|
Veronica:
|
Thank you everyone for joining me today. This is Veronica Ho with Beyond B-school,
and today we have a Careers in Finance MBA panel featuring five guests, all MBA
alumni from different parts of the finance world. I'm going to introduce our five
panelists and then we'll move right into a conversation about their careers, recruiting
experience and their advice for current MBA students.
On this call, we have Kristin Irish, who received her MBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler.
Kristin is currently the Head of Securities Campus Recruiting and Graduate Program
Manager for the Americas at UBS Bank.
We have Brian Woodall, an MBA alumnus of the UC Davis Graduate School of Management
and current CEO at Lamplighter Financial.
We have Vasiliy Zhulin, a graduate of the Berkeley program and Associate at Barclays
Capital.
We have Wendy Walker, another graduate of the Berkeley MBA program and currently
an Investment Consultant with Cambridge Associates.
Finally, we have Allan Coye, a graduate of the Yale School of Management and currently
an Associate at Goldman Sachs.
First, I'd like to ask our panelists to tell us about their background, how the
MBA helped them pursue a finance career and what they see in their professional
future. Let's start with Kristin.
|
|
Kristin:
|
As you mentioned, I received my MBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler. Prior to my MBA, I worked
at Morgan Stanley and T. Rowe Price in the high yield areas. I went back for my
MBA to be a career enhancer, to go back to finance. After my MBA, I worked as an
equity sales trader for 10 years, and after that, I worked at the Yale School of
Management in the Career Development Office as a Deputy Director and working with
students who wanted to go into the finance field. After that, I joined UBS to run
their campus recruiting and be a program manager for graduates.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Thank you, Kristin. Brian, can you introduce yourself?
|
|
Brian:
|
I'm Brian Woodall, currently the CEO of Lamplighter Financial. I earned my MBA
in Finance and Accounting undergrad and then worked in corporate finance for about
four years internally at large consulting firms. I used the MBA both as a career
enhancer, going back into finance, and also as a geographic change. I had been on
the East Coast and used it as an opportunity to migrate out to the West Coast. After
the MBA, I went to work in private equities for about five-and-a-half years before
launching Lamplighter Financial. We provide outsource CFO services to private equity
firms and to small businesses that are going through a transaction.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Vasiliy, can you tell us about yourself?
|
|
Vasiliy:
|
I got my MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and graduated in 2009.
Prior to that, I was a software engineer and a client advocate at IBM. Towards the
end of my career at IBM, I decided I wanted to switch over to finance, which is
why I decided to go to business school. I targeted myself for the investment banking
track right away and I interned at Lehman Brothers in 2008, and afterwards joined
Barclays Capital full time in 2009, here in New York. I've been here for almost
three years now.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Allan, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
|
|
Allan:
|
Part of business school, I worked in various roles within financial services. As
a banking analyst at Credit Swiss, doing corporate strategy work at Lehman Brothers,
and within the principle investor and hedge funds group at Invest Corp., I used
business school as a way to enhance my career and also get back to banking. I'm
now based in Los Angeles. I had been based on the East Coast my entire career. I'm
now focusing my career on doing deals in the media and entertainment space.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Wendy, go ahead and tell us about your background.
|
|
Wendy:
|
Prior to entering the Berkeley MBA program, I had been working in New York City
as an equity analyst at Argus Research. At the time that I entered business school,
I was a career enhancer, having worked in financial services for three years, but
prior to that, I had a career in the arts, so I had switched careers three years
earlier. Having had a Liberal Arts undergraduate degree, I definitely felt like
there were some educational gaps that I hoped to fill.
Even though I had my CFA, there were general business principles that I wanted to
learn more about. I guess I'm somewhere in between a career enhancer or a career
switcher. I graduated this past May of 2011, so I've been at Cambridge Associates
as an Investment Consultant for just over six months.
|
|
Veronica:
|
This next question is for Brian, Wendy and Allan. Can you tell us a bit about what
you enjoy most about your job and also, in general, about your career? Let's start
with Brian.
|
|
Brian:
|
The thing I enjoy most about what we do at Lamplighter is working with different
companies in different industries that each have their own unique issues. We do
a lot of problem solving. Beyond that, it's also acting as a confidant to the owners.
We typically get involved with small businesses, less than $75 million in revenue,
often family owned. You get into these really unique dynamics that you kind of have
to put on the white gloves to address.
