April 1, 2025 • 47 mins
The secretive world of Wall Street recruitment has always fascinated outsiders – but few understand just how early the talent pipeline begins. Host Sam Rhee chats with his daughter, Sasha Rhee, about her journey and experiences in securing a summer internship at an investment banking firm. Sasha, a sophomore at Duke University, walks us through the intensive networking process, the technical preparation, and the strategic self-marketing needed to stand out in a sea of qualified candidates.
She also compares investment banking with asset management, discusses the rigorous interview process, and emphasizes the value of genuine interest and soft skills. The episode highlights the importance of making early career decisions and the challenges that come with them, providing a detailed look into the competitive world of investment banking from the perspective of a young aspirant.
Most tellingly, Sasha reflects that the grueling process serves as its own filter: "If you don't like recruiting, you're not going to make it in banking."
Whether you're considering a career in finance, parenting a college student, or simply curious about how Wall Street shapes its next generation, this conversation offers valuable insights into an often opaque world where career trajectories are determined remarkably early. Subscribe now to hear more thought-provoking discussions at the intersection of career, family, and personal growth.
#InvestmentBanking #FinanceCareers #CollegeToCareer #FinanceInternship #CareerAdvice #BankingJobs #FinanceCommunity #WallStreetLife #CareerGoals #BotoxAndBurpees
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome back to Botox and Burpees.
I'm your host, dr Sam Rhee.
I'm here with my regular gueststar, sasha Rhee, and today
we're going to talk a little bitabout her personal experience,
about her interest in investmentbanking.
She recently got a summerinternship at a elite boutique
investment firm investmentbanking firm, and when she
(00:26):
detailed to me what it took toget to that point, it really
surprised me for a couplereasons.
One is it was really fast.
She's only a sophomore incollege and what she had to do
to get from there to here hasalready probably determined a
great deal in terms of herfuture first job and her career,
and I wanted people to knowthat these are things that you
(00:50):
have to sort of look out forsuper early.
The other thing is is I knewvery little about investment
banking and the whole job firmhiring process, and I thought it
was so interesting where thetitans of finance are, how
they're created and how they'reshaped, and so I wanted to talk
to Sasha a little bit about herexperiences and see you know how
(01:12):
these finance bros becomefinance bros.
So, first of all, welcome again, sasha.
Yeah, you're a sophomore now atDuke and you just declared your
major in economics, right?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yes, two weeks ago I signed my job offer for summer
2026 before I declared my major.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Right.
So you actually knew where youprobably were going to be
working at after you graduateschool before you even declared
your major as a sophomore whichblew my mind because as a
pre-med, I didn't know,obviously, where I was going to
medical school until very lateinto my almost senior year, and
most people actually take a yearoff after their senior year to
(01:50):
sort of prep to apply to medicalschool.
But for you, you already knowwhere you're going to be working
after you graduate, most likely.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
If I do a good job, yes, summer 2026.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Okay, so let's talk a little bit about investment
banking, this really weird,esoteric world that I have no
knowledge of.
What made you decide?
You know that this wassomething that finance and
investment banking was somethingyou're interested in.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So when I got to Duke I joined our business society
on campus, scale and Coin.
It's like also, I guess, kindof symbolic of finance
recruiting.
Scale does the first infosession for incoming freshmen
the Sunday before classes start,so you start rushing Scale
before you go to your first everclass as a college student.
(02:37):
I joined Scale.
I went through their newmembership education process
which introduced me to stockpitch a consulting case, a tech
case, really all things you cando in the spheres of business-y,
entrepreneurship type ofindustries, and I realized that
finance is super, super big.
I went into Duke thinking Iwanted to go to law school but
(02:57):
mom said, oh, maybe work for acouple of years.
Out of it and her experience infinance, she said that she
thinks my soft skills would be agood fit.
So I learned a little bit aboutinvestment banking.
It's a pretty big buzzword atDuke.
A lot of Duke kids go intobanking in New York City
Everyone just talks aboutiBanking all the time.
Ib, yes, and I don't even knowwhat it is and I say IB, yeah.
So that's kind of how I gotintroduced to it.
(03:18):
I spoke to a lot of seniorsthat wanted to like, that were
going into a post-grad.
I actually wanted to be uniqueand different and I actually
didn't want to like IB in a waybecause I didn't know if I
wanted to do it and I felt like,oh, everyone's doing it just
because, does anyone actuallyknow what it is?
Things like that.
But I did more research.
I joined a career-findingsociety, fellowship, things like
(03:38):
that.
I spoke to a lot of peoplebecause I really thought I would
go into asset managementinstead, like mom.
But I realized that banking isa really great place to start
your career.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Okay, so would you recommend that people who have
any interest in business findtheir school's business
fraternity and be a part of it,or some similar organization?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I think so I think it gets you, I think it exposes
you to a lot of things early on.
You, I think it exposes you toa lot of things early on, like I
thought actually when I joinedSkill that I wanted to do
consulting at first, and then Idid the consulting case and
realized I like actually likenumbers and like diving into a
business instead of like moretheoretical, conceptual stuff.
So I do think it exposes youvery well and honestly, it
wasn't even in the membershipeducation process.
(04:19):
It was like meetingupperclassmen who had done their
junior summer internships, whowere returning post-grad,
because Skill has a lot ofvariety and we have people that
go into sales and trading,private equity, ib, and we have
people that decide to go tobusiness, like you know, grad
school for like other things,like law school, for instance
and I think that exposure isvery, very helpful as a freshman
, since recruiting timelines areso early.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
So what is the difference between asset
management and investmentbanking?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, I can break it into spheres a little bit.
So banking, essentially it'scalled, like, the sell side.
So you have the sell side andyou have the buy side.
In finance Again, I'm not aseasoned professional, I am a
sophomore in college but fromwhat I understand, you have the
sell side and the buy side.
The sell side essentially iswhere, like you have people who
have money and people who needmoney, and bankers are in the
middle of it.
(05:03):
So they facilitate, like M&A,like mergers and acquisitions,
they facilitate thosetransactions between companies
of any size.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
And they make money off of it.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
And they make money off of it.
So you basically get like thatfee almost of like doing a
transaction and so like that'swhy, like everyone during COVID
was like, oh my God, no one'sdoing M&A activity.
It's super slow Banks are, youknow, having trouble.
And then you see m&a within ownbanks, like ubs and credit
suites.
I think things like that that'sthe buy side, which is more is
(05:32):
direct investing opportunity.
That's like private equity,where you're directly investing
into private companies, usuallydoing a leveraged buyout
strategy.
You're buying them and you'rebuilding them and you're selling
them after like five years.
Like cross, it is owned by aprivate equity firm, right.
And then asset management iskind of more on the buy side
where, like, there's a lot ofdifferent things you can do in
asset management.
You can be on the client sideand work with clients.
(05:53):
Wealth management is a type ofasset management, but it's
mostly just like doingportfolios based on a certain
strategy or you're using acertain index like the S&P 500
or the Dow Jones.
But those are the twodifferences.
And going out of college, thereare a lot more sell side
banking opportunities.
Then it's pretty hard to godirectly into the buy side.
It's straight into privateequity, but more and more firms
(06:14):
are opening up thoseopportunities than there were
like five years ago.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So like a hedge fund.
What is that?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
That's buy side, okay , so they're directly investing
in, like usually like some sortof, whatever their strategy is
like long short, like they're,you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So that's an asset management type of category.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
But it's just a more aggressive type versus.
You could have like mutualfunds and like what retirement
portfolio is in.
Those are technicallyportfolios that would also fall
under like asset management.
So asset management, otherwiseknown as investment management,
is much broader.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I see Okay.
Investment management is muchbroader.
I see Okay.
So then what are the softskills that you have?
Strengths in that sort of help?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
you in this kind of endeavor?
I think a lot of people.
So I did a lot.
So first of all, I did a lot ofnetworking calls.
I sent out 140 emails.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
How did you know to do this?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Through like scale.
So basically, the whole processif you want to recruit is that
in order to get a first roundinterview, you need to network
at these places.
Basically, you want to reachout to alumni or people from
your high school or like mutualfriends or family friends.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Any connections.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Any connections you can have tab into and you
basically want to talk to them.
You want to show an interest inthe firm and their career.
You want to.
It's called like a coffee chatbasically.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
And when did you start doing this?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
this and I started reaching out like September,
october of my, like October ofmy fall sophomore semester so a
couple months ago yes, youstarted just like contacting
everybody.
Yes, everyone across alldifferent firms, casting a
really wide net, both buy sideand sell side.
I recruited for both andessentially, like that's one of
(07:43):
the soft skills is that's likethat's basically the first test
and like the hurdle is thatbecause if you have a good
coffee chat and they really likeyou or they think that it's a
coffee chat, the networking call.
It's basically like a 2030minute networking call where
it's like you ask them abouttheir journey.
Why did they choose to work atthis firm, why this group within
this firm, why banking, whyprivate equity, whatever out of
(08:05):
140.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
How many?
Okay, yes, I'll talk to you Igot 80 responses oh my god which
is a really good hit rate.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I didn't obviously like I think there were like 10
maybe that responded and then wenever and they ended up like
not responding or whatever,because they're super busy so
you kept up 80 coffee chats butI also got.
that's a significantly good hitrate.
I must say A lot of kids atDuke have like a 20 to 30% hit
rate.
My hit rate was really good,partially because one Duke alum
are very active, so that's veryhelpful, but also through my
(08:34):
Korea Finance Society fellowship.
If I put like KFS fellowreaching out in the subject line
, that was very helpful becausethey had that KFS connection.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So people should look for connections with these
people.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, or like groups like even if I put like skill
and coin, like I had a skill andcoin mentor reach out to him,
like things like that, whereit's like more likely than just
like Duke student reaching out,but even then, if you put Duke
student reaching out, if theyare Duke alum, they are most
likely going to respond.
And that's the important thingabout going to a school like
Duke where you have a lot ofrepresentation in finance,
because there's probably a Dukealum in every single firm on
(09:08):
Wall Street.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Okay.
But then if I'm a student at,say, my local state college, I'm
sort of behind the eight ballwhen it comes to this because my
alumni network maybe is not asactive.
If I don't have otherconnections or know people in it
, then I'm starting with it'sharder.
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
It's harder to break through and that's what they
call in finance, target andnon-target schools.
It can change Like there areboutiques out there whose target
they only have like four targetschools.
For instance, and especiallylike Duke, we still don't have
an undergraduate business school.
So Ross is very popular.
Indiana Kelly, you know schoolslike that, like UChicago,
whatever, like things like thatyeah, wharton, obviously like
(09:47):
things like that are.
Those are basically like targetversus non-target schools.
Duke is still a target schoolfor most firms but it also kind
of is like a cycle in the sensewhere a lot of recruiting and
like firms will visit my campus.
They're probably not visitinglike a local state school's
campus.
That also is driven from thetop down usually where if
there's like MDs or likedirectors or Managing directors.
Yeah, like high up in the firm.
(10:10):
A lot of them, if they want toDuke, for instance, will want to
make trips down to Duke.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
It's almost unfair, in some sense Like it's
self-perpetuating.
So you have all these likemuckety mucks who are big shots
yeah.
And then they kind of pull fromtheir same background, like I
went to.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
However, I will say that there are some firms that
unexpectedly have schools thatyou wouldn't necessarily think
like.
They don't have an undergrad,business school or things like
that, and that's also top down,so it is you know like and it is
very possible.
And I think that one of thethings that makes it more
possible, depending on whereyou're like, regardless of your
school, is these things called.
They're like diversity or likeearly recruiting programs.
(10:46):
Basically, oh, so they'relooking to widen their yes and
so I don't know how this willcontinue to develop with, like,
the new administration's ban ond guy.
However, for instance, likewhere I'm working, summer 2026,
I did their sophomore woman'sprogram and that gave me an
accelerated timeline.
I had a first round muchearlier than other people and
had a final interview muchearlier than other people.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Somehow I don't think this is going to be the norm in
the future.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yes, but there are these types of early recruitment
programs where a lot of firmswill have LGBTQ+ first college
generation.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
So basically, take advantage of any opportunity you
have.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
And apply and cast a very, very broad net.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Okay, so then you uh had these coffee chats and they
were like video or in person.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Uh, most of them were over the phone because that's
easiest, for like people infinance and a lot of people have
to reschedule and you need tobe very, very flexible and kind
of take whatever time they giveyou and what do you guys talk
about in these things?
basically you ask them, like whythey chose this?
Because basically you also wantto use the coffee chats so that
if you do get a first, when youwant them to like you, but then
if you do get a first-roundinterview, you can reference
(11:49):
them and say, oh, like, thishelps you basically distinguish
the firms on wall street,because on paper they all kind
of look the same, but it'sreally when you talk to people,
I think, is when you kind of getthe okay, like they do things a
little bit differently thanthis and they give you an
insight into their everyday workas well.
Um, for instance, like my firm,that are working at summer 2026.
They are there's like bulgebrackets and boutiques.
(12:12):
Like we said, boutiques arelike mostly strategic advisory,
so they don't have a balancesheet themselves.
They're solely giving advice asthe middleman and that's what
they're making their money on,whereas bulge brackets the
bigger banks those are the oneswith the balance sheets that can
actually give money in atransaction I see so there's
like one distinction right andlike, so they're putting their
own assets into play andboutique culture can be very
(12:35):
different than bulge bracketculture.
Their analyst classes they'resmaller, things like that, and
so that's something that you getthrough the coffee chat and
basically you just kind of askthem, like why they chose this
firm.
Also, there's different groups,so you know, you could be like
in a tech group, whatever.
You could be a health caregroup and be like why did you
choose this too?
Like what's it?
Like what's mentorship, likethings like that.
Because it's still a two-way.
(12:55):
Like people do emphasize,recruiting is still a two-way
street, like you want the firmto give you an offer, but also
the firm wants you to take theiroffer.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
So what kind of questions would they ask you
during these coffee chats?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
It's mostly you asking them questions and then
like responding and you know,trying to keep a conversation.
They will ask you like tell meabout yourself.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
And what would you say?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Well, so it really varied on like the vibe of the
call Cause you would do havelike that's the first question
to basically every financeinterview is tell me about
yourself or walk me through yourresume.
That one is a little bit longer, like a minute and a half
usually to a minute.
If it's like a casual coffeechat it's a little bit more like
I'm interested in blah blah, xY Z, I'm involved in X Y Z, a
third Duke alum you probablyhave a memorized almost speech
(13:37):
at that point.
Yeah, CrossFit is actually ateit up.
I was like, oh, I wanted to goto law school, but I knew I had
experience business in my ownpersonal life.
My parents invested in ourlocal CrossFit gym a couple
years ago and that really, thenI would spin that tail however I
needed to, for whateverposition I was applying for.
Oh, so tricky, yeah, and a lotof people were very interested
(13:59):
in that.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I would say yeah, Because they're like that's
crazy CrossFit.
What is that To?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
get into the sophomore women's program for my
now job.
They actually said like thefirst question to get into
women's program was like, oh,what's like a business you think
is doing like bad or reallygood?
And I said CrossFit is doingreally bad and she thought it
was really interesting.
So I talked about the debt andall that and so, yeah, I think
that's also something that'svery important is lean into your
(14:25):
interests and be genuine,because these bankers do so many
of these calls that they cankind of tell like who's really
interested and who's like goingthrough the motions.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Right.
So you really have to make itlegit and true to yourself.
Yes, and that that's wow.
Well, you're welcome for.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I know seriously, shout out to CrossFit guys.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
All right, so so you get through that part of it and
then what's the next step?
And I assume you take copiousnotes and record all that.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, so I tell you, you take copious notes.
You have to send them a thankyou email, all that.
Your resume also has to bepolished before the hand,
obviously, when you send it tothem in the interim email and
you had resources from yourbusiness.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Fraternity who helped you?
My?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
fellowship.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
College, all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And my mentors and I'd ask them to read them over.
So that's what you do firstsemester of your sophomore year.
So that fall you're just doingconstantly coffee chats.
You're going to the firm's infosessions when they're on your
campus.
Yes, that's basically it.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Then you most okay.
So the earliest applications myyear dropped mid-December,
which is crazy because usuallyJust a couple.
But they started droppingmid-December very, very early.
Most firms dropped January 1st,all the way to like January
(15:36):
15th.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
And these are for interviews for the internship
for summer 2026.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So a year and a half.
You're basically recruiting ayear and a half in advance of
when you'd actually hit the desk.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Okay.
So everyone should know that ifyou go to college, you need to
get your junior internshipsquared away.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
By your sophomore spring by your sophomore spring.
The latest people sign, usuallyApril, maybe into the summer.
Okay, and this is mostlybanking and buy side Asset
management and investmentmanagement is usually a little
bit later into your sophomore.
The summer between sophomoreand junior year and then
consulting is like start ofjunior year.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
So they open up their thing and and you apply
basically and then it alldepends on the firm.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Then, again, if you do like diversity programs you
did a couple you get like anaccelerated timeline most likely
, so you get like a first roundbefore other people.
You can get a first round theday after you apply, like drop
your resume, or you could get afirst round like I got.
I kept getting emails withfirst rounds like I think like a
month, like a month after Iapplied that's the first round,
first interview like which iswhat?
(16:34):
those firms first rounds.
So my software women's programwas a technical first round
interview which is all technicalquestions.
But it really depends.
Usually it's just like usuallythe first round is behavioral
actually and it's more just likea fit type of interview.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Is it like a video interview?
Yeah, usually it's like on zoom, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
And then you have to like if you pass that, most
firms have a super day, then yes.
Which is where some fly you outin person.
Mine was in person for a coupleand that's more like sometimes
technical, sometimes behavioral,they'll do a mix.
Sometimes that's very much likea once you get the super day,
if you really lock in, like youcan get the job because, like
your foot's basically halfway inthe door, you just need to like
do well.
(17:10):
But that's how it works.
Most firms resume, drop andthen either first round on zoom
usually, and then a super day,or some people do or some firms
do higher view to super day.
A higher view is a virtualvideo interview, but it's just
you talking to the camera oh,higher view.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yes, like a higher view video I've saw that yes, so
this?
So I saw this in an article inbusiness insider where there was
a goldman sachs partner, ericJordan, who broke down this
Super Day interview process fortheir firm.
I mean, is it wrong to callthem vampire squids, these guys?
But that's really bad right.
That's just like not nice.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
I'm a finance professional, I'm not that.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
I'm not, so I guess I can say anything I want.
So he basically said so youknow, they talk about super days
, and that's the industry termfor these interview events that
take place at the end of therecruiting process for the 2026
internships, this year for thesummer, and, like they said, you
submit a formal application atwork and then complete some sort
(18:08):
of intro assessment, which youmentioned.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
And Goldman has a higher view.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, higher view video Right.
So this is so competitive andGoldman has is so competitive.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I will say also, my perspective on it is a little
bit more biased and limited.
Like, I think, everyone thatgets a banking job, if you
really put in the work, that isnot a privilege that is granted
to, clearly, like 99% of youknow, like the other applicants.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
So now, when?
Now the advice that they getthat this guy gives for his
super days?
I mean obviously just gettingto the super day, as you just
mentioned.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Is a feat in itself and an accomplishment in my
opinion.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Right.
So how many super days do mostpeople get to attend?
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Some people, a lot of Duke alums that I spoke to when
I was like, oh, buy this firm.
They were like it's the onlyone that gave me an offer Very
realistic.
That happens to a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Well, you get just one opportunity to go to a super
date.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah, I got a couple of super dates Mine.
I think I got six maybe.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And you took all of them.
No, oh, so how?
Speaker 2 (19:23):
many, some I got after I signed and I said no, oh
, so once you chose.
Mine.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, when you, because you sign your offer
letter.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
You know you don't want to renege.
Like, finance is a super smallworld so you need to also be
sure.
And timing is also a difficultpart, I think, of the recruiting
process.
I knew that the firm I was at Ireally wanted to work at and so
that was like a no-brainer forme.
I do think that for a lot ofother people it's either, you
see, one of two things Like somepeople will get an super early
(19:57):
and they're hesitant becausetheir other processes haven't
finished wrapping up and theycan't let go of those ones.
But they're also afraid like, ohmy gosh, if I don't take this
now but like, get it, you knowlike they'll withdraw that
opportunity you think, like I'veseen people who will, like you
know, they will reject a firm'soffer to continue to recruit,
hoping that the firm that theywant, you know, will give them
an offer later on, because notall.
It's not like college where youget to collect all.
I wish it was where you get tolike, collect all your offers
and submit one.
You mean to pick one?
Speaker 1 (20:16):
They're rolling.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yes, and like most firms will give you four like.
The most will be a week todecide.
Most give like three to fourdays.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Now there's a game that these firms are playing.
So they, if they're a weakerfirm, maybe they offer early or
maybe not well, not weaker, butyou know small.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
It's very much dependent on the firm, but I
also think a lot of it is justhow the firm operates as well.
Maybe they just have adifferent HR system.
There's many, many factors thatgo in, but every firm operates
on its own timeline, so that isalso something that can stress a
lot of kids out, because you,you know like it is like
(20:59):
recruiting is stressful, like tocontinue to do the process.
Like when I signed, I was likethis is the right choice.
No, no, I like knew it was verychoice.
I was like so relieved, youknow, like yeah, but some people
don't get that feeling or somepeople get caught up in the what
ifs.
It's very like this is alsowhen you need to stay true to
yourself, I think, and that'swhat the coffee chats and all
the research and work that youput in, that's when they come
(21:20):
into play.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
How about Goldman Sachs?
They're pretty late in terms ofwhat they offer.
Give offers right Compared tothe others.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
No, they're kind of in the mix with everyone.
I think they gave offers thelast week-ish.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Okay, but you committed.
How long ago I committed?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
first week of February, second week of
February, so like a couple weeksago, Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Okay.
So now he says in this articlethat people do use study guides
containing potential interviewquestions for Super Day.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Oh yeah, If you're a kid, you memorize in the M&I 400
guide.
It's 400 questions that youwill ever need for an investment
banking interview.
You don't memorize all 400because that includes the basic
and advanced sections and itincludes like sections you don't
always need.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
But there are questions that you memorize out
of this.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
I remember it's like six, like eight sections, like
six basic and then two advanced.
So how many questions is that?
Gotta be like half, maybe 200questions, maybe 150, 200.
I made flashcards.
I have the flashcards in myroom.
What is this?
It's basically the technicalguide that you need it.
It comes up with like it hasaccounting, valuation, dcf, lvo,
merger model and it's basicallyall the questions that.
It's basically a baseline and afoundation.
(22:22):
It's your holy grail if you'regoing into banking, because it
studying that exposes you to theconcepts themselves that you
may get asked in an interview uh, give me one walk me through a.
A DCF is literally one thateveryone should know if you're
going into banking.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
What's a?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
DCF, a discounted cash flow analysis.
You basically like that's likesomething that bankers use all
the time.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
And so give me the two sentence, start, but don't
keep going, but just give me thefirst sentences.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
That you would say for something like that so, like
a discounted cash flow analysis, a DCF is an intrinsic
valuation method where you valuea company based on the present
value of its future.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Oh my God, all right, I'm falling asleep already,
sorry.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
That wasn't even the first step.
That was me explaining what itall is?
Speaker 1 (22:59):
I don't care at all.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
This is like when he reads his research headlines to
me from his residency days.
This is so ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Okay, so I'm sorry, I'm just really not.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Hashtag Jaws 2.
Something, something.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Okay.
So, and then it says that someof the more specialized
businesses, like derivatives orso forth, might be very
technical, so they might askmore math, or Hedge funds are
very technical too, oh is thatright?
So might they ask you mathquestions?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Derivatives will maybe ask you math questions.
If you're going intoquantitative finance like quant,
which is a whole differentaspect, that's all math,
basically quant.
You're literally I'm, I'm, Ithink, basically quantum.
What you're doing is likeyou're using math to predict the
market so those are like.
So they'll just like ask youmath questions some of the quant
kids I know are the smartestkids that I know at duke.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
But um more than two plus two is four, obviously but
the hatch.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
It also depends on what the actual role is.
Hedge funds, since they're sodirect in investing and it's
kids that really want to be inthat direct investing seat,
they'll ask you to pitch like 10stocks in an interview, for
instance.
Oh, they'll.
Yeah, they'll ask you to likegive me a long short.
Things like that, uh am mightthink more like how would you
handle a situation with a client?
There's very.
There are behavioral questions,market-based questions and
(24:13):
technical questions.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
So this is all sort of prerequisite, and even before
you get here, obviously youneed to have done well your
first year.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, good grades.
You have a good GPA above likea 3.75, 3.8.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Right, and you've studied all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
And extracurriculars.
You need to build up yourresume.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
All right.
So they want to look at allthat too.
Yeah look at all that too.
So this is all prerequisitebefore you even like get to this
point.
Like you, all of these thingshave to be in place before you
even drop your resume.
Okay.
So, um, they suggest, if yougot to this point, that what you
really need is a hook.
Yes, what is a hook?
My hook is CrossFit.
Is that really right, man?
(24:48):
You've been milking this topicall it's worth.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Guys, I've gotten so many questions.
It's my first interest on myresume.
They look at me and they'relike you, but that's kind of
like.
The thing is that they want youlike I think.
He says an article you couldtalk about literally anything
right as long as you'repassionate about it, because,
right, they don't care whatyou're talking about, as long as
it depends.
They just want to see whattraits are coming through in the
(25:11):
interview right when I talkabout crossfit, a lot of traits
that come through humility, myability to push through things
my resume, so it's a prism foryou.
Yes, my resume.
You really want to dig deepinto what skills you bring to
the table.
A lot of mine.
My biggest strength, I wouldsay, is my ability to be
adaptive and connect withclients on a professional level.
It's something that was uniquebecause I sell ads at our
(25:34):
newspaper at Duke and not manysophomores are in a sales
position.
A lot of people loved that too.
Like, loved that activity on myresume, shout out to my boss, I
love my boss, but like that jobactually surprisingly reeled
people in more than my corporatefinance internship from this
past summer.
Things like that, where it'sjust like and I think honestly
some people's hook is just beinga super earnest and genuine
person.
(25:54):
During the interview I see itreally much is just like you
don't want to.
They always say like we don'twant.
Like a finance robot, allbankers will tell you that you
can learn the technical skillson the job, no matter what you
do in college.
Whether you go to an undergradbusiness school or not, you are
not never going to be able tosimulate what it's truly like to
be on the job.
But they can't teach softskills right and so that's
(26:16):
something that they like.
You could get a technicalquestion wrong in an interview
and most likely still move on tothe next round of everything
else is great.
If you had a behavioralquestion wrong, it, you know,
digs deeper and more of like whoare you like, could I sit next?
Because it's the question is,could I sit next to you when
we're in the trenches at 2 amright working together?
Speaker 1 (26:31):
That's what they said here, and so it seems like they
prefer or gravitate towardsstudent athletes.
I guess to a certain degree,because they are good at sports.
They were better than otherpeople.
It's a competitive situation.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
A lot of football and lacrosse male players go into
banking.
You do.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
They need dedication and a drive in sport, and so a
lot of bankers feel like thattranslates into and time
management, being a studentathlete.
Right, so is that somethingthat you think is helpful, or at
least a hook that a lot ofthese students have?
Speaker 2 (27:03):
I mean, obviously if you're a student athlete,
especially at a school like Duke, you know top D1 school.
You obviously put in an insanenumber of hours of hard work.
You're very skilled, you knowwhat it's like to be super,
super good at something, top ofyour game and you know what it's
like to stay there.
I think that is like definitelya hook.
I mean you could even talkabout like I didn't crossfit,
like people really enjoy that.
(27:24):
They really enjoy hearing aboutmy job at the chronicle, the
newspaper, and I think that'sbecause like that's tangible
real world experience that I cantalk about.
They love hearing about how Isell ads to our local pliables
owner because of what it shows.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
So when you got the offer, was that your first offer
.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
No.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Okay, so how many did you get before?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
that I got a couple.
I can't remember exactly Two,maybe three.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And you passed on three before you took this one.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I passed on two or three yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
And why'd you pass on them?
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Very different reasons.
I think I was very grateful tothe first.
Saying no to the first one isalways super, super hard because
you have that fear of like.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Will you get any others?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Yeah, like what if I don't get any more?
And then I look stupid, right?
Ultimately, I think it reallycame down to like what was
important to me.
So I'm a generalist at mysummer 2026.
Being a generalist means thatyou are not industry specific.
The way that a lot of thesebanks work are you have a
healthcare group, you have a TMT, technology, media and like
(28:27):
telecommunications industrials,like groups that you wouldn't
really know actually, you alsoneed to research this.
If you want to go to banking,like what groups you want to do,
right, industrials, like groupsthat you wouldn't really know
actually, you also need toresearch this.
If you want to go to banking,like what groups do you want to
do Leverage finance?
And it depends firm to firm.
And so I think for me, likebeing a generalist means that I
get to work across allindustries and do M&A and
restructuring activity acrossall these industries, and I
(28:49):
didn't recruit for restructuring, which is where you work with
companies like that are about togo bankrupt, because those
technical questions are evenharder.
Like if you have the M&I for100 as Calc AB, restructuring is
like Calc, bc and Multi, likethat's a whole, nother level of
prep.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
And so, but the chance to be able to do
restructuring and explore andreally have all my bases covered
.
That's truly why you go intobanking.
I think is because you wantthat optionality.
Post your analyst years, evenif it's hard, um, and that was
something that really spoke tome.
But I also think, like being aboutique actually, like you meet
so many people through theinterview process and once you
get the offer, so many peoplewill reach out to you from
whatever firm, and I thinkthat's also about, like the
(29:25):
connection, like who do youthink truly invested in you in
the process?
That's when the two-way streetcomes around, I think, um, and
being a boutique, you are onlike a smaller analyst class, um
, and being a strategic advisoryfirm, you also end up, you know
, like I think it's a differenttype of work because you solely
win.
Like you don't win because youhave money on your balance sheet
.
Partially.
You win because, like you winclients because of the like long
(29:48):
relationships you've beenbuilding and because your like
thoughtful advice is good I see,so that fit you personally yeah
, and I honestly going into it.
I actually thought I wanted abulge bracket.
I didn't well like goldmansachs, like the ones that have
balance sheets the bigger, thebigger firm.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
So bulge bracket means like they're bulging with
money I guess, okay, you havelike bb and boutique.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I actually said okay.
Actually I went in thinking Iwas going to go into the buy
side.
I'm doing private credit thissummer and I had recruited for
my sophomore summer internshipbeforehand and I thought private
credit was really interesting.
I recruited for it but you know, some of the firms I wanted I
didn't get, or I also didn'treally know then, and that
caused me to do someself-reflection, like, oh like,
do I actually want to start inprivate credit?
(30:30):
It's a pretty specific skillset and so I went in totally
thinking that I wasn't going toenter my boutique or do banking.
I thought I was going to doprivate credit or enter a pooled
bracket.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Did you know?
So did having your sophomoreinternship in hand help you in
terms of recruiting for yourjunior?
I think it helped me.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
I got a lot of interviews like first rounds
especially, and I think ithelped me partially because the
place that I'm working at thissummer has a great name and has
been in a major player in theprivate credit industry and had
a major acquisition during myinterview process.
So I think, having that, theykind of knew like she must have
gone through an intensiveinterview process for them.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
So you haven't even done your sophomore summer
internship yet, and yet it didhelp a lot, I think.
Awesome yeah it did help a lot.
I think awesome yeah, and so Idon't want to go back and like
go through how it took to getyour sophomore uh summer
internship, but like I think,yeah, I think the fact that it
was a big name because sophomoresummer internships are also
hard to come by like.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
So I know a lot of people that sign their sophomore
summer internship after theysign their junior summer it is
not necessarily a needed at alloh, like you do not need not
need it because they understandhow early the timelines are.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I see.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I just happened to sign and I do think that helped
me get my foot in the door.
It also helped me get my footin the door at a lot of private
credit firms because they knew Iwas.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
They knew you had an interest in it, and honestly.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
They knew that.
I knew what it was.
A lot of people recruit for,like I have no idea what they're
doing, essentially what they'rerecruiting for, because you
pass it to wide net.
I didn't think it was helpful,which I do think was helpful,
and I think that also forced meto get a head start on my
technical question prep oh,because you had already prepped
for your soft yeah, a lot ofpeople start technical prep in
like december and they focus onnetworking first.
I kind of did bothsimultaneously because I was
(32:15):
interviewing for my sophomoresummer internship.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
But I know so many people that you know like don't
like have a sophomore summerinternship and it's totally fine
did everyone who's in yourfriend group or who's interested
in to do exactly what you did,or so are you one of the more
try hard people that you know?
Speaker 2 (32:33):
no, I am definitely not a finance hardo.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I have some friends that are so there are others who
tried even harder than youabout all this stuff and worked
even harder than you on thisyeah, some people will send out
like 200 emails.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Who knows Like some people will like well, like I'm
not even in our investment clubat Duke, I know people that are.
They're doing stuff just forfun on the week, like you know
what I mean, like things likethat.
So they're just like even morehardcore than you are about
especially the kids, I think,that go into quant and like
hedge funds because those aresuch few and like hedge funds
are such few unlimitedopportunities.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Like far and few why do you know those kids want that
?
So these are people who justlove doing this stuff yeah, they
love like I'm.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I asked one of my friends in my business right,
who's going to hedge fund?
I was like, do you wake up andthink about like stocks?
And he was like, yes.
I was like, oh, so I'm notsupposed to go to it.
I think I need some foundations, which is also why a lot of
people go into banking.
They want to build thatfoundation.
A lot of it is just learninghow to be in an administrative
professional setting.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
I see Okay.
So what do you wish you hadknown before you started this
whole process?
That would have made thingsbetter for you.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
I wish I hadn't been so enormously stressed, Like I
think that.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
It sounds stressful just listening to you.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
It is the most stressful thing I've done in my
life Like I think it was superstressful and also especially to
places like Duke.
It's like an echo chamber.
Everyone's trying to figure outoh did this sperm sit out round
one who was around?
One?
Like who was a super date?
Like who got an offer.
Like who signed Like Like whogot an offer.
Like who signed Like.
You know, it's kind of likecollege process, but like way
more intense, because this isyour future and your job.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
And you have to do so much immense self-reflection
that I wish I did a little bitmore self-reflection before I
kicked it off, thinking aboutwhat do I truly want?
Speaker 1 (34:09):
But who knows at that age?
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Exactly.
But that's why I think, do asmany calls as you can tedious or
irritating or, oh my god, likeit's a time suck.
It is very helpful and I think,fine.
All I've learned is thatfinance is such a small industry
, it's, but like everyone knowseveryone, everyone you know, I
mean, and that's why I think,even though like 139 of the
(34:34):
calls that I did are not at thefirm that I'm going to you, you
know, I mean, like I still builtthose connections and in the
future, we never know.
Yeah, I still have an immenseamount of respect for all the
people that I called Like.
Just because I'm not going totheir firm or their firm didn't
give me an offer, doesn't meanthat I hold any spite or
whatever, and I think thatthat's also something I think
you do a lot of growing upduring the process.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
And they might remember you in the future.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Remember, like what you did we really liked your
interview, things like that.
Like I think that that, at theend of the day, you also need to
think about like what is theactual work that I'm doing?
I think I was scared of bankingfor a while because I was like,
oh my god, it's something youknow.
Like freshman, he was like very, very scared.
I knew nothing besides.
Like it's a grind yeah but Ithink I ended up going into it
because actually the work itselfallows me to start so broad and
like gain such a broad skillset, and I did a lot of
(35:18):
self-reflection and realized Idon't really know if there's an
industry out there that I lovelike.
Do I love industrials?
Do I love like healthcare, likeI have no idea.
Whereas other kids sometimes goin knowing like, like you get a
lot of pre-meds, low-key, whostart pre-med at duke, they
decide that they don't, theywant to do more like the, like
the uh, finance side of it yeah,the business, and so they want
to go into like healthcaregroups.
(35:40):
Many people do that, or peoplethat go into tech groups.
I just didn't really know if Iwanted to do one thing, because
then you're only working withhealthcare companies for your
two years.
So I think that also issomething that you need to
actually think about.
Like it seems so far in thefuture, but it's really firm
(36:04):
that you really, really want.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
That happened.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Yeah, it happened with one firm on the buy side.
For me that can be verydifficult and I think I had also
achieved a lot of successduring my recruiting process and
got if I'm being honest, Ididn't get that many no's
(36:37):
no-transcript realized that Ithink also that would be
different if, for instance, like, I ended up with a like a you
know, like a firm that I didn'tthink I was going to or whatever
, but I, the firm that I'm goingto for a summer my junior
summer is a firm that Iparticularly chose for very like
, you mean, for my specificreasons that I said before, and
(36:59):
so I'm very happy that I hadalso also that option to choose.
It can be difficult if you pickwhere you're going because it
was the only place that gave youan offer.
That's very different.
I do feel very privileged andblessed to have gotten a chance
to pick and really looked at mylike options and I've had some
like so many great friends outthere, so many great options.
But I think that thatopportunity is something also
(37:19):
that not everyone gets.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
So what do you do now that you have that all set up
for yourself?
Do you just like post?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Party.
No, I'm kidding Way to say.
Like I think still like I'mdoing my sophomore summer
internship and I think what'sgreat about going to the buy
side for my sophomore summerdoing private credit is that I
get a glimpse into it.
I actually have no idea whatthe work will be.
You know, like I know, what theindustry is, I know what work I
should be doing, but I've never, you know, hit the desk before.
So I think you know, justcontinuing to learn, like kind
(37:47):
of preparing myself, but also,yes, it obviously is a lot
easier once, like you kind ofhave a job lined up.
But I think it's just thingslike that, like really taking my
sophomore summer to reflectlike, is this something that I
would want to recruit for?
Because you have to re-recruitafter banking unless you want to
stay in banking.
A lot of people will do theirtwo analyst years post-grad
re-recruit, which is also reallyearly.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Re-recruit meaning so you do it to your analyst
position, and then you have tolook for another job again.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Well, so actually recruiting timelines are so
early now for post-grad, Usuallyit's when you graduate college.
As you're so early now forpost-grad, usually it's when you
graduate college, that June andJuly, all the private equity
firms, all the buy-side firms,start their on-cycle recruiting
for two years.
You mean after you've inadvance, before you've hit the
desk for your full-time jobYou've even worked.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
They're recruiting for people who that?
Will join their firm in twoyears.
Two years.
How did they even know at thatpoint?
You haven't even worked a dayin your life yet.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
That is the question on Wall Street.
Currently, I think A lot offirms do off-cycle recruiting,
which is six months into yourfirst job, which is kind of
similar to like you know a yearand a half in advance, like you
do for your junior summer.
It really depends.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
It's very much like everything is moved early
because these firms want to tapinto talent earlier, and also
it's like so you're gonna walkthrough that bad, so you're
gonna have to go through are-recruiting cycle at the end
of your senior year if I decideto go to buy side, a lot of
people stay as bankers.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
You become an associate, things like that.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
It very much depends wait, remind me, buy side are
the people that do what again?
Speaker 2 (39:14):
they're like private equity, they're directing this
thing.
Yeah, okay, okay okay, likesell side.
You're in the middle, you'rethe middle man between the money
people.
Shout out to the person thatruns KFS because he did a like
before I joined my fellowship.
He did like a this is whatbanking actually does and he
literally did like people thathave money, people who need
money.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Yeah, and there's Right.
So that reminds me of a linefrom I don't know some novel I
can't remember it was anyway.
So well, I think that this isvery enlightening to me.
I think it also showed how muchlike where you're transitioning
(39:52):
from a student into, likerealizing what your life
responsibilities are Like anadult, yeah.
Yeah, like looking at this andsort of taking that perspective
and realizing that work is notjust like extended school, like
there's all these consequencesand responsibilities that you
have to have.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
And I think recruiting is so intense to very
much reflect on, like to weedout the people and we know, like
those pre-med classes, thatweed out the kids who can't
handle it yeah.
Very similar.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
There are kids I know who wanted to do banking and
didn't want to recruit and thenrealized like, oh, if I don't
want to do like these networkingcalls, how am I going to last
in a banking job?
Things like that, like it's sointense.
But If you don't like thisprocess, you're not going to
make it Exactly.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Exactly, and I think that's also part of why these
firms are moving it early andearlier is again one they want
to.
You know, first, if they go tofreshman year that's a little
bit too intense.
They think that this is fine,it's manageable, like I don't
think they should go any earliercurrently than where they're at
right now, because then, like,what are freshmen going to know
even less?
However, I do think that's partof it is like that's why it's
(40:50):
so early now.
Is that like we want kids tolike want to do this, like who
wants to do it, you know, likewho's out here putting in the
work, taking initiative, becausethat itself is taking, I think,
like taking on finance.
Recruiting as a whole is verymuch like dependent on the
personality, and I know peoplethat also prioritize like
lifestyle, for instance, overthat, and a lot of people will
(41:12):
go into consulting because they,right, you mean like not that
you're not working hard hoursand consulting, but you are.
But you know, make verydifferent types of work and
balance, and I think that's whenit really comes into
self-reflection and thinkinglike what do I actually want to
do?
Is it because a lot of peoplealso do get caught up in the
name, or they get caught up in?
Well, everyone else is doing it.
I want to do it too, and thatyou know.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
That can also be a dangerous path to go down it
seems so crazy that thesedecisions have to be made so
early in somebody's life.
And if you ever didn't know,like because there are so many
people I know who it takes awhile for them to figure out
what it is that they want to do,and this whole process could
completely bypass them.
At that point, all and be all.
(42:02):
But, like the, there arecertain options that in life
that if you don't, takeadvantage of them when they
appear, you miss them.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
It's really hard to go back and try to do that and I
think that that's also why alot of bank, a lot of banks,
have mba programs where, if youget your mba, you can pivot into
and become like a summerassociate and then you
eventually join.
I know I met a lot of peoplethat did that as well.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
I see.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
I think that, yes, there is that.
But at the same time, like theworld is just so
pre-professional now.
Even as a pre-med, you're like,even though you might not be
applying to med school as asophomore, you are committing
yourself to it, you're takinghard classes, you're
volunteering at the hospital,you're catering your resume to
(42:39):
med school.
Even if the application islater, you're still doing the
same thing and kind of locked inSame with law.
Everything is sopre-professional now that I
think it's not just finance.
The world is asking kids tothink about what they want to do
earlier and earlier.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
It is true.
I remember when I applied tomedical school you could
actually not have your wholelife geared around looking like
you wanted to be the best doctorin the world and still get into
medical school.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Now.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
You need to have a perfect GPA too, unlike you, but
you need to have, like, a greatGPA.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Right, like everything had to be in place.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
You had a bad GPA and two extracurriculars.
Okay, thanks, rip.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
So it was a different era.
Uh, I had a lot of soft skills.
Let me put it that way.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
No, I'm just he aced his interview guy that's the
thing is like I think I I spoketo a lot of senior people also
and I think, yes, you speak likemost of your networking calls
are first year analysts andsecond year analysts, because
those are the people involvedwith the recruiting, because
also a lot of banks have like dospecific recruiting teams where
you really should only talk toalum because those are the only
people that are pulling Dukeresumes out.
But I will very much say Ivalued my conversations the most
(43:46):
with people four plus yearsinto their career and I think
that's because they have adifferent perspective of course
they do everyone forgets,recruiting makes you so narrow
minded and you forget that yourfirst job is not your last job.
Of course, I think, speaking topeople that are many years into
their career, like Vito, forinstance, where they change
reminded and you forget thatyour first job is not your last
job.
Of course, I think, speaking topeople that are many years into
their career, like Vito, forinstance, where they change, you
know, they change paths, theychange firms, they like life
(44:06):
happens to them and they make achange, and I think that those
are those were really nicereminders and reassuring moments
that remind you that at the endof the day, it's like a job and
if you don't like it, you canleave.
At the end of the day, it'slike a job and if you don't like
it, you can leave, you canchange, you can pivot.
It does seem like, oh, it's too, too late, but truly nothing is
ever too late if you have thegrind and the dedication.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
I think if this is something like, it's like with
med school, I remember there wasa guy who wanted to do
cardiothoracic surgery and he,even as an undergrad, all he did
was like hang out with them,did research with them, did
nothing with them.
And now, of course, he is a-.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Is he a cardiothoracic surgeon?
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Very well-known cardiothoracic surgeon, I would
say it almost seems that that isthe norm rather than the
exception.
To be successful at this point,you have to know from the womb
that this is what you want to do, and if you do that and
everything sort of points youtowards that, that's great, and
so I would say my advice wouldbe if you have a strong interest
(45:03):
in something, lean into it,whether it's IB or medicine.
But if you don't, these pathsare not available to you and
you're going to have to figureout different paths, which is
sort of a shame, but maybe it'salso good in terms of freedom.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
You're locked in at this point, dubs Well to me it
of a shame, but maybe it's alsogood in terms of freedom.
I don't know Like you're lockedin at this point, so Dubbed.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Well, to me it's a dub, but some other people might
not be a dub, and that's wherethe self-reflection comes into
play.
That's right.
So I think self-reflectionyou've mentioned that multiple
times is probably key, and Ithink that that's hard for
anyone to do, but I think, evenat my age, I do a lot of
self-reflection like what the F?
Speaker 2 (45:42):
am I going to do next ?
Careers are now linear, andthat's something that I think
people might forget when we'rerecruiting so early.
But then you speak to peoplewho look back on their career
like you.
They're not straight line.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Thank God that you did CrossFit Like I made you do
CrossFit.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Oh, my God, I know, I don't know where I would be
without it.
I wrote my college essay aboutit.
That's my part of my tell meabout yourself.
I bonded with a guy.
I got into the KFS fellowship.
I'm convinced because I met aguy at their career day who also
CrossFits.
He's now one of my very closementors, who's awesome.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
CrossFit is life and I would say it's a cult and the
fact that you're stillCrossFitting at your campus and
part of a gym out there.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
I think I'm doing my fourth or fifth open next year.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
This year, this year.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Maybe third or fourth .
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Yeah, so you know all you can do as a parent is just
help your kids lean into whatinterests you.
Hopefully it interests them.
Maybe it won't work out so well, as like having a hook for your
IB interviews, but you neverknow.
You just have to, you know,sort of roll with it and see
what happens.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
That transaction transformed me, and I watched
them as they tried to figure outhow to increase membership.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
Oh my, Lord All right .
So thank you so much, Sasha.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Thank you I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Good luck with the rest of your school year in
being a sophomore, and untilnext time in our next topic Go
Duke.
All right.
Welcome back to Botox and Burpees.
I'm your host, dr Sam Rhee.
I'm here with my regular gueststar, sasha Rhee, and today
we're going to talk a little bitabout her personal experience,
about her interest in investmentbanking.
She recently got a summerinternship at a elite boutique
investment firm investmentbanking firm, and when she
(00:26):
detailed to me what it took toget to that point, it really
surprised me for a couplereasons.
One is it was really fast.
She's only a sophomore incollege and what she had to do
to get from there to here hasalready probably determined a
great deal in terms of herfuture first job and her career,
and I wanted people to knowthat these are things that you
(00:50):
have to sort of look out forsuper early.
The other thing is is I knewvery little about investment
banking and the whole job firmhiring process, and I thought it
was so interesting where thetitans of finance are, how
they're created and how they'reshaped, and so I wanted to talk
to Sasha a little bit about herexperiences and see you know how
(01:12):
these finance bros becomefinance bros.
So, first of all, welcome again, sasha.
Yeah, you're a sophomore now atDuke and you just declared your
major in economics, right?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yes, two weeks ago I signed my job offer for summer
2026 before I declared my major.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Right.
So you actually knew where youprobably were going to be
working at after you graduateschool before you even declared
your major as a sophomore whichblew my mind because as a
pre-med, I didn't know,obviously, where I was going to
medical school until very lateinto my almost senior year, and
most people actually take a yearoff after their senior year to
(01:50):
sort of prep to apply to medicalschool.
But for you, you already knowwhere you're going to be working
after you graduate, most likely.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
If I do a good job, yes, summer 2026.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Okay, so let's talk a little bit about investment
banking, this really weird,esoteric world that I have no
knowledge of.
What made you decide?
You know that this wassomething that finance and
investment banking was somethingyou're interested in.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So when I got to Duke I joined our business society
on campus, scale and Coin.
It's like also, I guess, kindof symbolic of finance
recruiting.
Scale does the first infosession for incoming freshmen
the Sunday before classes start,so you start rushing Scale
before you go to your first everclass as a college student.
(02:37):
I joined Scale.
I went through their newmembership education process
which introduced me to stockpitch a consulting case, a tech
case, really all things you cando in the spheres of business-y,
entrepreneurship type ofindustries, and I realized that
finance is super, super big.
I went into Duke thinking Iwanted to go to law school but
(02:57):
mom said, oh, maybe work for acouple of years.
Out of it and her experience infinance, she said that she
thinks my soft skills would be agood fit.
So I learned a little bit aboutinvestment banking.
It's a pretty big buzzword atDuke.
A lot of Duke kids go intobanking in New York City
Everyone just talks aboutiBanking all the time.
Ib, yes, and I don't even knowwhat it is and I say IB, yeah.
So that's kind of how I gotintroduced to it.
(03:18):
I spoke to a lot of seniorsthat wanted to like, that were
going into a post-grad.
I actually wanted to be uniqueand different and I actually
didn't want to like IB in a waybecause I didn't know if I
wanted to do it and I felt like,oh, everyone's doing it just
because, does anyone actuallyknow what it is?
Things like that.
But I did more research.
I joined a career-findingsociety, fellowship, things like
(03:38):
that.
I spoke to a lot of peoplebecause I really thought I would
go into asset managementinstead, like mom.
But I realized that banking isa really great place to start
your career.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Okay, so would you recommend that people who have
any interest in business findtheir school's business
fraternity and be a part of it,or some similar organization?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I think so I think it gets you, I think it exposes
you to a lot of things early on.
You, I think it exposes you toa lot of things early on, like I
thought actually when I joinedSkill that I wanted to do
consulting at first, and then Idid the consulting case and
realized I like actually likenumbers and like diving into a
business instead of like moretheoretical, conceptual stuff.
So I do think it exposes youvery well and honestly, it
wasn't even in the membershipeducation process.
(04:19):
It was like meetingupperclassmen who had done their
junior summer internships, whowere returning post-grad,
because Skill has a lot ofvariety and we have people that
go into sales and trading,private equity, ib, and we have
people that decide to go tobusiness, like you know, grad
school for like other things,like law school, for instance
and I think that exposure isvery, very helpful as a freshman
, since recruiting timelines areso early.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
So what is the difference between asset
management and investmentbanking?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, I can break it into spheres a little bit.
So banking, essentially it'scalled, like, the sell side.
So you have the sell side andyou have the buy side.
In finance Again, I'm not aseasoned professional, I am a
sophomore in college but fromwhat I understand, you have the
sell side and the buy side.
The sell side essentially iswhere, like you have people who
have money and people who needmoney, and bankers are in the
middle of it.
(05:03):
So they facilitate, like M&A,like mergers and acquisitions,
they facilitate thosetransactions between companies
of any size.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
And they make money off of it.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
And they make money off of it.
So you basically get like thatfee almost of like doing a
transaction and so like that'swhy, like everyone during COVID
was like, oh my God, no one'sdoing M&A activity.
It's super slow Banks are, youknow, having trouble.
And then you see m&a within ownbanks, like ubs and credit
suites.
I think things like that that'sthe buy side, which is more is
(05:32):
direct investing opportunity.
That's like private equity,where you're directly investing
into private companies, usuallydoing a leveraged buyout
strategy.
You're buying them and you'rebuilding them and you're selling
them after like five years.
Like cross, it is owned by aprivate equity firm, right.
And then asset management iskind of more on the buy side
where, like, there's a lot ofdifferent things you can do in
asset management.
You can be on the client sideand work with clients.
(05:53):
Wealth management is a type ofasset management, but it's
mostly just like doingportfolios based on a certain
strategy or you're using acertain index like the S&P 500
or the Dow Jones.
But those are the twodifferences.
And going out of college, thereare a lot more sell side
banking opportunities.
Then it's pretty hard to godirectly into the buy side.
It's straight into privateequity, but more and more firms
(06:14):
are opening up thoseopportunities than there were
like five years ago.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So like a hedge fund.
What is that?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
That's buy side, okay , so they're directly investing
in, like usually like some sortof, whatever their strategy is
like long short, like they're,you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So that's an asset management type of category.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
But it's just a more aggressive type versus.
You could have like mutualfunds and like what retirement
portfolio is in.
Those are technicallyportfolios that would also fall
under like asset management.
So asset management, otherwiseknown as investment management,
is much broader.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I see Okay.
Investment management is muchbroader.
I see Okay.
So then what are the softskills that you have?
Strengths in that sort of help?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
you in this kind of endeavor?
I think a lot of people.
So I did a lot.
So first of all, I did a lot ofnetworking calls.
I sent out 140 emails.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
How did you know to do this?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Through like scale.
So basically, the whole processif you want to recruit is that
in order to get a first roundinterview, you need to network
at these places.
Basically, you want to reachout to alumni or people from
your high school or like mutualfriends or family friends.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Any connections.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Any connections you can have tab into and you
basically want to talk to them.
You want to show an interest inthe firm and their career.
You want to.
It's called like a coffee chatbasically.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
And when did you start doing this?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
this and I started reaching out like September,
october of my, like October ofmy fall sophomore semester so a
couple months ago yes, youstarted just like contacting
everybody.
Yes, everyone across alldifferent firms, casting a
really wide net, both buy sideand sell side.
I recruited for both andessentially, like that's one of
(07:43):
the soft skills is that's likethat's basically the first test
and like the hurdle is thatbecause if you have a good
coffee chat and they really likeyou or they think that it's a
coffee chat, the networking call.
It's basically like a 2030minute networking call where
it's like you ask them abouttheir journey.
Why did they choose to work atthis firm, why this group within
this firm, why banking, whyprivate equity, whatever out of
(08:05):
140.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
How many?
Okay, yes, I'll talk to you Igot 80 responses oh my god which
is a really good hit rate.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I didn't obviously like I think there were like 10
maybe that responded and then wenever and they ended up like
not responding or whatever,because they're super busy so
you kept up 80 coffee chats butI also got.
that's a significantly good hitrate.
I must say A lot of kids atDuke have like a 20 to 30% hit
rate.
My hit rate was really good,partially because one Duke alum
are very active, so that's veryhelpful, but also through my
(08:34):
Korea Finance Society fellowship.
If I put like KFS fellowreaching out in the subject line
, that was very helpful becausethey had that KFS connection.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So people should look for connections with these
people.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, or like groups like even if I put like skill
and coin, like I had a skill andcoin mentor reach out to him,
like things like that, whereit's like more likely than just
like Duke student reaching out,but even then, if you put Duke
student reaching out, if theyare Duke alum, they are most
likely going to respond.
And that's the important thingabout going to a school like
Duke where you have a lot ofrepresentation in finance,
because there's probably a Dukealum in every single firm on
(09:08):
Wall Street.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Okay.
But then if I'm a student at,say, my local state college, I'm
sort of behind the eight ballwhen it comes to this because my
alumni network maybe is not asactive.
If I don't have otherconnections or know people in it
, then I'm starting with it'sharder.
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
It's harder to break through and that's what they
call in finance, target andnon-target schools.
It can change Like there areboutiques out there whose target
they only have like four targetschools.
For instance, and especiallylike Duke, we still don't have
an undergraduate business school.
So Ross is very popular.
Indiana Kelly, you know schoolslike that, like UChicago,
whatever, like things like thatyeah, wharton, obviously like
(09:47):
things like that are.
Those are basically like targetversus non-target schools.
Duke is still a target schoolfor most firms but it also kind
of is like a cycle in the sensewhere a lot of recruiting and
like firms will visit my campus.
They're probably not visitinglike a local state school's
campus.
That also is driven from thetop down usually where if
there's like MDs or likedirectors or Managing directors.
Yeah, like high up in the firm.
(10:10):
A lot of them, if they want toDuke, for instance, will want to
make trips down to Duke.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
It's almost unfair, in some sense Like it's
self-perpetuating.
So you have all these likemuckety mucks who are big shots
yeah.
And then they kind of pull fromtheir same background, like I
went to.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
However, I will say that there are some firms that
unexpectedly have schools thatyou wouldn't necessarily think
like.
They don't have an undergrad,business school or things like
that, and that's also top down,so it is you know like and it is
very possible.
And I think that one of thethings that makes it more
possible, depending on whereyou're like, regardless of your
school, is these things called.
They're like diversity or likeearly recruiting programs.
(10:46):
Basically, oh, so they'relooking to widen their yes and
so I don't know how this willcontinue to develop with, like,
the new administration's ban ond guy.
However, for instance, likewhere I'm working, summer 2026,
I did their sophomore woman'sprogram and that gave me an
accelerated timeline.
I had a first round muchearlier than other people and
had a final interview muchearlier than other people.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Somehow I don't think this is going to be the norm in
the future.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yes, but there are these types of early recruitment
programs where a lot of firmswill have LGBTQ+ first college
generation.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
So basically, take advantage of any opportunity you
have.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
And apply and cast a very, very broad net.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Okay, so then you uh had these coffee chats and they
were like video or in person.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Uh, most of them were over the phone because that's
easiest, for like people infinance and a lot of people have
to reschedule and you need tobe very, very flexible and kind
of take whatever time they giveyou and what do you guys talk
about in these things?
basically you ask them, like whythey chose this?
Because basically you also wantto use the coffee chats so that
if you do get a first, when youwant them to like you, but then
if you do get a first-roundinterview, you can reference
(11:49):
them and say, oh, like, thishelps you basically distinguish
the firms on wall street,because on paper they all kind
of look the same, but it'sreally when you talk to people,
I think, is when you kind of getthe okay, like they do things a
little bit differently thanthis and they give you an
insight into their everyday workas well.
Um, for instance, like my firm,that are working at summer 2026.
They are there's like bulgebrackets and boutiques.
(12:12):
Like we said, boutiques arelike mostly strategic advisory,
so they don't have a balancesheet themselves.
They're solely giving advice asthe middleman and that's what
they're making their money on,whereas bulge brackets the
bigger banks those are the oneswith the balance sheets that can
actually give money in atransaction I see so there's
like one distinction right andlike, so they're putting their
own assets into play andboutique culture can be very
(12:35):
different than bulge bracketculture.
Their analyst classes they'resmaller, things like that, and
so that's something that you getthrough the coffee chat and
basically you just kind of askthem, like why they chose this
firm.
Also, there's different groups,so you know, you could be like
in a tech group, whatever.
You could be a health caregroup and be like why did you
choose this too?
Like what's it?
Like what's mentorship, likethings like that.
Because it's still a two-way.
(12:55):
Like people do emphasize,recruiting is still a two-way
street, like you want the firmto give you an offer, but also
the firm wants you to take theiroffer.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
So what kind of questions would they ask you
during these coffee chats?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
It's mostly you asking them questions and then
like responding and you know,trying to keep a conversation.
They will ask you like tell meabout yourself.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
And what would you say?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Well, so it really varied on like the vibe of the
call Cause you would do havelike that's the first question
to basically every financeinterview is tell me about
yourself or walk me through yourresume.
That one is a little bit longer, like a minute and a half
usually to a minute.
If it's like a casual coffeechat it's a little bit more like
I'm interested in blah blah, xY Z, I'm involved in X Y Z, a
third Duke alum you probablyhave a memorized almost speech
(13:37):
at that point.
Yeah, CrossFit is actually ateit up.
I was like, oh, I wanted to goto law school, but I knew I had
experience business in my ownpersonal life.
My parents invested in ourlocal CrossFit gym a couple
years ago and that really, thenI would spin that tail however I
needed to, for whateverposition I was applying for.
Oh, so tricky, yeah, and a lotof people were very interested
(13:59):
in that.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I would say yeah, Because they're like that's
crazy CrossFit.
What is that To?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
get into the sophomore women's program for my
now job.
They actually said like thefirst question to get into
women's program was like, oh,what's like a business you think
is doing like bad or reallygood?
And I said CrossFit is doingreally bad and she thought it
was really interesting.
So I talked about the debt andall that and so, yeah, I think
that's also something that'svery important is lean into your
(14:25):
interests and be genuine,because these bankers do so many
of these calls that they cankind of tell like who's really
interested and who's like goingthrough the motions.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Right.
So you really have to make itlegit and true to yourself.
Yes, and that that's wow.
Well, you're welcome for.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I know seriously, shout out to CrossFit guys.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
All right, so so you get through that part of it and
then what's the next step?
And I assume you take copiousnotes and record all that.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, so I tell you, you take copious notes.
You have to send them a thankyou email, all that.
Your resume also has to bepolished before the hand,
obviously, when you send it tothem in the interim email and
you had resources from yourbusiness.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Fraternity who helped you?
My?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
fellowship.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
College, all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And my mentors and I'd ask them to read them over.
So that's what you do firstsemester of your sophomore year.
So that fall you're just doingconstantly coffee chats.
You're going to the firm's infosessions when they're on your
campus.
Yes, that's basically it.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Then you most okay.
So the earliest applications myyear dropped mid-December,
which is crazy because usuallyJust a couple.
But they started droppingmid-December very, very early.
Most firms dropped January 1st,all the way to like January
(15:36):
15th.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
And these are for interviews for the internship
for summer 2026.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So a year and a half.
You're basically recruiting ayear and a half in advance of
when you'd actually hit the desk.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Okay.
So everyone should know that ifyou go to college, you need to
get your junior internshipsquared away.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
By your sophomore spring by your sophomore spring.
The latest people sign, usuallyApril, maybe into the summer.
Okay, and this is mostlybanking and buy side Asset
management and investmentmanagement is usually a little
bit later into your sophomore.
The summer between sophomoreand junior year and then
consulting is like start ofjunior year.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
So they open up their thing and and you apply
basically and then it alldepends on the firm.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Then, again, if you do like diversity programs you
did a couple you get like anaccelerated timeline most likely
, so you get like a first roundbefore other people.
You can get a first round theday after you apply, like drop
your resume, or you could get afirst round like I got.
I kept getting emails withfirst rounds like I think like a
month, like a month after Iapplied that's the first round,
first interview like which iswhat?
(16:34):
those firms first rounds.
So my software women's programwas a technical first round
interview which is all technicalquestions.
But it really depends.
Usually it's just like usuallythe first round is behavioral
actually and it's more just likea fit type of interview.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Is it like a video interview?
Yeah, usually it's like on zoom, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
And then you have to like if you pass that, most
firms have a super day, then yes.
Which is where some fly you outin person.
Mine was in person for a coupleand that's more like sometimes
technical, sometimes behavioral,they'll do a mix.
Sometimes that's very much likea once you get the super day,
if you really lock in, like youcan get the job because, like
your foot's basically halfway inthe door, you just need to like
do well.
(17:10):
But that's how it works.
Most firms resume, drop andthen either first round on zoom
usually, and then a super day,or some people do or some firms
do higher view to super day.
A higher view is a virtualvideo interview, but it's just
you talking to the camera oh,higher view.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yes, like a higher view video I've saw that yes, so
this?
So I saw this in an article inbusiness insider where there was
a goldman sachs partner, ericJordan, who broke down this
Super Day interview process fortheir firm.
I mean, is it wrong to callthem vampire squids, these guys?
But that's really bad right.
That's just like not nice.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
I'm a finance professional, I'm not that.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
I'm not, so I guess I can say anything I want.
So he basically said so youknow, they talk about super days
, and that's the industry termfor these interview events that
take place at the end of therecruiting process for the 2026
internships, this year for thesummer, and, like they said, you
submit a formal application atwork and then complete some sort
(18:08):
of intro assessment, which youmentioned.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
And Goldman has a higher view.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, higher view video Right.
So this is so competitive andGoldman has is so competitive.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I will say also, my perspective on it is a little
bit more biased and limited.
Like, I think, everyone thatgets a banking job, if you
really put in the work, that isnot a privilege that is granted
to, clearly, like 99% of youknow, like the other applicants.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
So now, when?
Now the advice that they getthat this guy gives for his
super days?
I mean obviously just gettingto the super day, as you just
mentioned.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Is a feat in itself and an accomplishment in my
opinion.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Right.
So how many super days do mostpeople get to attend?
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Some people, a lot of Duke alums that I spoke to when
I was like, oh, buy this firm.
They were like it's the onlyone that gave me an offer Very
realistic.
That happens to a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Well, you get just one opportunity to go to a super
date.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah, I got a couple of super dates Mine.
I think I got six maybe.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And you took all of them.
No, oh, so how?
Speaker 2 (19:23):
many, some I got after I signed and I said no, oh
, so once you chose.
Mine.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, when you, because you sign your offer
letter.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
You know you don't want to renege.
Like, finance is a super smallworld so you need to also be
sure.
And timing is also a difficultpart, I think, of the recruiting
process.
I knew that the firm I was at Ireally wanted to work at and so
that was like a no-brainer forme.
I do think that for a lot ofother people it's either, you
see, one of two things Like somepeople will get an super early
(19:57):
and they're hesitant becausetheir other processes haven't
finished wrapping up and theycan't let go of those ones.
But they're also afraid like, ohmy gosh, if I don't take this
now but like, get it, you knowlike they'll withdraw that
opportunity you think, like I'veseen people who will, like you
know, they will reject a firm'soffer to continue to recruit,
hoping that the firm that theywant, you know, will give them
an offer later on, because notall.
It's not like college where youget to collect all.
I wish it was where you get tolike, collect all your offers
and submit one.
You mean to pick one?
Speaker 1 (20:16):
They're rolling.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yes, and like most firms will give you four like.
The most will be a week todecide.
Most give like three to fourdays.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Now there's a game that these firms are playing.
So they, if they're a weakerfirm, maybe they offer early or
maybe not well, not weaker, butyou know small.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
It's very much dependent on the firm, but I
also think a lot of it is justhow the firm operates as well.
Maybe they just have adifferent HR system.
There's many, many factors thatgo in, but every firm operates
on its own timeline, so that isalso something that can stress a
lot of kids out, because you,you know like it is like
(20:59):
recruiting is stressful, like tocontinue to do the process.
Like when I signed, I was likethis is the right choice.
No, no, I like knew it was verychoice.
I was like so relieved, youknow, like yeah, but some people
don't get that feeling or somepeople get caught up in the what
ifs.
It's very like this is alsowhen you need to stay true to
yourself, I think, and that'swhat the coffee chats and all
the research and work that youput in, that's when they come
(21:20):
into play.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
How about Goldman Sachs?
They're pretty late in terms ofwhat they offer.
Give offers right Compared tothe others.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
No, they're kind of in the mix with everyone.
I think they gave offers thelast week-ish.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Okay, but you committed.
How long ago I committed?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
first week of February, second week of
February, so like a couple weeksago, Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Okay.
So now he says in this articlethat people do use study guides
containing potential interviewquestions for Super Day.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Oh yeah, If you're a kid, you memorize in the M&I 400
guide.
It's 400 questions that youwill ever need for an investment
banking interview.
You don't memorize all 400because that includes the basic
and advanced sections and itincludes like sections you don't
always need.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
But there are questions that you memorize out
of this.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
I remember it's like six, like eight sections, like
six basic and then two advanced.
So how many questions is that?
Gotta be like half, maybe 200questions, maybe 150, 200.
I made flashcards.
I have the flashcards in myroom.
What is this?
It's basically the technicalguide that you need it.
It comes up with like it hasaccounting, valuation, dcf, lvo,
merger model and it's basicallyall the questions that.
It's basically a baseline and afoundation.
(22:22):
It's your holy grail if you'regoing into banking, because it
studying that exposes you to theconcepts themselves that you
may get asked in an interview uh, give me one walk me through a.
A DCF is literally one thateveryone should know if you're
going into banking.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
What's a?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
DCF, a discounted cash flow analysis.
You basically like that's likesomething that bankers use all
the time.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
And so give me the two sentence, start, but don't
keep going, but just give me thefirst sentences.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
That you would say for something like that so, like
a discounted cash flow analysis, a DCF is an intrinsic
valuation method where you valuea company based on the present
value of its future.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Oh my God, all right, I'm falling asleep already,
sorry.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
That wasn't even the first step.
That was me explaining what itall is?
Speaker 1 (22:59):
I don't care at all.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
This is like when he reads his research headlines to
me from his residency days.
This is so ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Okay, so I'm sorry, I'm just really not.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Hashtag Jaws 2.
Something, something.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Okay.
So, and then it says that someof the more specialized
businesses, like derivatives orso forth, might be very
technical, so they might askmore math, or Hedge funds are
very technical too, oh is thatright?
So might they ask you mathquestions?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Derivatives will maybe ask you math questions.
If you're going intoquantitative finance like quant,
which is a whole differentaspect, that's all math,
basically quant.
You're literally I'm, I'm, Ithink, basically quantum.
What you're doing is likeyou're using math to predict the
market so those are like.
So they'll just like ask youmath questions some of the quant
kids I know are the smartestkids that I know at duke.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
But um more than two plus two is four, obviously but
the hatch.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
It also depends on what the actual role is.
Hedge funds, since they're sodirect in investing and it's
kids that really want to be inthat direct investing seat,
they'll ask you to pitch like 10stocks in an interview, for
instance.
Oh, they'll.
Yeah, they'll ask you to likegive me a long short.
Things like that, uh am mightthink more like how would you
handle a situation with a client?
There's very.
There are behavioral questions,market-based questions and
(24:13):
technical questions.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
So this is all sort of prerequisite, and even before
you get here, obviously youneed to have done well your
first year.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, good grades.
You have a good GPA above likea 3.75, 3.8.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Right, and you've studied all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
And extracurriculars.
You need to build up yourresume.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
All right.
So they want to look at allthat too.
Yeah look at all that too.
So this is all prerequisitebefore you even like get to this
point.
Like you, all of these thingshave to be in place before you
even drop your resume.
Okay.
So, um, they suggest, if yougot to this point, that what you
really need is a hook.
Yes, what is a hook?
My hook is CrossFit.
Is that really right, man?
(24:48):
You've been milking this topicall it's worth.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Guys, I've gotten so many questions.
It's my first interest on myresume.
They look at me and they'relike you, but that's kind of
like.
The thing is that they want youlike I think.
He says an article you couldtalk about literally anything
right as long as you'repassionate about it, because,
right, they don't care whatyou're talking about, as long as
it depends.
They just want to see whattraits are coming through in the
(25:11):
interview right when I talkabout crossfit, a lot of traits
that come through humility, myability to push through things
my resume, so it's a prism foryou.
Yes, my resume.
You really want to dig deepinto what skills you bring to
the table.
A lot of mine.
My biggest strength, I wouldsay, is my ability to be
adaptive and connect withclients on a professional level.
It's something that was uniquebecause I sell ads at our
(25:34):
newspaper at Duke and not manysophomores are in a sales
position.
A lot of people loved that too.
Like, loved that activity on myresume, shout out to my boss, I
love my boss, but like that jobactually surprisingly reeled
people in more than my corporatefinance internship from this
past summer.
Things like that, where it'sjust like and I think honestly
some people's hook is just beinga super earnest and genuine
person.
(25:54):
During the interview I see itreally much is just like you
don't want to.
They always say like we don'twant.
Like a finance robot, allbankers will tell you that you
can learn the technical skillson the job, no matter what you
do in college.
Whether you go to an undergradbusiness school or not, you are
not never going to be able tosimulate what it's truly like to
be on the job.
But they can't teach softskills right and so that's
(26:16):
something that they like.
You could get a technicalquestion wrong in an interview
and most likely still move on tothe next round of everything
else is great.
If you had a behavioralquestion wrong, it, you know,
digs deeper and more of like whoare you like, could I sit next?
Because it's the question is,could I sit next to you when
we're in the trenches at 2 amright working together?
Speaker 1 (26:31):
That's what they said here, and so it seems like they
prefer or gravitate towardsstudent athletes.
I guess to a certain degree,because they are good at sports.
They were better than otherpeople.
It's a competitive situation.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
A lot of football and lacrosse male players go into
banking.
You do.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
They need dedication and a drive in sport, and so a
lot of bankers feel like thattranslates into and time
management, being a studentathlete.
Right, so is that somethingthat you think is helpful, or at
least a hook that a lot ofthese students have?
Speaker 2 (27:03):
I mean, obviously if you're a student athlete,
especially at a school like Duke, you know top D1 school.
You obviously put in an insanenumber of hours of hard work.
You're very skilled, you knowwhat it's like to be super,
super good at something, top ofyour game and you know what it's
like to stay there.
I think that is like definitelya hook.
I mean you could even talkabout like I didn't crossfit,
like people really enjoy that.
(27:24):
They really enjoy hearing aboutmy job at the chronicle, the
newspaper, and I think that'sbecause like that's tangible
real world experience that I cantalk about.
They love hearing about how Isell ads to our local pliables
owner because of what it shows.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
So when you got the offer, was that your first offer
.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
No.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Okay, so how many did you get before?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
that I got a couple.
I can't remember exactly Two,maybe three.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And you passed on three before you took this one.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I passed on two or three yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
And why'd you pass on them?
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Very different reasons.
I think I was very grateful tothe first.
Saying no to the first one isalways super, super hard because
you have that fear of like.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Will you get any others?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Yeah, like what if I don't get any more?
And then I look stupid, right?
Ultimately, I think it reallycame down to like what was
important to me.
So I'm a generalist at mysummer 2026.
Being a generalist means thatyou are not industry specific.
The way that a lot of thesebanks work are you have a
healthcare group, you have a TMT, technology, media and like
(28:27):
telecommunications industrials,like groups that you wouldn't
really know actually, you alsoneed to research this.
If you want to go to banking,like what groups you want to do,
right, industrials, like groupsthat you wouldn't really know
actually, you also need toresearch this.
If you want to go to banking,like what groups do you want to
do Leverage finance?
And it depends firm to firm.
And so I think for me, likebeing a generalist means that I
get to work across allindustries and do M&A and
restructuring activity acrossall these industries, and I
(28:49):
didn't recruit for restructuring, which is where you work with
companies like that are about togo bankrupt, because those
technical questions are evenharder.
Like if you have the M&I for100 as Calc AB, restructuring is
like Calc, bc and Multi, likethat's a whole, nother level of
prep.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
And so, but the chance to be able to do
restructuring and explore andreally have all my bases covered
.
That's truly why you go intobanking.
I think is because you wantthat optionality.
Post your analyst years, evenif it's hard, um, and that was
something that really spoke tome.
But I also think, like being aboutique actually, like you meet
so many people through theinterview process and once you
get the offer, so many peoplewill reach out to you from
whatever firm, and I thinkthat's also about, like the
(29:25):
connection, like who do youthink truly invested in you in
the process?
That's when the two-way streetcomes around, I think, um, and
being a boutique, you are onlike a smaller analyst class, um
, and being a strategic advisoryfirm, you also end up, you know
, like I think it's a differenttype of work because you solely
win.
Like you don't win because youhave money on your balance sheet
.
Partially.
You win because, like you winclients because of the like long
(29:48):
relationships you've beenbuilding and because your like
thoughtful advice is good I see,so that fit you personally yeah
, and I honestly going into it.
I actually thought I wanted abulge bracket.
I didn't well like goldmansachs, like the ones that have
balance sheets the bigger, thebigger firm.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
So bulge bracket means like they're bulging with
money I guess, okay, you havelike bb and boutique.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I actually said okay.
Actually I went in thinking Iwas going to go into the buy
side.
I'm doing private credit thissummer and I had recruited for
my sophomore summer internshipbeforehand and I thought private
credit was really interesting.
I recruited for it but you know, some of the firms I wanted I
didn't get, or I also didn'treally know then, and that
caused me to do someself-reflection, like, oh like,
do I actually want to start inprivate credit?
(30:30):
It's a pretty specific skillset and so I went in totally
thinking that I wasn't going toenter my boutique or do banking.
I thought I was going to doprivate credit or enter a pooled
bracket.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Did you know?
So did having your sophomoreinternship in hand help you in
terms of recruiting for yourjunior?
I think it helped me.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
I got a lot of interviews like first rounds
especially, and I think ithelped me partially because the
place that I'm working at thissummer has a great name and has
been in a major player in theprivate credit industry and had
a major acquisition during myinterview process.
So I think, having that, theykind of knew like she must have
gone through an intensiveinterview process for them.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
So you haven't even done your sophomore summer
internship yet, and yet it didhelp a lot, I think.
Awesome yeah it did help a lot.
I think awesome yeah, and so Idon't want to go back and like
go through how it took to getyour sophomore uh summer
internship, but like I think,yeah, I think the fact that it
was a big name because sophomoresummer internships are also
hard to come by like.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
So I know a lot of people that sign their sophomore
summer internship after theysign their junior summer it is
not necessarily a needed at alloh, like you do not need not
need it because they understandhow early the timelines are.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I see.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I just happened to sign and I do think that helped
me get my foot in the door.
It also helped me get my footin the door at a lot of private
credit firms because they knew Iwas.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
They knew you had an interest in it, and honestly.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
They knew that.
I knew what it was.
A lot of people recruit for,like I have no idea what they're
doing, essentially what they'rerecruiting for, because you
pass it to wide net.
I didn't think it was helpful,which I do think was helpful,
and I think that also forced meto get a head start on my
technical question prep oh,because you had already prepped
for your soft yeah, a lot ofpeople start technical prep in
like december and they focus onnetworking first.
I kind of did bothsimultaneously because I was
(32:15):
interviewing for my sophomoresummer internship.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
But I know so many people that you know like don't
like have a sophomore summerinternship and it's totally fine
did everyone who's in yourfriend group or who's interested
in to do exactly what you did,or so are you one of the more
try hard people that you know?
Speaker 2 (32:33):
no, I am definitely not a finance hardo.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I have some friends that are so there are others who
tried even harder than youabout all this stuff and worked
even harder than you on thisyeah, some people will send out
like 200 emails.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Who knows Like some people will like well, like I'm
not even in our investment clubat Duke, I know people that are.
They're doing stuff just forfun on the week, like you know
what I mean, like things likethat.
So they're just like even morehardcore than you are about
especially the kids, I think,that go into quant and like
hedge funds because those aresuch few and like hedge funds
are such few unlimitedopportunities.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Like far and few why do you know those kids want that
?
So these are people who justlove doing this stuff yeah, they
love like I'm.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I asked one of my friends in my business right,
who's going to hedge fund?
I was like, do you wake up andthink about like stocks?
And he was like, yes.
I was like, oh, so I'm notsupposed to go to it.
I think I need some foundations, which is also why a lot of
people go into banking.
They want to build thatfoundation.
A lot of it is just learninghow to be in an administrative
professional setting.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
I see Okay.
So what do you wish you hadknown before you started this
whole process?
That would have made thingsbetter for you.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
I wish I hadn't been so enormously stressed, Like I
think that.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
It sounds stressful just listening to you.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
It is the most stressful thing I've done in my
life Like I think it was superstressful and also especially to
places like Duke.
It's like an echo chamber.
Everyone's trying to figure outoh did this sperm sit out round
one who was around?
One?
Like who was a super date?
Like who got an offer.
Like who signed Like Like whogot an offer.
Like who signed Like.
You know, it's kind of likecollege process, but like way
more intense, because this isyour future and your job.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
And you have to do so much immense self-reflection
that I wish I did a little bitmore self-reflection before I
kicked it off, thinking aboutwhat do I truly want?
Speaker 1 (34:09):
But who knows at that age?
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Exactly.
But that's why I think, do asmany calls as you can tedious or
irritating or, oh my god, likeit's a time suck.
It is very helpful and I think,fine.
All I've learned is thatfinance is such a small industry
, it's, but like everyone knowseveryone, everyone you know, I
mean, and that's why I think,even though like 139 of the
(34:34):
calls that I did are not at thefirm that I'm going to you, you
know, I mean, like I still builtthose connections and in the
future, we never know.
Yeah, I still have an immenseamount of respect for all the
people that I called Like.
Just because I'm not going totheir firm or their firm didn't
give me an offer, doesn't meanthat I hold any spite or
whatever, and I think thatthat's also something I think
you do a lot of growing upduring the process.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
And they might remember you in the future.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Remember, like what you did we really liked your
interview, things like that.
Like I think that that, at theend of the day, you also need to
think about like what is theactual work that I'm doing?
I think I was scared of bankingfor a while because I was like,
oh my god, it's something youknow.
Like freshman, he was like very, very scared.
I knew nothing besides.
Like it's a grind yeah but Ithink I ended up going into it
because actually the work itselfallows me to start so broad and
like gain such a broad skillset, and I did a lot of
(35:18):
self-reflection and realized Idon't really know if there's an
industry out there that I lovelike.
Do I love industrials?
Do I love like healthcare, likeI have no idea.
Whereas other kids sometimes goin knowing like, like you get a
lot of pre-meds, low-key, whostart pre-med at duke, they
decide that they don't, theywant to do more like the, like
the uh, finance side of it yeah,the business, and so they want
to go into like healthcaregroups.
(35:40):
Many people do that, or peoplethat go into tech groups.
I just didn't really know if Iwanted to do one thing, because
then you're only working withhealthcare companies for your
two years.
So I think that also issomething that you need to
actually think about.
Like it seems so far in thefuture, but it's really firm
(36:04):
that you really, really want.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
That happened.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Yeah, it happened with one firm on the buy side.
For me that can be verydifficult and I think I had also
achieved a lot of successduring my recruiting process and
got if I'm being honest, Ididn't get that many no's
(36:37):
no-transcript realized that Ithink also that would be
different if, for instance, like, I ended up with a like a you
know, like a firm that I didn'tthink I was going to or whatever
, but I, the firm that I'm goingto for a summer my junior
summer is a firm that Iparticularly chose for very like
, you mean, for my specificreasons that I said before, and
(36:59):
so I'm very happy that I hadalso also that option to choose.
It can be difficult if you pickwhere you're going because it
was the only place that gave youan offer.
That's very different.
I do feel very privileged andblessed to have gotten a chance
to pick and really looked at mylike options and I've had some
like so many great friends outthere, so many great options.
But I think that thatopportunity is something also
(37:19):
that not everyone gets.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
So what do you do now that you have that all set up
for yourself?
Do you just like post?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Party.
No, I'm kidding Way to say.
Like I think still like I'mdoing my sophomore summer
internship and I think what'sgreat about going to the buy
side for my sophomore summerdoing private credit is that I
get a glimpse into it.
I actually have no idea whatthe work will be.
You know, like I know, what theindustry is, I know what work I
should be doing, but I've never, you know, hit the desk before.
So I think you know, justcontinuing to learn, like kind
(37:47):
of preparing myself, but also,yes, it obviously is a lot
easier once, like you kind ofhave a job lined up.
But I think it's just thingslike that, like really taking my
sophomore summer to reflectlike, is this something that I
would want to recruit for?
Because you have to re-recruitafter banking unless you want to
stay in banking.
A lot of people will do theirtwo analyst years post-grad
re-recruit, which is also reallyearly.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Re-recruit meaning so you do it to your analyst
position, and then you have tolook for another job again.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Well, so actually recruiting timelines are so
early now for post-grad, Usuallyit's when you graduate college.
As you're so early now forpost-grad, usually it's when you
graduate college, that June andJuly, all the private equity
firms, all the buy-side firms,start their on-cycle recruiting
for two years.
You mean after you've inadvance, before you've hit the
desk for your full-time jobYou've even worked.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
They're recruiting for people who that?
Will join their firm in twoyears.
Two years.
How did they even know at thatpoint?
You haven't even worked a dayin your life yet.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
That is the question on Wall Street.
Currently, I think A lot offirms do off-cycle recruiting,
which is six months into yourfirst job, which is kind of
similar to like you know a yearand a half in advance, like you
do for your junior summer.
It really depends.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
It's very much like everything is moved early
because these firms want to tapinto talent earlier, and also
it's like so you're gonna walkthrough that bad, so you're
gonna have to go through are-recruiting cycle at the end
of your senior year if I decideto go to buy side, a lot of
people stay as bankers.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
You become an associate, things like that.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
It very much depends wait, remind me, buy side are
the people that do what again?
Speaker 2 (39:14):
they're like private equity, they're directing this
thing.
Yeah, okay, okay okay, likesell side.
You're in the middle, you'rethe middle man between the money
people.
Shout out to the person thatruns KFS because he did a like
before I joined my fellowship.
He did like a this is whatbanking actually does and he
literally did like people thathave money, people who need
money.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Yeah, and there's Right.
So that reminds me of a linefrom I don't know some novel I
can't remember it was anyway.
So well, I think that this isvery enlightening to me.
I think it also showed how muchlike where you're transitioning
(39:52):
from a student into, likerealizing what your life
responsibilities are Like anadult, yeah.
Yeah, like looking at this andsort of taking that perspective
and realizing that work is notjust like extended school, like
there's all these consequencesand responsibilities that you
have to have.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
And I think recruiting is so intense to very
much reflect on, like to weedout the people and we know, like
those pre-med classes, thatweed out the kids who can't
handle it yeah.
Very similar.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
There are kids I know who wanted to do banking and
didn't want to recruit and thenrealized like, oh, if I don't
want to do like these networkingcalls, how am I going to last
in a banking job?
Things like that, like it's sointense.
But If you don't like thisprocess, you're not going to
make it Exactly.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Exactly, and I think that's also part of why these
firms are moving it early andearlier is again one they want
to.
You know, first, if they go tofreshman year that's a little
bit too intense.
They think that this is fine,it's manageable, like I don't
think they should go any earliercurrently than where they're at
right now, because then, like,what are freshmen going to know
even less?
However, I do think that's partof it is like that's why it's
(40:50):
so early now.
Is that like we want kids tolike want to do this, like who
wants to do it, you know, likewho's out here putting in the
work, taking initiative, becausethat itself is taking, I think,
like taking on finance.
Recruiting as a whole is verymuch like dependent on the
personality, and I know peoplethat also prioritize like
lifestyle, for instance, overthat, and a lot of people will
(41:12):
go into consulting because they,right, you mean like not that
you're not working hard hoursand consulting, but you are.
But you know, make verydifferent types of work and
balance, and I think that's whenit really comes into
self-reflection and thinkinglike what do I actually want to
do?
Is it because a lot of peoplealso do get caught up in the
name, or they get caught up in?
Well, everyone else is doing it.
I want to do it too, and thatyou know.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
That can also be a dangerous path to go down it
seems so crazy that thesedecisions have to be made so
early in somebody's life.
And if you ever didn't know,like because there are so many
people I know who it takes awhile for them to figure out
what it is that they want to do,and this whole process could
completely bypass them.
At that point, all and be all.
(42:02):
But, like the, there arecertain options that in life
that if you don't, takeadvantage of them when they
appear, you miss them.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
It's really hard to go back and try to do that and I
think that that's also why alot of bank, a lot of banks,
have mba programs where, if youget your mba, you can pivot into
and become like a summerassociate and then you
eventually join.
I know I met a lot of peoplethat did that as well.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
I see.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
I think that, yes, there is that.
But at the same time, like theworld is just so
pre-professional now.
Even as a pre-med, you're like,even though you might not be
applying to med school as asophomore, you are committing
yourself to it, you're takinghard classes, you're
volunteering at the hospital,you're catering your resume to
(42:39):
med school.
Even if the application islater, you're still doing the
same thing and kind of locked inSame with law.
Everything is sopre-professional now that I
think it's not just finance.
The world is asking kids tothink about what they want to do
earlier and earlier.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
It is true.
I remember when I applied tomedical school you could
actually not have your wholelife geared around looking like
you wanted to be the best doctorin the world and still get into
medical school.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Now.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
You need to have a perfect GPA too, unlike you, but
you need to have, like, a greatGPA.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Right, like everything had to be in place.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
You had a bad GPA and two extracurriculars.
Okay, thanks, rip.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
So it was a different era.
Uh, I had a lot of soft skills.
Let me put it that way.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
No, I'm just he aced his interview guy that's the
thing is like I think I I spoketo a lot of senior people also
and I think, yes, you speak likemost of your networking calls
are first year analysts andsecond year analysts, because
those are the people involvedwith the recruiting, because
also a lot of banks have like dospecific recruiting teams where
you really should only talk toalum because those are the only
people that are pulling Dukeresumes out.
But I will very much say Ivalued my conversations the most
(43:46):
with people four plus yearsinto their career and I think
that's because they have adifferent perspective of course
they do everyone forgets,recruiting makes you so narrow
minded and you forget that yourfirst job is not your last job.
Of course, I think, speaking topeople that are many years into
their career, like Vito, forinstance, where they change
reminded and you forget thatyour first job is not your last
job.
Of course, I think, speaking topeople that are many years into
their career, like Vito, forinstance, where they change, you
know, they change paths, theychange firms, they like life
(44:06):
happens to them and they make achange, and I think that those
are those were really nicereminders and reassuring moments
that remind you that at the endof the day, it's like a job and
if you don't like it, you canleave.
At the end of the day, it'slike a job and if you don't like
it, you can leave, you canchange, you can pivot.
It does seem like, oh, it's too, too late, but truly nothing is
ever too late if you have thegrind and the dedication.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
I think if this is something like, it's like with
med school, I remember there wasa guy who wanted to do
cardiothoracic surgery and he,even as an undergrad, all he did
was like hang out with them,did research with them, did
nothing with them.
And now, of course, he is a-.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Is he a cardiothoracic surgeon?
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Very well-known cardiothoracic surgeon, I would
say it almost seems that that isthe norm rather than the
exception.
To be successful at this point,you have to know from the womb
that this is what you want to do, and if you do that and
everything sort of points youtowards that, that's great, and
so I would say my advice wouldbe if you have a strong interest
(45:03):
in something, lean into it,whether it's IB or medicine.
But if you don't, these pathsare not available to you and
you're going to have to figureout different paths, which is
sort of a shame, but maybe it'salso good in terms of freedom.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
You're locked in at this point, dubs Well to me it
of a shame, but maybe it's alsogood in terms of freedom.
I don't know Like you're lockedin at this point, so Dubbed.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Well, to me it's a dub, but some other people might
not be a dub, and that's wherethe self-reflection comes into
play.
That's right.
So I think self-reflectionyou've mentioned that multiple
times is probably key, and Ithink that that's hard for
anyone to do, but I think, evenat my age, I do a lot of
self-reflection like what the F?
Speaker 2 (45:42):
am I going to do next ?
Careers are now linear, andthat's something that I think
people might forget when we'rerecruiting so early.
But then you speak to peoplewho look back on their career
like you.
They're not straight line.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Thank God that you did CrossFit Like I made you do
CrossFit.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Oh, my God, I know, I don't know where I would be
without it.
I wrote my college essay aboutit.
That's my part of my tell meabout yourself.
I bonded with a guy.
I got into the KFS fellowship.
I'm convinced because I met aguy at their career day who also
CrossFits.
He's now one of my very closementors, who's awesome.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
CrossFit is life and I would say it's a cult and the
fact that you're stillCrossFitting at your campus and
part of a gym out there.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
I think I'm doing my fourth or fifth open next year.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
This year, this year.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Maybe third or fourth .
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Yeah, so you know all you can do as a parent is just
help your kids lean into whatinterests you.
Hopefully it interests them.
Maybe it won't work out so well, as like having a hook for your
IB interviews, but you neverknow.
You just have to, you know,sort of roll with it and see
what happens.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
That transaction transformed me, and I watched
them as they tried to figure outhow to increase membership.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
Oh my, Lord All right .
So thank you so much, Sasha.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Thank you I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Good luck with the rest of your school year in
being a sophomore, and untilnext time in our next topic Go
Duke.
All right.
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