaynePunim2: [00:21:44] Four years, four

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:45] Years, OK? You, me, my sister. So you had you were changing diapers for a long time then? Ok, so

ShaynePunim2: [00:21:52] I guess I was changing diapers for a while. You know, you try to do other things in between and be as active as possible and keep up your skills as much as possible. But it was kind of a tough thing. It was. But you got involved is very much as a professional, I think, and not any less as a woman than a man feeling like this is what I do and who I am. So it was hard.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:17] Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah. So do you feel like as your children got older, you became more involved with like the like you said, giving back and with their schooling? And were you involved kind of in the community that way? Or did you ever start looking back at potentially going, coming back earlier? Or was it just one of those things that you didn't want to commit those hours again?

ShaynePunim2: [00:22:41] I think still there wasn't really the mentality of not just flexibility of allowing people to return. I was working practically full time as a volunteer on boards and committees and such between their schools and a local, you know, charity I was involved with. So I was very involved and you're using a lot of your skills. I was doing budgeting sometimes and the like. But I always hope that somehow I would find my way back. And it's really in recent years that large financial services firms have realized this enormous resource of. Talent that is, you know, highly experienced that they just let us go kind of and they're starting to do these return ships return to work internships. It's very popular in Manhattan.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:38] And can you tell me about those because I know very little about them? You tell me, like, how it works and what's the idea? Is it just like an internship for people who've been out of work for a while or and how does that work? Like who's doing? But who? Who's doing the like? Where do people find out about this stuff? Because where should they look or what should they look up?

ShaynePunim2: [00:23:59] They can look up. I'm trying to remember the name of the website that is specifically it's called a pray, a p r e s like in French Pray dot com. It is for like a second act for women. They have the return to work internships, as well as just companies that are listing with them who are looking for seasons, professional women who have been out of the workforce. It's just become something that's understood that these women still have capabilities and talents and motivation. So I had started to look on that website and just broadly seeing listings for these internships for Goldman Sachs has it. Morgan Stanley has it. I actually interviewed at Morgan Stanley and then I ended up going to Fitch Ratings. They had fantastic credit past return ship. They called. I was in the inaugural class. There were only eight of us, which to me it was like winning the lottery

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:07] Because

ShaynePunim2: [00:25:08] I know that there were many people who applied for the return to work internships. And from what I'm understanding, I don't know if every single one works in the same manner, but the format is broadly that you have a couple of weeks of training bringing us up to speed on everything from how they do their credit analysis to excel and micro macroeconomics of the company's policies on how they look at credit ratings and such. So that was really informative, interesting. It really pulled the group together. We had unbelievable speakers and then they embed you in a group that is relevant to your prior professional experience. And I was embedded in the TMT tech, media and telecom group and I thought, great. I did a lot of media and telecom. I'll be fine. And of course, they gave me this tech company to write it a credit opinion for that I had to first. I can't even tell you how many days I was reading about this particular kind of technology to even figure out what it was. Much less to try to analyze the company. But then at the end, you do a full credit committee presentation and uh, it's like not published, but it's available, I suppose, to someone who wants to review this particular credit opinion that we put together.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:45] And so tell me a little bit about specifically is the idea that you'll go on to. That's just an experience to help you kind of get to your feet under you or is there ever full time offers given from that program?

ShaynePunim2: [00:26:57] There are full time offers given from the program. I did have participants that were with me that did take on full time roles.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:07] How many and how many of the eight would you say?

ShaynePunim2: [00:27:11] I want to say that five were offered roles immediately, one a few months later and. I was already interviewing for these other positions, so what I was offered wasn't really exactly where I wanted to be. So I continued to interview with this regional investment bank and landed there very happily.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:40] Great. And tell me a little bit about working there, you know, given that your you had so many years of experience prior to the long layoff, you kind of come back, you do this one internship, which is, you know, only for a few months. And then all of a sudden you're boom, you're back in the back into the grind and you're in investment banking. And how has that been? How is what's it like now kind of after that long layoff? Is it? Is it the transition tough or have you kind of just picked right back up?

