Sunday, August 29, 2010

What do you want?

Well it's come again. Recruiting season. I've been surprised how many students have reached out to me this year, wanting to get advice and hear about where I work. It's a good thing though - the more that reach out, the better chance we have of finding the best new analysts!

I've noticed more and more how easy it is to tell the difference between somebody who has prepared and somebody who hasn't. And the difference is obvious within three minutes of talking with a person. This is why when you interview, the interviewer usually makes a decision by the time you've told your story - the rest of the interview is spent confirming that decision, whether to ding you or to pass you on.

I thought it might be helpful to write down one of the ways I prepared which I feel really helped me perform in interviews.

So a little background. I had just finished up my internship at a bulge bracket bank, and was thinking about what to do next. I felt like it would be a good idea to interview around, and I reached out to people I had met in the lead-up to internship interviews. Luckily, I had a great summer and was able to have some substance to my resume as I was sending it out. At the places where I didn't know anybody, I simply sent my resume to the websites of those companies. I didn't think it would lead to anything, but when you don't have anything to lose, why not? It turns out that I ended up taking a job at one of the places that found my resume through the website.

As interviews progressed, I was fortunate enough to get a few offers. At this point, I realized that I was going to have to make some decisions about what I wanted to do for the two years following college. I had a lot of questions, like, "Bulge bracket or boutique?" and "Investment banking for a career or private equity after banking?"

I decided that to really be able to figure out where I wanted to be, I needed to decide what I want out of my two-year analyst experience. I sat down with a blank sheet of paper and began writing out what I really wanted as an analyst.

My thoughts focused around three broad categories: (1) Finance / technical experience, (2) Culture / lifestyle and (3) Career / Exit opportunities.

Finance / Technical
Within this section, I included the following:
-Deal team size (10-15+ at bulge bracket, 4-5 at boutique)
-Generalist vs. product/industry group
-Modeling (templates vs. building from scratch)
-Analyst responsibility (double-staffed with other analysts or sole analyst on deal teams from day one? Run the model or share with associate? etc.)
-Mentoring (assigned or just part of the culture? Interaction with senior people daily or never? Chain of command or flat culture?)

It turns out that the things most important to me were to get a lot of responsibility and experience modeling from the get-go. I also wanted to be a generalist and focus on M&A, because I had decided that my long-term goal was to go to private equity.

Culture / Lifestyle
-"Face time" policy
-My view of the culture (basically I just used adjectives to describe how I viewed each bank's culture based on my interactions with people from the banks)
-Salary (not that important, but still a data point)

This section was important to me, but it wasn't what really swayed me one way or another. I still view investment banking as an investment in the future, and if you have to deal with a rough culture for two years, you can do it. But, if you can go to a top-tier bank and be in a great culture, even better.

Exit Opportunities
-Firm's view on interviewing for private equity (fire you vs. help you)
-Firm's view on promoting internally
-How well have analysts done in the past in recruiting at this bank? (this was all based on hearsay and research I did on my own just looking at various websites of the PE shops)

Although this isn't something you can bring up as a positive point in an interview about why you would want to work at a specific bank, it was very important to me. In the group where I spent the summer, the analysts who were interviewing literally had to lie about what they were doing and sneak out to interviews. I really didn't want to be put in a position where I felt that I needed to be dishonest just to do what I wanted. Because this was a priority, I ended up choosing a bank where people are very willing to help you prepare for and do well in private equity interviews. Luckily, my analyst class did amazingly well in private equity recruiting, and I think it's largely because of the way the firm views recruiting.

This exercise took quite a while to think through and fill out, but once I had gone through the page and ranked the various banks at which I had an offer or was likely to receive an offer, it became very clear to me that based on the criteria I had prioritized, I needed to go to one bank in particular. I knew what I was giving up, and I knew full well what I was getting. At that point I didn't even have an offer from this bank yet, but I had final rounds scheduled.

When the time came for interviews and I was asked, "Why do you want to work here?", I began to explain how I had thought about that question quite a bit. In essence, I said something like this:

"I've thought about this in great detail, and the way I have approached it is to think about what things I really want to experience as an analyst. I know that the criteria that are important to me are [list off the things I just wrote about above]. As I've considered the various banks, yours absolutely fits those criteria the best. I would love to be here, and have no doubt in my mind that I could thrive here."

I would go on to list of specific things about the bank, such as their views on analysts, modeling, mentoring, culture, deal teams / experience, etc. It was clear to every person with which I interviewed that I had given this question substantial thought. The great thing is, I was talking about all the same reasons that they loved working at this bank, and my answers resonated strongly with the interviewers.

I received the offer and have had an absolutely fantastic first year. My point in writing all of this is to encourage those of you with interviews coming up to really put thought into what is important to you in your analyst experience and to convince yourself of the best place for you. Then, when you interview there, it will come across clearly that you have thought it through, and that you are a great fit for the job.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi!

A couple months ago, when I prepared my interview, I found your article about the summer internship experience. That article really inspires me. Although I did not get that job eventually, but I saved your blog. I opened your blog today after a few months, and found out that you wrote many great articles by heart. Please keep writing, I am very glad to see you share your thoughts and experience by heart!

Anonymous said...

Hey "The Analyst",

First off, great blog. Definitely an extremely helpful read for people looking to break into finance. I was wondering if it would be possible for you to include some posts on the private equity recruiting process and how you successfully navigated that while maintaining your work commitments. Thanks in advance.

Zeeshan Maqsood said...

Great blog, just read everything for my interviews !

Thanks from Canada.

Matt said...

Hey, I just finished reading through your blog, start to finish. It was great. I'm a HS Senior, and will be attending a top 10 undergrad business school next fall (which one is yet to be decided!).

I don't know what type of business I want to pursue yet, so I thought it would be a good idea to learn more about the different types early on. Your blog has given me a great insight into Investment Banking. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Hi

I read this post two times.

I like it so much, please try to keep posting.

Let me introduce other material that may be good for our community.

Source: Network analyst interview questions

Best regards
Henry

Unknown said...

So you would suggest trying for summer internships? I've been wondering what I want to do with my summer this year, and if you recommend it, I will probably start looking for one.

ulutootkia said...

Hello!

I came across your blog while reading up on corporate finance in general.. I find it extremely insightful.

Your last post was somewhen in 2010 however. Are you still in the industry? It would be great to continue reading your posts.

Cheers

ulutootkia said...

Hello!

I came across your blog when reading up on corporate finance.. I find your posts very insightful.

Your last post was somewhen in 2010 however. Are you still in the industry?

It would be great to continue reading your posts.

Cheers.

ulutootkia said...

Hello!

I came across your blog when reading up on corporate finance.. I find your posts very insightful.

Your last post was somewhen in 2010 however. Are you still in the industry?

It would be great to continue reading your posts.

Cheers.

ulutootkia said...

Hello!

I came across your blog when reading up on corporate finance.. I find your posts very insightful.

Your last post was somewhen in 2010 however. Are you still in the industry?

It would be great to continue reading your posts.

Cheers.

Unknown said...

Great blog, just read everything for my interviews ! Summer Training in Jaipur

Unknown said...

This blog is very informative. Investment banking is very important for every business. Thanks for sharing us.

Anonymous said...

I found this blog 13 years later and it was so inspiring. It reminds me of how badly I've been prepared myself for a real career. I'm those kids from the target school but really don't have a strong desire/hunger for what I want like you do. After going through all the posts, I wrote down the note and started seriously thinking about everything. Just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart.