WSO Podcast | E97: Back Office to Booth MBA M7 -- Investment Banking?
About
In this episode, @imsurance shares what he did during his senior year when he realized his dream of going to medical school wasn't going to happen. We learn how he graduated from Emory and went straight to a back-office role at a large financial services firm, but kept focused on his ultimate goal of breaking into investment banking. As part of this path, he was able to successfully transition to the middle office of a top bulge bracket investment bank and eventually break into Booth for his MBA. Listen to the end for some wise advice.
WSO Q&A
Check out @imsurance's Q&A here
WSO Mentors
Want to work with @imsurance? Click here
WSO Podcast
Or Listen to the Podcast Here:
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Stitcher
Resources:
WSO Podcast (Episode 97) 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 talk to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. In this episode, Imsurance shares what he did during his senior year when he realized his dream of going to medical school wasn't going to happen. We learn how he graduated from Emory and went straight to a back office role at a large financial services firm, but kept focused on his ultimate goal of breaking into investment banking as part of this path. He was able to successfully transition to the middle office of the Top Bulge Bracket Investment Bank and eventually break into Booth for his MBA. Listen to the end for some wise advice. Enjoy. All right. Insurance, thanks so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast.
Imsurance: [00:01:06] Thanks for having me. Patrick, super stoked to be here. It's a dream come true.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:11] Awesome. So yeah, it's great if you could give the listeners a short summary or your bio.
Imsurance: [00:01:15] Sure. So I graduated in 2016 from Emory University. I was a pre-med at the time, but I was kind of looking to get into finance. So that was right around the time I joined Wall Street Oasis.Actually, I started in an operations function
at like a small finance company in the Midwest. It was pretty low key operation, but, you know, kind of after some some strategizing and some planning and kind of growing through my career, I was pretty fortunate to get into the middle office at a bulge bracket, which I'm doing right now before I go get my MBA in the fall.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:49] Nice. So thanks for that. So let's start all the way back at Emory and kind of your path there. So when you were coming in as a freshman, were you like gung ho finance or what was the what was the path for you?
Imsurance: [00:02:02] So I was pretty gung ho pre-med and going to medical school. And you know, I was I was always like, it was always what I knew to do, you know, definitely, you know, my family really encouraged it and I was kind of going through the motions. And what I noticed was what I'll say was I never was really doing anything particularly great. So I was kind of struggling academically with like a GPA in the low threes. And while I found it interesting, I found it like a pretty significant uphill battle to kind of go through the motions and apply to medical school and make that my career.So when I graduated, like my senior year kind of being more realistic with myself, I decided to kind of find a job being interested in finance, kind of reading the journal out of personal interest, like through college. I thought, you know, that was a good way to go.Obviously, being so late in the game,You know, there were only so many opportunities that were available to me. So that's how I kind of got started in operations.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:54] So you you were basically pre-med for a while, then up through junior year and then like, I mean, low 3s aren't great, but you're saying like if you don't get high 3s or mid threes, at least it's almost impossible to get in med school. Is that accurate?
Imsurance: [00:03:07] I wouldn't say it's impossible. It's definitely just its own kind of path. And you know,Definitely, you know, in college,It's great. You can kind of explore a bunch of different careers and kind of figure out what you want to do and you're not committed to anything just yet. And I just kind of knew it was kind of my senior year when I was being completely honest with myself. And I just knew, like not even being halfway through that kind of battle, that there was something else that I would be interested in. And, you know, I kind of got into my first job kind of just exploring what it was kind of getting my my feet wet, not really knowing still anything in finance at the time. But it was kind of around that time where I kind of knew that this was the path I wanted to go down, but it definitely wasn't.It was still a journey that I kind of just began wanting to go into investment banking later in my career.That was kind of why I decided to kind of keep going and apply for the MBA.Got it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:00] So you ended up at a in the Midwest, kind of at this at this I'd call more of like a strategy operations role. Is that fair?
Imsurance: [00:04:12] Yeah. So it's actually I have a funny story about that. It was purely an operations program, kind of when I got in, when I got hired, you know, some would describe as pretty, oh, back office type of role. But I'll never forget the day that, like the head of our office, he like, called all of us like operations analysts and he just likes brings it on. It's like today you guys are a strategy and operations analysts and like,We felt like our worlds changed overnight. I mean, it was just like a branding move, but it definitely helped a lot as far as, like telling my story and kind of moving forward. So I just thought that was kind of cool. It kind of slowly evolved within the two years that I was there, the first year of being more pure operations and then kind of getting to work on some more global strategic facing projects for our company. Towards the end of my time there in the Midwest.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:01] So there's been some people on Wall Street voices, some users I won't name names, but that are pretty negative on the back office. Are you negative in the back office and middle office saying get out as fast as you can or like, Oh my gosh, it's a dead end career? Or do you feel like there are spots in the back and middle office that actually could be good, good careers? And I'd love to learn here specifically why?