ShaynePunim2: [00:28:08] It's amazing how I feel like I snap my finger, and I felt like that was the real me again, particularly when I first started at the internship and I wasn't, you know, after a couple of months of working full time, everybody starts to feel a little bit of the wear and tear. But it really was a snap of the fingers to get back into the groove. And the work is not dissimilar from what I was doing before, particularly as far as multitasking, organizing, switching gears between different types of projects and different tasks within a project, whether it's quantitative versus qualitative. I did have quite a bit to learn and I kind of joke that I have what I call millennial mentors. I was basically put in a pool of associates that are significantly younger than me. They've been fantastic. They have really helped me get up to speed on all things technological. You know, these are people who grew up with technology as their day to day their baseline. And of course, previously I was using, you know, Excel and Microsoft Office suite products.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:25] Tell me what? What's different? Like, where have you felt like there's been the big, the heart, the steepest learning curve that they've helped you technologically besides smartphones and apps and

ShaynePunim2: [00:29:33] Stuff like that? When I first got to Fitch, I had never seen outlook before, so I know that that's probably pretty funny to most people would be listening to this, but I would say that I really got a lot of help with basic, you know, the File Explorer. The whole background of how everything is organized

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:58] In different systems

ShaynePunim2: [00:29:59] And stuff or different ways to research on Google certainly excel. I've gotten much quicker. Can I do everything without taking my hands off the keyboard and never using the mouse? Probably not. But I also took some courses. You know, you guys kind of talk about Wall Street Prep and I. We use it at our firm and we have our interns use it. And I think it's absolutely fantastic. And anybody who's looking at the industry should consider, you know, doing some of the courses in there because it really helps you, you know?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:34] Yeah, that's awesome. So, OK, so you've kind of gotten up to speed on the Excel portion because as an associate, you're still you're managing the analyst, but you still have to kind of have the technical chops right to be able to check the analyst's work and kind of even manage up right to the VP and MD. So is it something where you've you felt like you've struggled a little bit there and you but you're kind of now hitting your stride? Or is it something where it just was like a couple of months of steep learning curve and it was fine?

ShaynePunim2: [00:31:03] Well, when I kind of funny, when I first joined the firm, it's IAB, but we also have valuation and corporate advisory and the like. So there was a shortfall in staff on the valuation team and I was sort of put in with a few other associates over there to help them with some valuations. And the modeling was where we really just had to figure things out. And you're really figuring it out pretty much from scratch, just looking at prior year or another example. So I would say that learning the model definitely took a few months, had some challenges, but it's amazing how you can pivot from one area of finance to another, even potentially. I wouldn't say quite the same as accounting to finance as finance within finance to another, but you can really, with some effort, figure out just about anything. And that's what I had to do. Certainly, I was permitted to ask questions, but there just wasn't a lot of time for that.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:08] So get to work kind of

ShaynePunim2: [00:32:12] Like an iterative process. And now I feel much more comfortable with our model and modeling. But I had to learn it and it's been great.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:23] That's great. And so do you feel like what's the future hold for you? What do you think?

ShaynePunim2: [00:32:29] Just more of the same, you know, continuing to learn. And each transaction is so different and clients are so different. It's really exciting to work in so many different industries. And in my firm, they have actually the associates involved in some of the business development. So because it's a small firm. And again, we're kind of soup to nuts. They need us to assist on the business development side. So that's a lot of fun doing some of the marketing.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:03] And yeah, so you want to grow with this firm and then see where it takes you kind of thing. And then is that the idea?

ShaynePunim2: [00:33:13] I think so. Yeah, that's great. So, you know, you never know really what the future's going to hold true, but it is a very nice fit and

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:24] And ah, the hours or the hours bad?

ShaynePunim2: [00:33:26] No, it's not a bulge bracket kind of ours. It's much more reasonable. It's still busy full time and we still get emails any old hour and over the weekend. And sometimes you're working additional hours, but flexible. You have laptops you can, you know, can go home, see people feed, people dinner and log back in if I need to.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:55] Got it. Do you feel like you're able to balance it? Well now? So it sounds like you're doing 50 ish hours a week or something around there is. Do you feel like you're able to balance it well with the family life and all that your kids are old enough now or you feel like

ShaynePunim2: [00:34:09] It's not too much? Sometimes a challenge. I feel that if anything suffers, potentially it's more on the family side because honestly, it is. Maybe it's not two full time jobs, but it's a job and a half. It's tough. I have school aged children and it's busy. There's always something very particular. Somebody is, you know, looking at colleges and other one is studying for something particular. And it's just it's hard to manage everything, but you just you do it. It's a team effort.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:42] And so tell me, what would you any specific advice before we call the pod any specific as you'd give yourself kind of your younger self or, you know, prior to your break or your or even an undergrad?

ShaynePunim2: [00:34:56] Well, I think one of the most important things is to really try to learn certain skills on your own and to not only expect that you'll learn them on the job, you're not just because you're out of school doesn't mean that you're done learning. And especially, I would say, maybe it's a little different now. There's so much available to people online to prepare themselves and to add to. There knowledge that I really would encourage people to keep learning and definitely work on getting whatever professional credentials are relevant for your career.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:41] And tell me, do you? We had talked, we had mentioned earlier before we started recording about you had done you do a lot of the intern interviews. And yes, there was. There's something you told me you want to cover that you said, she said. A lot of people aren't prepared or you're surprised people come in and aren't prepared. How would you suggest people come into these intern internship interviews? How could they make a better impression?

ShaynePunim2: [00:36:04] Okay. Well, we don't actually have analysts, we rely completely on interns who are college and sometimes MBA students. And I find that they often don't really have the solid accounting and I b knowledge as far as the quantitative items, and those questions are really available everywhere online. You really should know your basics and it's become not quite baseline. But if you've done an online modeling course like Wall Street Prep, which we have, all of our analysts do, excuse me, interns do when they start. We all as associates did it, I did something completely different before I even started interviewing. I think that people really need to understand the modeling, be able to talk their way through financial statements, understand how the statements flow into each other and just be better prepared for what you should expect to be asked in an IAB interview and really have a good ability to say, here's the skills I have from XYZ job, and this is why they're directly applicable to financial modeling and statement analysis,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:31] Kind of tying weaving the story together better rather than just

ShaynePunim2: [00:37:35] Seeing the story together. Much better yet, you really need to know. You need to know the financial statements, basically.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:42] Yeah, I agree. Do you feel like this is something often? I advise young students and interns or people trying to break into good internships. Do you feel like prepping stories beforehand? So like leadership stories or struggle stories of struggle prepping those beforehand help as well?

ShaynePunim2: [00:38:00] I think it's absolutely crucial, and I do feel like the students do have a fairly decent hold and handle on that. They I'm seeing a lot more young people who are already in their careers a year or two and now want to pivot and are willing to just put that aside and take an internship, which is very modestly paid just to try to get the experience so that they can try to head over towards investment banking. And some are definitely much better prepared than others. But surely you need to have your elevator speech, you need to know your resume very well. Don't ever put anything on your resume that you can't explain the answer to. I've seen that, and you just feel awful for the person because there's always going to be somebody who's going to really ream them on that. Yeah, it's good to be able to keep your cool. So, so know. Know what you need to say and have your stories, your narrative mapped out

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:04] And you think, just like doing mock interviews helps. How did you prep or how did you get ready for your own?

ShaynePunim2: [00:39:10] I find that it's great to just type out what you want to say and practice that you can practice it to yourself. You can video yourself, you can just record yourself. You can practice with classmate, a parent, someone from maybe your school career office, anything that they have. I know that there are a lot of on campus clubs now that are very much geared towards these different professions and go through things like what to expect for the interview? Keep your LinkedIn updated. Put a nice professional picture of yourself on there. You know it's better to have something than nothing, but don't have a cute picture of yourself. Have a headshot kind of picture and.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:59] Fair. Fair advice. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. This has been great. Thanks and thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street Oasis. If you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis. And till next time.