How to get a job on Wall Street : proven ways to land a high-paying, high-powered job

**__Sometimes it's not about WHO you know but WHAT you know . . . even on Wall Street__** **SO, YOU WANT TO WORK ON WALL STREET.** You've come to the right place. Filled with sample questions taken from actual interviews, __How to Get a Job on Wall Street__ is like your own personal coach helping you land the job of your dreams. This nuts-and-bolts guide has no gimmicks or tricks. Instead, it shows you how to "wow" interviewers with nothing more than old-fashioned knowledge, confidence, and professionalism. Before you start sending out your résumé, learn everything you need to know about: - THE ROLE FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS PLAY IN SOCIETY - HOW TO READ BALANCE SHEETS AND INCOME STATEMENTS - THE FOUR MAIN CONCEPTS OF FINANCE - COMPANY VALUATION BASICS You're about to enter a high-stakes business, and those who do the hiring take their job seriously—so you can't just "wing it" on an interview. __How to Get a Job on Wall Street__ provides everything you need to know, so you can deliver when it counts. Excerpt CHAPTER 1GETTING THE JOBSuccessful candidates understand what a bank is looking for. They prepare forinterviews on a daily basis, beginning well beforehand, so that they can build abase of knowledge on which to draw. In doing this, they prepare a résumé thathighlights what they have to offer a bank. Finally, they use the interview tostrengthen their case rather than weaken it. In this chapter, we cover threeareas. First, we discuss the qualities and characteristics a bank looks for incandidates. Second, we discuss the importance of the résumé along with a fewbasic pieces of advice. Third, we discuss the dos and don'ts of the interviewitself.AREAS OF FINANCEThe finance world typically is divided into the buy side and thesell side, terms that describe those who are tasked with buyingsecurities on behalf of themselves or others and those who are tasked withselling securities on behalf of themselves or others. The sell side consistslargely of units within the major investment banks (e.g., Goldman Sachs,JPMorgan), middle market investment banks (e.g., Harris Williams, LincolnInternational), and smaller boutiques that tend to specialize (e.g., HowardWeil, which specializes in energy services). The buy side also includes unitswithin the major investment banks but in addition covers mutual funds, privateequity funds, and hedge funds. Commercial banks are also major players, actingas intermediaries between those who wish to save money and those who wish toinvest those savers' money. In recent years, several major investment banks havejoined forces with commercial banks to create much-needed balance sheetstability. For example, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch merged in late 2008 toform a massive organization with over $2 trillion in assets. In Chapter4, we will return to this topic by discussing the different types offinancial services firms.HIERARCHY OF A BANKThe hierarchy of a financial services firm can differ from sector to sector andfirm to firm but is relatively consistent in investment banks. Generallyspeaking, there are five levels in banks: analysts, associates, vice presidents,directors, and managing directors. Analysts are the entry-levelanalytical force of the firm. As entry-level workers, they are responsible foranything their superiors deem appropriate. They typically work more hours thantheir superiors, with those in investment banking sometimes being asked to work16-plus hours per day for extended periods. Although most analysts leave thebank after two or three years, the very best of the analyst class are asked tostay at the firm and be promoted to associates. In addition, banks often hirestudents directly from MBA programs into associate positions. Associatesare senior analysts who organize the work of analysts and assign tasks tomembers of the team. After a few years of successful work as an associate, anemployee may be promoted to vice president. The work of vice presidentsdiffers in a significant way from those who work under them because it is at thevice presidential level that interactions with clients become more extensive andmore meaningful. Although vice presidents are responsible for managing theassociates and analysts, they also interact with clients and potential clientson a regular basis. Put differently, vice presidents are somewhat of a hybridbetween the analysts and associates who do the analytical work and the directorswho generate business through their interactions with clients. Promotion fromvice president to director is often difficult to achieve because there are fewdirectors in relation to the number of vice presidents. In contrast to vicepresidents, directors generally are not involved in the analyticalprocess but instead concentrate almost solely on client interactions. Successfuldirectors truly understand the financial world and are highly effectivecommunicators. Furthermore, they have a commanding knowledge of the differenttools firms use to achieve their goals. Managing directors represent thepinnacle of the company in the sense that a managing director is responsible fora bank's entire business within an area such as leveraged finance. They organizethe efforts of the directors and work extensively with the executives of majorcompanies in an effort to understand their needs and provide for them. As onemight expect, directors and managing directors typically earn substantialsalaries.THE EASIEST PATHAlthough there are many diverse paths that lead to Wall Street, the easiest pathstarts with an internship during the summer before a candidate's senior year incollege. In recent years, banks have moved toward a model in which their entirefull-time employee classes are selected from the pools of summer interns. Beforethis movement, banks would recruit a significant number of full-time, entry-level employees during the fall of their senior years in college. After thathiring period, the banks would turn their attention to juniors in an effort tohire them as interns for the following summer. This effectively meant that thebanks would go through two back-to-back recruiting seasons. Because bankers playa very active role in the recruiting process, this structure necessarily meantthat bankers spent a great deal of time on activities that generated no directincome for the firm. As a result, the major banks have opted to move to a singleinternship recruiting season, all but eliminating the traditional recruiting offall-term seniors. As in any business, of course, there can be exceptions whenunexpected needs arise.Because the recruiting of college juniors has increased in importance, banksincreasingly are looking for juniors who worked in finance during the summerafter their sophomore year. Ironically, however, many banks shy away from hiringsophomore interns because they fear those interns will want to try somethingdifferent the next summer. To combat this, some major banks are seeking to hiresophomore interns into their satellite offices and then move them to New Yorkfor their junior internship experience. The hope is that this change of scenerywill be enough to keep a candidate in the fold and therefore give the bank aclear advantage in its effort to hire the best interns into full-time positions.Some firms have become quite creative in their recruiting strategies. Forexample, Harris Williams, which is perhaps the premier middle-market investmentbank in the world, recently eliminated the typical summer internship experiencein favor of something it believes is much better for both the candidate and thefirm. To understand why the firm made that decision, note that a typical deal atHarris Williams takes about six months to complete. Because a summer internshipis at most a three-month experience, the firm found that it could not provideits interns with more than a partial deal experience. To address thisdeficiency, the firm opted to create a boot camp of sorts in which candidatesexperience an entire deal in a compressed two-week time frame. In contrast tofirms that carefully guard their top prospects, Harris Williams does not hirethe boot camp students for the entire summer but instead encourages them to workelsewhere for the rest of the season. The firm believes that the two-weekexperience gives the candidates a real feel for what working at the firm wouldbe like. The firm also believes that it will be able to compete successfully tohire those candidates into full-time jobs. Although the Harris Williams bootcamp model is only a few years old, early numbers indicate that the firm hasbeen quite successful in retaining candidates even if they work at oth(Continues...) Sometimes it's not about WHO you know but WHAT you know . . . even on Wall Street. SO, YOU WANT TO WORK ON WALL STREET. You've come to the right place. Filled with sample questions taken from actual interviews, How to Get a Job on Wall Street is like your own personal coach helping you land the job of your dreams. This nuts-and-bolts guide has no gimmicks or tricks. Instead, it shows you how to "wow" interviewers with nothing more than old-fashioned knowledge, confidence, and professionalism. You're about to enter a high-stakes business, and those who do the hiring take their job seriously--so you can't just "wing it" on an interview. How to Get a Job on Wall Street provides everything you need to know, so you can deliver when it counts. -- Back cover Filled with sample questions taken from actual interviews, this book will help you land the job of your dreams. It shows you how to 'wow' interviewers with nothing more than old-fashioned knowledge, confidence and professionalism