Imsurance: [00:05:24] That's a really interesting question, I think it's really a different answer for different folks, and I'm pretty I'm more inclined to agree with your user base on the site that says, you know, if you're going in, you should probably get out just because I feel like you have like a really dedicated group of folks that are actually willing to spend the time to kind of trajectory and plot out their careers online. So obviously, if you have that kind of energy, you have to spend that conclusively somewhere. And I think if you're willing to kind of put in that effort and really make the best of yourself and you know, the back office, frankly, is probably not a place for you.But if you're looking for a good work life balance, I think, you know, and if you're if you're super happy doing the job you do, I mean, who am I to tell you otherwise, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:08] So do you mind sharing like what your what your work life balance was and what that pay was your first year out of school around?
Imsurance: [00:06:15] Yeah. So I mean, it was basically a teacher salary. It wasn't much more than that. And it was, you know, it was a true like nine to five job, 40 hour work week. Sometimes, you know, got to take like an hour, lunch and kind of go out and go out to eat and like literally clocked in like 40 hours 40 in
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:34] A low cost of living state, obviously. So did you feel like your senior year when you said you got realistic with yourself, you got like real with yourself in terms of like med school wasn't going to be the path or you didn't. Did you feel like the reason you didn't keep going was because you didn't really like it? Or were you being real with yourself that like you just wouldn't be able to compete like on? I personally, I was pre-med when I first went to school. I remember my first class by a one on one. I got a C in it and it was the class. I spent more than half of my time studying radiology, the class that I did my worst in that class. And it was it was almost like a weed out course. Yeah, because a third of the class is like pre-med when they first come in. And I remember I stuck with Bio for another another semester or two just out of like pure stubbornness and did much better. But I still I took a liking to economics after that, which kind of steered me towards finance. But I'd be curious, was it like I also kind of got to the realization of like, you know, I think my father was like, you know, he was in medicine, he was taking medicine. It's changing, it's getting harder, you know, and like reimbursement rates are going down and down it down, you know, the battling with the insurance company. If you're going to be your own kind of practice, it's really tough. Was there any thought process to that or was it really more just like an introspective look into yourself and be like, I'm not passionate about this? Or was it more like an intellectual? I can't compete.
Imsurance: [00:07:56] Um, I definitely like those, I'd say a little bit of both. I would say it was a very competitive and it wasn't my forte. So like even being in the low threes, like I wasn't really satisfied with the outcome and I felt like I was doing the work. So I just and I kind of knew just that my interests lie elsewhere, kind of in that it was actually really interesting.I took this like in my biochemistry class in college. We talked about one of our professors who actually created an HIV drug that he ended up selling to a pharmaceutical company like he had his own kind of startup pharmaceutical company and then kind of acquired by Big Pharma. And we learned a little bit about how just kind of the industry like to actually make like important health care come to the market. He realized why people, there's like a lot of kind of financial work in due diligence that needs to happen behind that. And then when I kind of realized that, you know, just like kind of broadening my perspectives as I got older, you know, kind of building those kinds of relationships and working with people and kind of getting things done, so to speak and kind of making health care kind of be realized in the marketplace or something that I was personally more interested in than kind of doing the research and going down the path. Not to say I couldn't, but I don't think I would have been nearly as successful. I definitely wouldn't be getting into, like University of Chicago Medical School, put it that way.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:18] Barron Yeah, the business school is not easy to get into. So congrats on that. So I think it'd be helpful for the listeners to hear a little bit about like that, that realization that your senior year, the whole application process. So like you have nothing you have nothing relevant to finance or business or whatever on your on your CV. And you're all of a sudden you're like, I'm really passionate about reading The Wall Street Journal. I'm going to go into finance or find a business thing. So you ended up in a middle office. Not surprisingly, not a direct you didn't get you didn't magically get into investment banking right at undergrad, but you had a vision, I guess, that you were going to achieve that. Maybe post MBA, that's your goal is to eventually go. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you probably will out of Booth if you really apply yourself. So my question is, how did you map that and what was the recruiting process like coming right out of undergrad? Was it just was it a joke or was it like they were just hiring bodies and anybody who expressed interest? Or you have like a few easy questions or tell me about what that process was like?
Imsurance: [00:10:18] Totally. So definitely.Emory is a pretty solid school and has a robust on campus recruiting. And unfortunately, you know, I came to this realization and I just missed.So I definitely had to do my own like self-directed search. And I would say, if you're listening to this this time of year and you're about to go in your senior year of
college, you know that first day at school you really should be a hundred percent ready figuring out like what opportunities are coming through the pipeline and which ones you see yourself honestly being stimulated and doing for at least two years.So this, you know, this roll out in the Midwest in operations,You know, I definitely, you know, is a big
enough company and a good enough brand where I can kind of see that I could make something of myself out of it and I could grow from it. But I kind of knew that just like the the self introspective process of like kind of bettering myself, taking on career experiences that would be valuable to kind of become a leader and a manager. Those things just weren't going to happen on their own. So there's a few roles that I looked at
and kind of kind of different spaces.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:21] Were you just applying online? What about what about the actual tactics of like applying? Were you applying just through the career? Was this through a career center that the school still? Or was it just all you applying through like online portals? And what were you doing the research of what companies to apply to? Like Where were you finding these roles?
Imsurance: [00:11:38] Yeah. So I mean, it's totally like at that when you were working at that stage, you got to kind of be as like spread yourself as deep and like as wide as you possibly can. So definitely was looking at, you know, our career services website, which just wrapped my timing. I didn't see as much. Linkedin was another one like anything that said was like, you know, either business or operations related or like and was like looking for someone fresh out of school. I applied to those pretty blanketly reaching out to reaching out to my family members who work at companies that I thought would be helpful.Was was was also something I did, and that was actually how I ended up directly getting placed in my role. So I think that would be.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:18] How did you make your resume? Look at all relevant to business with all the kind of did you have any internships kind of going through or how were you able to tailor your resume in such a way that made it look like somewhat business related?
Imsurance: [00:12:29] So I didn't like a lot of volunteering stuff. I didn't really have any business internships, but you know, I'd volunteer and I'd been definitely involved as like a leader on campus through extracurriculars. And then, you know, is really kind of telling the story at the time about, you know, any any involvement I'm involved in outside of my classwork. You know, usually it's run with such and such basic principles of business. So for like recruiting people, you know, we're looking for the most. For the leadership positions on our campus or when it came to managing our budget, we set up a pretty tight process of kind of reviewing the money we're spending and making sure we're kind of allocating effectively some kind of telling those
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:08] Who had some good stories, you had some good narratives to go along with with the leadership positions you held, even though they were volunteer
Imsurance: [00:13:14] Coming out. Yeah, I think it requires us some honest introspection of like where what is the thread that can kind of tie it, tie things together? And even if it's a loose thread, I think that's where you can kind of exert some of your passion and your personal interest and your drive, and it'll kind of help kind of seal that up a little bit, which is really helpful.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:33] Cool. So you get the offer when like right before you graduate or like halfway through the senior year.
Imsurance: [00:13:38] So for me, it was like a i.e. breathing sleep job applications for about four months. So I started in October, and that was kind of when I realized I wasn't going to go to medical school at all, and I need to figure something else out. I applied applied to some things in October, like not really knowing what I wanted and then seeing, like working at like a financial services company was like also for the last three months through the end of that year in 2015. Like now, I kind of slowly and slowly targeted my search as I was kind of figuring out what I wanted. And so like that
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:13] Realization that you weren't going to so that it didn't happen until senior year. Was there something that looks like? Likes snapped or clicked for you. It was just like a realization, like what was there somebody you spoke with that? Like what was that? That time, it just seems like it was a sudden shift, you know, three plus years working toward.
Imsurance: [00:14:32] Yeah. So definitely watching like a lot of my peers like that, we're seniors in our pre-med program. I'm not ready for medical school either, but also not knowing what they wanted to do as far as, like a gap opportunity that would kind of get them there. And especially like in the medical field, that was just like, frankly, not being very well compensated. And also, if you don't get into medical school, just kind of being a dead end. I knew that I just wanted to keep myself open to more opportunities. So I guess I'm telling this story like a little bit more black and white. Definitely. I would say the plan was maybe more like find a job and in finance or business. See if you like it.And then if you don't like it, you can still apply to business like medical school. That's fair.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:14] Ok, so you hadn't completely closed the door yet?
Imsurance: [00:15:18] Uh, not formally, but I think in my mind it was like it was, it was pretty, it was pretty much a done deal already.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:24] Fair enough. I get that. So you're you're you're you're at this first job. They change the name. This is not just operation, but strategy and operations. It's like a nice rebrand. You are working kind of a rotation program there. Tell me a little bit about specifically kind of what you did. Can you give the listeners an idea of like what is the middle office or a back office job, like at a at a large financial services firm?
Imsurance: [00:15:49] Sure. So before we kind of had that rebrand, it was like literally rotating through the processing functions of this office. So like on our first day, we were like literally given a script and we were answering the phones like in the call center, part of the operations and customer service. And then we kind of worked through just general like financial services, like operations and settlements and processing. And we were kind of just,You know, very transactional, so to speak, where we were kind of just like processing these like financial products that the company was involved in. And we were learning what those different procedures and functions looked like. And we were looking for ways to kind of just like streamline some of the processing times and some of those things and automate, if we could, it would. Definitely. It definitely wasn't particularly interesting. I put it that way, but it's basically rebranded
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:41] Whatever they couldn't automate. You had to do manually, but like exactly, they were very happy to automate it if you had an idea.
Imsurance: [00:16:47] We did a rotation in the mailroom and it was like all the kind of crazy stuff you could think of. But then when we got rebranded, you know, it wasn't like we got more interesting work overnight, but we were really fortunate to move into like what is like a global hierarchical structure of our company. And from there,Before like anything kind of came, I was definitely trying to build relationships with the people in this new strategy group, you know, in our headquarters, which is in New York City and just kind of trying to get notice like any type of work I could get remotely and kind of work on in the Midwest and build those relationships. And that really helped kind of kickstart things and make make the process happen like smoother. And that was how I was able to kind of brand myself as a leader over there.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:30] So you're saying you were networking? Talk to me a little bit more about that. So you were emailing them. How did you reach out? How did you have the guts to reach out from being in the middle office back office? There's the strategy group in New York and the headquarters is that. Yeah, that's right. And so how do you know even to who to reach out to? Is there a program with your company that allowed you to do that? Or was it like you were just doing it instinctually through like LinkedIn or whatever, or just through your your internal email or whatever your intranet?
Imsurance: [00:18:00] So the process started on LinkedIn before I like reached out to any of these people, I kind of knew what group I was moving into, so I looked them up, just got a general understanding of how the group was structured. You know, some companies are pretty fortunate to post that stuff internally. But but ours was and then once I kind of made a targeted list of like, OK, this this person, John, he's in like this like, you know, strategy function relating with, you know,Our commercial business or this person is in this strategy function related to our consumer business. Once I made my list, you know, I took, I took it straight to my manager locally and I said, you know, I kind of just done some research over the stuff that this new group does that we're going into. Do you have any connections that kind of work in these parts? Points of interest for me and a matched up already with my list, and she was able to plug me in. And then, you know, once you take, like I would say, once you take a general interest and you like volunteer yourself, it's like labor that is willing to work hard and kind of learn something new. You know, once it was really quick, like once I got on the phone with those people, I was able to get kind of projects and like some of that, more global and strategically involved work pretty easily. It was definitely just kind of a matter of being genuine,Communicating what I can do and like.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:09] When you say, like strategy work, were you doing like PowerPoint decks, reading online research or what were you doing for them at the start? So it was
Imsurance: [00:19:18] Just really like there was this big global project that we were trying to do, which is like we were working in a back office in the Midwest and we had couple of these global processing centers and we were trying to understand what the true costs of the work that those groups were doing. So kind of being boots on the ground.We were kind of working on this like pricing database that kind of checked like, what is the cost it takes to kind of process such and such type of work? Or, you know,These and these processes and we kind of built a kind of built this like a database that then all the other centers like started kind of inputting their data. And then we had like some real, some real kind of facts and like some evidence based numbers about like,If we want to do this like required thing that we have to do anyway, like what global location should we put it in?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:04] Cool. Ok, so that makes sense. So tell me you're there for almost a couple of years. Tell me about when you started applying outside. Was it right away that you started up? Did you keep kind of networking and applying throughout your your? Two years there or you're slightly under two years. Or was this something where like a year end, you started looking outside and networking?
Imsurance: [00:20:24] Yeah. So I would say it's a year in and, you know, maybe this is a little bit old school. I think if you're going to kind of sign your name and take a job or do something, you should do it probably for at least a year. Any less people like are wondering what happened, whether it was like you kind of being dissatisfied or something.So, you know, as much as like, I thought, this opportunity, it was a pretty good opportunity that wasn't perfect. So I was willing to kind of sit out and make the most of it for the first year. And then after that, I definitely like I started applying to kind of the strategy based roles at the investment banks and then some investment banking roles as well being very broad in my search, going from like, you know, whether the world is Sealy boutique banks to middle market banks, just knowing whatever experience I got would probably at least be more tangibly related to investment banking, which was my my end goal.So that was, you know, that alone.That was not easy.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:17] Just like you did, you think that you were going to be able to actually transition to investment banking from like a middle or back office position? Like what was your expectation or had you read enough Wall Street voices to saying how impossible?
Imsurance: [00:21:31] I definitely, you know, everyone likes to think that they're, you know, the special one and they kind of have what it takes.So I applied to a few roles and I even got a few phone screens and that was, you know, you kind of get like, you get your hopes up, you know, really try to do you think you know you finally you're finally you can almost picture it. It's so tangible, even at that point where you have such a far way to go. But I think after losing out to like a few candidates that already had relevant thinking experience on you that I still kind of wasn't ready.But then, you know, I had some other mentors at the time, too that had gotten MBAs and told me not only like, it's probably a better fit for you. As far as like, I have more options from like on campus recruiting and not just kind of have to do it the manual way and also just kind of learn a lot and kind of develop a lot of skills through the education process that that would just make it a much more sustainable career down the line for me versus kind of trying to lateral to something that I'm not qualified for.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:25] Yeah, no. Fair. Yeah, no, I mean, going and getting into an analyst class is like shark infested water of just working those nine to hundred hour weeks. It's it's tough if you're going in there with limited financial modeling skills or whatnot. And since you had done bio, I assume that would have been you. So, so you're OK. So you start searching, you start kind of networking and so you're applying. Tell me about some of those phone screens where they tough. Were they easy? Did you make it past first round on any of them or was it just like it was?
Imsurance: [00:22:55] No, it was literally first round. And then, you know, someone who probably had a hiring decision, look at my resume and realized I didn't have them like the applicable experience and was tossed out from
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:06] There. And that was that. Yeah, so tell me kind of what you you said you had applied to some of the banks strategy rules. So tell me how that went and what you knew about those, those positions in those, those banks.
Imsurance: [00:23:18] That's a that's a really good question, so, you know, definitely that was kind of the work experience that I've been developing up up for my to this point. Granted, it was with a non banking product, but you know, I found the skill set to be very transferable. So whatever the product was that they needed a strategy analyst for, and I applied, you know, it's just it was a matter of doing like increasing research and like like a general strategist who would want to become well versed in a subject kind of preparing for an interview, just like making sure if I was going to talk to someone at a bank for one of these types of roles that I knew as much as I could about the product, so I didn't look like so I could ask some interesting questions. And just so I frankly didn't sound like a total idiot when I was kind of talking because and those types of interviews, you know, even if you aren't the they're looking for someone generally who just a good thinker and maybe not that might have not have the most direct experience, but they're still going to ask you what your opinion is like on the business or market that they're covering. So I found people
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:16] Of like, maybe not the one you went into, but something else like a different.
Imsurance: [00:24:19] Sure. Sure. So I interviewed with this, like with this fixed income group at a middle market bank and they were looking for a strategy analyst. And I think just for example, so they were looking specifically for someone you could implement a sales force tool for them like a customer relationship management tool. And I had some experience using Salesforce. So we kind of talked about that. And I think the proof that I could do the job was that was fine. But what helped me kind of get further and make it to being one of the people they were like, kind of really considering maybe like the final few is that like I took an interest in like I ask just about the fixed income market and so specifically municipal bonds. And I kind of spun a story about like what I had done, what I'd researched about municipal bonds. Definitely. It's a it's a market that it's kind of getting tighter and tighter, but it's definitely not going away.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:09] Interesting. So like even though your role with understanding, even though your role is supposed to be more like CRM implementation on the strategy, like a more consultant side, you still showed interest in the underlying product, which is fixed income in this case, which kind of sets you apart from other candidates, do you think?
Imsurance: [00:25:24] I definitely think so, yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:27] Ok, so tell me a little bit about kind of your jump to a bulge bracket investment bank. How did that, how did that evolve? Was it as part of this process, you know, year in? Was it somebody you had been in touch with a while? Tell me about kind of how that evolved.
Imsurance: [00:25:45] Yes, as I was kind of doing this process looking for my next job, there were probably, you know, I applied to every bank that I could. There were probably like four or five where I felt like the relationship was just getting stronger. So even though, like, maybe I didn't read for two or three roles or for this company, I think I'd interviewed for four different jobs at this point and not gotten any of them. You know, you build really good relationships with the recruiters and you kind of you kind of they kind of know what you can bring to the table. And as long as you know, you're not completely as long as you're not completely an idiot and you have that relationship when other roles come up, as they frequently do at these large companies, you know, they're willing to kind of at least kind of get you started in the process. So it was really
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:25] Give you another at bat, basically. Exactly.
Imsurance: [00:26:28] And the way it kind of worked, it becomes a process of mutual selection and mutual fit. So I would say by the time we got to the end of the process, we we arrived at the rule where I was given an offer, where it was the one that I was the most interested in, out of the ones I've interviewed with so far. And it was also the one that was just like the best like cultural fit. So fitting with the team getting along with them great and then having the skills at the table. So I would give some advice that just as if you're interviewing for a job at a at a big company like a Morgan Stanley or J.p. Morgan or Goldman sachs, and you know, you don't you're not getting the offer. You feel like you're kind of, you know, just like, stay patient, build relationships. You know, if you know what you bring to the table like there will ninety nine percent chance at another role that you can totally do will kind of come along again as long as you're not kind of annoying them. I think if you kind of just keep the line of communication open.How did
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:20] You educate? How did you I mean, there's a lot of information on investment banking and those rules and how did you educate yourself on like these other kind of more strategy consulting or middle office or back office roles? How did you even know? Was it just seeing what was available, what jobs would pop up in their feeds and then just kind of doing research there, like Googling? Or was it some some other way in terms of how you would research and get
Imsurance: [00:27:44] Ready for these interviews? Uh, yeah, so sorry, it's the question about finding the job it's all for like.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:51] Yeah, more about like how you prepped for the interviews. I mean, there's there's the standard behavioral questions which you have to have down and your story. It sounds like you had it. You knew you knew how to kind of walk that walk. But like, how did you get? I don't know for for very specific kind of back office and middle office things with specific products, how did you get that knowledge or did you not need it since they they're more interested? Were these more like entry level roles?
