Time to go to New York

It's that time of year again.

Things are starting to get cold, full-time recruiting is slowing down, and college football is in full swing. It's about time to get to New York.

One of the key steps for me in getting an internship and a job on Wall Street was actually going there and meeting face-to-face with professionals at the different banks. In the fall of my junior year, I flew myself to New York four times before interviews started, each time meeting with new people and cultivating relationships that eventually led to interviews and lasting friendships.

To have a successful New York trip (and this applies to San Francisco as well), there are a few things you need to do in preparation:

• First of all, you need to contact people at banks. Hopefully you've been doing this since the summer time, but if not, it's ok. You're still ahead of the game as far as internships go. A good way to find people to contact is through your alumni network. Probably the best way would be to go through previous interns, because they obviously know multiple people at the bank. The tricky part there is that you have to make sure the intern that you ask for contacts is willing to "go to bat" for you. Because they don't have much leverage, if they recommed you and you screw it up, they will look terrible.
  
  So in contacting people working on the street, usually what I would do is send a SHORT introductory email telling them who I am and asking if there's a time that we could talk. When it got to be a little closer to interview season and I felt confident about my resume, I might also send my resume along so they could "get a better idea of my background." When asking for a time to call, I basically would leave things wide open. I figured that if I need to miss part of a class then it would be worth it if I could have a solid call with somebody at Goldman or Credit Suisse.
  
  Once the phone call is scheduled, there are a lot of things you need to do to prepare for the call. It's like a first date - you have to impress this person enough to want to meet you again. So what you do is spend a ton of time preparing and you leave them completely impressed with how much a junior in college knows already. Leave no doubts in their mind about your abilities, desire, or intelligence.
  
  You can prepare in a number of ways. Here are some of the things I did: Google the person I'm going to call to find out everything I can about them on the internet; talk with people who know them and/or have worked with them to find out what group they're in, what deals they've done, and what interests they have; read the entire website for their firm, and come up with specific reasons why I would want to work there as opposed to any other bank; research any big deals that their bank has done and have a few questions about the deals; read the WSJ every day so that I can talk about current events; make sure I can answer (1) Why do you want to do banking? (2) Why do you want to work at this firm? and especially (3) Tell me about yourself / Walk me through your resume.
  
  With enough preparation (focusing not so much on the technical stuff and a lot more on the fit / general knowledge stuff), you will come off as somebody who really cares about all this stuff.

• Assuming the call goes really well, I would have already planned a date in late October / early November / late November / early December / late December / early January (pick any combination of these, but especially the later part of the year if you can only go once). As I wrap up the call I would say something like, "Hey Bryan it's been great talking with you and I've learned a lot. I wanted to let you know that I'll be in New York from November 4 through November 8 to meet with people at various banks. Obviously I'm extremely interested in your bank. Do you think you could pencil in a few minutes for me to take you out for a coffee sometime in there?"
  
  Do this 15x and you'll have a solid trip. The one thing you have to be careful of is over-booking yourself. During my second trip to New York, I had a tight schedule where I was supposed to go from one bank to another with only about a half hour inbetween when the first visit ended and the next began. The banks weren't far apart, but what I didn't account for was after my first interview, the analyst wanted to introduce me to the other analysts in his group and some senior people on the floor. Of course it was great to meet other people, and it showed that the analyst had enough confidence in me to introduce me around, but it meant that I was late for my next appointment. The worst thign you can do is set up an appointment and then not show up. Key takeaway: always plan enough time to meet new people after an interview.

• Make sure you get as many business cards as you can, because when you meet these people you are going to want to stay in touch. You don't want to be annoying, but maybe a monthly or bi-weekly update would be good. Think of some reason to get in touch and then reach out with a short email and a quick question. If something great happens like you find out you got a scholarship or the football team you know this analyst loves goes to a bowl game, send them a quick email. The personal stuff is especially good because it connects you on a different level than desperate college kid wishing for a job.
  
  After a while I started having a tough time keeping up with all the contacts. I put together a spreadsheet dedicated solely to managing my contacts. Each row had name, number, firm, position, how we met, last interaction date, last interaction (what happened) and "Next Steps." The last column was important because every time I talked to somebody I would update and plan for the next interaction. Using this saved me many times and I had to check every day to see who was due for an email.
  
  I usually sent a few emails a day and made maybe 4-5 calls a week for a good three months straight. When the time came for interviews, it was easy to reach out and get these people to pass my resume along.

Good luck as you go out and meet people this fall!

p.s. I know that last year I really wanted to look at models that people have made and am wondering if anyone is still interested in seeing models that bankers use. Post a comment if you're interested and maybe I'll put a link up. Quick thought though - the most important thing going into my internship wasn't my ability to build a DCF model, it was understanding finance and knowing ALL the Excel shortcuts!