Imsurance: [00:28:17] So I would say, like Investopedia and mergers and acquisitions are amazing and pretty much anything that a bank is involved in.You can get your primer from there to just kind of get a quick head of the business. So let's take like a let's see. Let's take a product that that my bank feels in, and this is not something that I work in, but just to kind of give you an example.So, you know, like let's take like interest rate products and like, let's take repos. Well, like if I type in repo and Investopedia, at least get a first, like I'll get a hit and I'll get an understanding of what it is.What's the purpose of it?It's an overnight, overnight lending product to kind of create liquidity. So that's great. So now I have an understanding of what, like what clients are coming to my bank for this product, what they need, what what is it doing? And then from there, having that understanding, you know, I'll try to see what's going on in The Wall Street Journal because that'll give me now that I have the primer, I can see what's kind of going on in the day to day markets. And if you look at the repo markets, I mean, it's really interesting because like the federal government right now is doing as much as it can to kind of pump money back into our economy. So that's like a very volatile market. And there's kind of, you know, if I wanted to dig down, I could just by pulling up some news articles after doing a primer on understanding what the product is, I would have a lot to talk about. Yeah. And you find and you can find even in any industry, even if it's not as like, you know, even if it's like a value time in the economy and the economy is growing and it's a different product, there's usually some type of discussion that is going on or there's one that that has gone on that has already been settled, that is at least topical enough that you can kind of bring it up and ask, like, Oh, so, you know, for another interest rate example, you know, the London interbank offering rate is like going away, which is like the traditional lending rate that all banks used and it's being replaced by something else. So if you're, you know, if you're interviewing for anything that is related to an interest rate, you can just kind of
Imsurance: [00:30:11] Poke the question out there that shows that you're kind of following strategically some of the stuff these banks might have to think about. And yeah, I didn't see finance,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:19] But it's showing that you've done some of the research and you're not. Yeah, yeah,
Imsurance: [00:30:23] I'm not an expert by any means, but you know, just by like, I guess that's the extra mile that you have to go just to show that you care, like it really helps a lot.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:31] Yeah, it's an important lesson there. So, OK, so you get the offer after, you know, striking out a bunch of times, you eventually get an offer for a role and you take that role. You're there for a couple of years or a year and a half or so before kind of transferring. Tell me about that internal transfer. What prompted that and as much information as you can give or comfortable giving, how you kind of did that or why that happened would be great. Sure. And then I want to just go go right into the kind of MBA application process, how you kind of got people on board to give you recommendations. That would be awesome.
Imsurance: [00:31:06] Definitely. So those two did happen around the same time. I think business school applications kind of happened first and that was, you know, with like old investment investment banking. I definitely I had worked for about three years up to this point. I developed some really good analyst level experience in finance that I thought would translate really well to kind of cutting the investment banking job once I got my MBA. So I will say I didn't really feel like as comfortable at the time, telling my direct manager which most MBA programs will ask for a recommendation from your direct manager or someone who's really close. So I just got the next person closest person who I developed a really close relationship with would better understand at the time, you know why I wanted to get my MBA. This person had an MBA herself, which is also, I think, really good advice. If there's someone who might not be your direct manager but just knows what the value is an MBA by virtue of having one, that's a great person to think about asking. And then I asked another, another person that was pretty senior that I just worked with on a lot of deliverables that didn't have as much stake. And I kind of also had an MBA, so you can kind of trust to keep that process secret. So.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:13] So your direct manager didn't know until after or still doesn't know or didn't know until after you got admitted as it kind of.
Imsurance: [00:32:19] Yeah, I found out once I once I had gotten admitted, which I think, you know, in hindsight, I think my manager probably would have been supportive. I would say a lot of people are scared to ask their direct manager because it looks like they're leaving the company. And I think, well, that's true to an extent. You know, you know, your manager better than I do, but I'm willing to bet there's like a ninety five percent chance they're not a complete asshole, right? So as long as that, like you know them and like what they're kind of like, I'm pretty sure it would take a lot for them to like, actually take the time to write a terrible recommendation to not send you to business school just so they could keep you as a company like that's a terrible line of thinking. Like, it makes no sense, right?So if I was if I was more comfortable and I'd thought about it, I think my manager would have probably written a better recommendation and I might have. In our successful or maybe more successful in the process.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:08] Yeah, I think with obviously when you're a reference, when you're leaving company can be much touch here than if you're applying to get more education for yourself in a graduate degree. I think the graduate degree tends to be less painful, at least on the surface, to your to your manager of why you're going. I think where it can get touchy is if you're telling them, Yeah, I want to go into investment banking and they're not investing, they're not in investment banking, obviously. So they're going to be like, Oh, what's wrong with what I'm doing?
Imsurance: [00:33:35] Actually, it's funny you mention that. So I've interviewed people in roles not being in investment banking myself and I get that answer from people that I interview. Sometimes that eventually they don't want to go into investment making. And it's like, usually I'll say, like, I'll think in my head like, that's great. Like me too. But like, what a terrible time to tell me right now.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:55] Like, why are you telling me that now we know you're leaving, you know?
Imsurance: [00:33:58] Yeah. And then regarding the transfer, you know,I was just getting, you know, I'd learned a lot in this first job of this bank. Knowing business was a pretty selective process, and there's a chance that I don't get in. I felt I didn't feel like super confident, like, Oh, this is a sure thing I'm out of here. But I also felt like just like my role there wasn't there wasn't as much of the opportunity to become like the leader on the team or move into that next seat. So being an analyst, I guess being an associate, I just didn't see that opportunity. So I'd also simultaneously just pursued a path to find a spot with that growth opportunity should things not work out in my favor. It is pretty straightforward process. So I think again, that one, you know, it was a matter of having like a very frank conversation with my manager about next year. Like, what? What is this seat going to look like? Like, what am I going to get any new projects or am I going to be doing anything that is, you know, is more important? And that's kind of shows that I can take on more responsibility. And they were kind of just like, you know, we can't really make any guarantees. We don't know what's there. So I was just really frank. was like, Well, you know, I love the work that we did together. I think we can both see that, you know, I'm just kind of spinning my wheels a little bit now. It's not as challenging. The role is just not as challenging as it was. So they were really supportive in helping me find a new seat at the firm.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:18] Well, what gave you the confidence of doing that? Do you feel like you had done a good enough job and that's why you could go there and then you didn't feel like they were going to just like Punt. You like kick you out or acquire you? Like, Yeah, I
Imsurance: [00:35:27] Felt like it was like, there's like just a mutual understanding. It was very clear that I was getting really bored and I'd learned and done as much as I could. So I started by asking, like, what's next? Like, What's the growth opportunity? They couldn't answer that question. So that was when we kind of had this discussion.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:42] To be fair. I think, yeah, as long as you're doing it in a respectful manner, there is a way to get there. So how did you think about just that internal? So had you been networking internally at the firm outside the firm? How did you think about where you wanted to go? Obviously, somewhere where there's growth opportunity, meaning you start managing people? Or what was the thought process?
Imsurance: [00:36:02] I was looking probably for just like a more quantitative and technical kind of role where I can kind of develop some more skills in that front. I restricted my search to internal just because I knew I had some of these business school notifications coming into to change companies. I thought, and to be working there for less than a year would be pretty, pretty unfair. As far as the internal process, you know, if you work in like, say or in like a major hub for your for your firm, so say you're in the New York City office or the San Francisco office or like the Houston office, you know, that's a pretty big group of people. There's probably just working at your company a couple of hundred, maybe thousands of people who work there. So by developing relationships with people in different teams like that's something you can do on day one, whether or not you're looking for a role that I ended up finding really helpful because then I could kind of, you know, I could kind of go on side and see what was opened or I would just like, you know, shoot the shit with my friends when we were playing golf and kind of casually ask the question like, you know, do you know anything like what's going on? I'm kind of looking for my next thing, and you get a lot of, you know, you'll get a lot of answers and you'll just learn a lot about what's going on and what the opportunities are be. And then you can kind of make the decision for yourself, like which ones do you really want to pursue? And I would say, if you're going to go internal, it's so much better. People like to have the face to the name and like, build the relationship. So it's so much better if you kind of reach out on your own and act proactively. I think sitting around and waiting for these types of opportunities when you already have your foot in the door of the company is like a terrible way to go about it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:31] But just waiting, you're saying versus being proactive? I mean, I think any time you can build a relationship before needing the job or whatever you're asking for. Yeah, it's always a better, a better move to putting in the work before you even anticipate needing or wanting to move somewhere. I always say to people like if you're at like a big four, for example, and you're know that you want to get into making, eventually you better. You better be working on getting the transaction advisory services or PTS or similar type. We're all as fast as you can without pissing off your current boss. So like networking with those people knowing that in a year and a half to two years, you're going to try to make that jump is a smart move.
Imsurance: [00:38:13] I think a really good way to do it is find the people on those teams that are maybe at your level, your reporting line, or maybe like just one above you. So they're not like the direct hiring manager because they'll kind of give you the they'll give you like the real information you need to know, kind of get through the process and be successful on the team. And I know when someone approaches me from another team and wants to on my team like I want to tell them what they need to say to get the job just because, like, that's kind of, you know, I like
Imsurance: [00:38:39] Seeing people be successful and usually people on the other
side like the same. So I know what my company, if there's an opening, if we put an opening for a job, there's usually enough information in that where you can go, look up the team on our internal site and you can find who the associates and analysts are. And if I know them already, that's great. I'll we can kind of get that going or if I don't know them already and I know someone who knows them, I can have them reach out. Or it's just kind of being a little bit more strategic than just like dropping in your housemate
in the bucket and opening and paying you back.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:10] Yeah, that's the easy way. Dropping your resume in the bucket and hoping and I think if especially in the economy, we're about to head into recession, hopefully not depression. I think it's important even more now to be proactive about who you know about kind of before not being lazy, about just dropping your resume. It's really just lazy. It's partly because they're shy or they don't. They think, Oh, it's awkward. What would you say to make it less awkward? You talked about golf. Like, what if you're not if you're not a golfer? Like, what other ways could you just kind of get time with these people if you don't know? So when I was referring to golf
Imsurance: [00:39:48] And like anything you need, you know, whatever team you're on, you should be making friends to the people that are your age in the office, around you, whatever team they're on. I think just having that network. I did it by playing golf. And there's, you know, there's a good group of us and we're always looking for guys that can kind of come out and play. And when they're on a new team that we haven't met before, like, that's great. But whatever you like to
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:08] Be good at golf, to go play,
Imsurance: [00:40:10] No, actually, we prefer probably being bad at golf and by making more friends, we hate the guy who's too good.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:18] I'll see you guys love me.
Imsurance: 00:40:21] Hey, you're more than welcome to come out with us anytime. I mean, even if it's like, you know, if you like to whatever you like to do like in any of these major cities, there's like at least there's probably like hundreds of other analysts, like across teams and being the person to just like, put yourself out there and make new friends. It's helped me a lot. Whatever that is like for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:48] That's awesome, so anything else? So the application process obviously went really well. You got in the booth and. My guess is, you know, by this time, by this time next year or in two years, you'll definitely have that full time off. I'm going to be guessing, all right, I'll put my money on, you know, how to add an investment bank. So congrats on all that. Thanks. I think in terms of just other advice before we call the pod anything else you want to tell your younger self or the younger listeners in terms of advice?
Imsurance: [00:41:20] Yeah. So apply to my MBA. I knew that I wanted to go into investment banking, probably like three or four months out of graduating, and I knew pretty quickly after that that it would be the MBA. So it took me like four years. There's a four year long process to just get the experience and do the steps necessary. So I will say it's a long and grueling process, but like anything worth having will really take that kind of investment. Nothing happens particularly easily. So if that's the route that you need to take or are choosing to take. I like to say, you know, I think in college, I was always looking for like what is like the quick and dirty solution to like get an a on this test with like minimal studying or like, how can I get this achieve this result by putting in as little effort as possible? And once you graduate, it just doesn't work like that like anything worth having, like takes your time and investment, so spend your time wisely and then like, just make sure you're being honest with yourself and make sure that you're tracking. If you're going to like, you should totally set a short term, medium term and long term goal. But if you know, if you're going through and you're just not tracking and you're not meeting those that you know, it'll be really tough and you'll just kind of regret it on. So being like thoughtful about tracking. So I kind of knew when around what time I would want to take my GMAT. And I knew once I had the team I've done like, Like where I could start looking at the schools in my profile. And once I think the school is, you know, I saw that the applications were opening up this summer and that I needed this, this and this done. So it's just being diligent and kind of thinking, at least like two to three steps in advance, like where you're going to be and what you're going to need to be doing. I think especially if you're going for MBA, you know, you only have like what is really like five years give or take to be as successful as you can and to build the case
Imsurance: [00:43:03] That an MBA will help you to just be more successful. So with that finite amount of time, if you're not using it correctly, it just be really tough to kind of get the results that you want.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:13] Yeah, and to get into one of the top programs, I think is really important because the gap between the top is in schools and the as you get further down, it drops off. I would argue pretty quickly in terms of the opportunities that are available to you coming right out of the program, especially if you're recruiting for like an investment banking where there's the
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:32] Set number of MBA programs they pull from. So, yeah, thank you so much for taking the time, hopefully people heed your advice and have set that plan up and don't wait eight years after undergrad, 10 years after undergrad, before waking up one day and thinking of themselves, Hey, I'm still in the back office and this is not right.
Imsurance: [00:43:52] Yeah, exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:54] It happens. It doesn't mean life's over. It just means you've got to start hustling. So anyways, I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your wisdom with the listeners. I will say to you, like the site is just a great resource because you meet a bunch of other people that are in different stages of their careers. And it's just it's really good motivation. So I've definitely used it like as was looking like, not only finding my first job and kind of transitioning, but then getting going through the applications. And I know you've had, like various like admissions consultants, offer to do like some posts and Q&A and stuff. So definitely like if you're out of school and your first job, you know, Wall Street always just a great resource. I'll give you some kudos there
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:34] For the endorsement, man. I appreciate.
Imsurance: [00:44:38] I guess I'm preaching to the choir, but
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:41] And definitely stay safe. Ok with out there. And yeah, thanks so much. Just probably two weeks. Thanks. Take care. 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.
or Want to Sign up with your social account?