It's always a challenge, and working across different industries, you have to get
educated in the industry pretty quickly in order to have an intelligent conversation
with the owners. That's always what drives me forward each day; the constant challenges
and the constant education process.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Wendy, what are your thoughts about what you enjoy most about your job or career?
|
|
Wendy:
|
I guess I'll echo that most recent statement about the challenges and the education
process. I've been on the job for just over six months, and we're working to help
foundations and not-for-profit organizations manage their endowment pools, and in
each case, it's a customized portfolio.
I'm working with more tenured consultants here at the firm who have been on these
client relationships for many years, so it's just a fascinating process for me,
coming onto these teams and into these relationships, to get to know their portfolios
and really learn from the investment thinking of both my colleagues here at Cambridge
Associates, as well as from our clients, whether it's their staff members or if
they have an outside board of trustees. They are very sophisticated investors, in
and of their own right, so it's a pretty interesting process, just the conversations
that go on day-to-day about achieving investment returns that support these organizations'
missions.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Allan, your thoughts?
|
|
Allan:
|
I'd say that the two things that I enjoy most are the pace of the learning and
the breadth of the learning that I'm able to do. Two very recent examples come
to mind. One, in terms of the pace of learning, I'd say that I recently started
working on a project for an early-stage company in the mobile technology space,
and it's a space that I was completely unfamiliar with. I basically had two weeks
to come up-to-speed and become an expert in the industry, and think through material
and topics that would be interesting to this technology entrepreneur.
I think the amount of learning I had to do in that period was really fast-paced
and really rewarding, being able to come up-to-speed that quickly and have an interesting
dialog with an entrepreneur in the space.
In terms of breadth of learning, I think that the investment banking model makes
for interesting learning because if you are a coverage banker, you basically cover
a lot of different clients and these clients have a lot of different issues.
There is no one way to solve some of their problems when they ask you for advice.
You have the ability to come up with creative responses or ways to help them out,
and even if they're asking about areas that you're not familiar in, generally
speaking, there is someone in the company who understands that space, that market
or that particular product, so you have the ability to draw on the experience and
expertise of many different people. Over time, you get to learn about a lot of different,
interesting products, markets and industries.
|
|
Veronica:
|
The next part of this question is for Kristin and Vasiliy. On the flip side, what
is the toughest part of your job? And in your career, in general, what are some
of the challenges you face? Let's start with Kristin.
|
|
Kristin:
|
Dealing with many different stake-holders, whether they are clients or whether they
are internal people who you work with, colleagues can be a challenge. If you want
to please everybody and meet their needs, while also meeting your needs and what
you're trying to get done in your role and your career. I think that probably is
the toughest one for me.
When you like what you're doing, I think it becomes even tougher because you hold
yourself to a higher bar. Dealing with different stake-holders and their clients,
and trying to appease them and make them happy, while doing your job with integrity
and the way you want to get done what you need to get done.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Vasiliy, your thoughts?
|
|
Vasiliy:
|
To give a little bit more background, in terms of what exactly I do, I work here
in the capital markets at Barclays. We help various corporate issuers issue and
repurchase fixed income debt bonds in the public market. I think the most frustrating
and most challenging part about this job and career is that it is very markets-driven.
Whether a corporate client is ready to proceed with a transaction, it can change
very quickly based on how the market looks on a specific day, whether there is certain
negative news out of Europe, whether certain economic data doesn't look as good
as it should, and so on.
It can be very frustrating when you work for weeks and weeks, you prepared something
that should be launched today, and it gets postponed and eventually even canceled
at some point. It certainly makes for a lot of challenges on the scheduling side,
where you're going, and visiting different clients while you should be launching
various transactions at the same time. It's probably the most frustrating part
about it.
|
|
Veronica:
|
We'll move into the conversation about MBA recruiting. This question is for Kristin
and Brian. Can you talk about your experience as a hiring manager and as you're
recruiting MBAs? Let's start with Kristin.
|
|
Kristin:
|
One of the things that I find when recruiting MBAs and working with MBAs is really
focus. An MBA going back to school as a career enhancer is a little easier to recruit
because they know why they went back to school, but a career switcher, they still
may be trying to find out what they really want to do. I think it's finding that
focus.
When you speak to an MBA or you're recruiting an MBA, you kind of figure out that
this maybe isn't what they want to do and you try to guide them to another way,
and it's just terrific when you have an MBA who really is focused and does have
a goal in mind that they are looking to get to a point that they're looking to
get to. I think that focus is a key thing for an MBA when recruiting them.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Brian, your thoughts?
|
|
Brian:
|
I completely agree with that. I'll actually give an example. I remember when I
was interviewing; I was asked a question, "Which financial statement is the most
important?" I completely fumbled the answer by giving the merits of each one, as
opposed to just picking an answer and sticking with it. That was a learning experience.
On the flip side of actually recruiting MBAs, I don't have much specifically to
say about MBAs, but more in general, we recently have been interviewing for a position
at our company. I have interviewed three candidates in the last month and only received
a thank you letter or email followup from one of the three, which absolutely shocked
me because that was something I knew before business school, that you always send
a thank you note. It was absolutely hammered home by our Career Services in business
school, so I figured that was just a given, but apparently in this day and age,
it's the exception to the rule and quite frankly, the two that did not actively
follow up or send a thank you, immediately went into the trash can, even though
their skillsets may have been better on paper than the third.
We always ask for a writing sample as part of the interview process. It's amazing
how much a writing sample can tell you about someone, so keep something on hand
that you're proud of. Make sure it doesn't have any typos or grammatical errors
because, again, that's a quick trip to the bottom of the pile in our eyes.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Great advice. On the side of having gone through the MBA recruiting experience fairly
recently, the next question is for Allan, Vasiliy and Wendy. Can you each talk about
your own experience and any points that you think are important for MBAs to be aware
of? Let's start with Allan.
|
|
Allan:
|
In my experience, I think it's important to evaluate yourself as a candidate and
try to anticipate what things the interviewers would potentially look at or harp
on.
For me, it was interesting because I had so much experience in finance prior to
going to business school and I had been doing pretty well. The question I was most
often asked was, "Why do you want to come back to banking? The hours are more grueling."
I had to think through my story and explain that to my interviewers.
As a candidate, you just need to make sure you have an honest conversation with
yourself and figure out what question mark you're going to have to answer, and
have a really good, strong answer for it.
In terms of advice, this goes to the point that Brian just made around using your
judgment, someone told me to make sure when you're reaching out to folks and being
proactive, that you're being what he called 'palatably aggressive'. I think that
means making sure that you reach out to people and utilize your time in the right
way.
When you set up calls or informational interviews, have good questions and come
prepared, and that you think through how to contact people the right way. Don't
overburden them.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Vasiliy, your thoughts?
|
|
Vasiliy:
|
For a career switcher, I really do agree that it's very important to be focused
very early. As you start business school, you are thrown into a lot of different
things. There are a lot of different classes, a lot of different people to meet
and there are tons of different clubs to try.
It's obviously very difficult to get focused on some specific things, but in terms
of careers, it certainly helps when you have an idea of what you're looking to
do. A lot of people don't when they start, and sometimes it's a mad scramble to
try to figure out what looks interesting with the school, what should I try? For
somebody who is a career switcher and somebody who knows what they eventually want
to end up in, for example, finance or investment banking, it goes a long way to
be able to start to get focused on those specific events and those client visitations
right away.
One piece of advice that I would give, from my own personal experience interviewing
and interviewing people here at Barclays for various positions, is that not only
is it important to show that you're clearly a bright person, a capable candidate
and know your basic accounting or finance, whatever skills you need for the job,
but it's even more important to have a relatively good personal connection with
the person that you're speaking with. That can be very challenging.
You can be very nervous in an interview, but it's important to remember that at
the end of the day, the people who are interviewing you are just people on the other
side. You're not answering questions to a standardized exam. Very likely, these
are the people you may be working with for very extended periods of time, so it's
important that they feel a connection that they can say, "Hey, I can really get
along with this person and see myself working some long hours with them." I thought
that was very helpful to me and it really helped me relax through a lot of my interviews
when I was still recruiting.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Wendy?
|
|
Wendy:
|
Allan touched upon the informational interview topic, and for me, I think the best
advice that I have received and would pass along to others is that so many professionals
out in the workplace are willing to give advice to anyone who is a student, and
it's amazing how many people will take calls from a student.
MBA candidates shouldn't be bashful about targeting alumni of their own MBA programs
or alumni of other MBA programs, and should really take advantage of being a student
and being able to ask for time. And definitely, to echo his point, we should make
good use of their time and if possible, talk to people more at peer levels first,
to get basic information before targeting people who are more senior, so that we
can use everyone's time in a respectful way.
Also, to followup, like Brian said, with a thank you note afterward, but I think
also by having these informational interviews, to echo Vasiliy's point about making
a personal connection. If you've had informational interviews and can really understand
the culture of an organization, it allows you to make a more personal connection
when you're actually in the interview process because you know more about the organization
than just what they do and what your qualifications are. You can really relate on
a more personal basis.
I secured both my summer internship and my full-time job through on-campus recruiting,
but I also conducted a fairly extensive custom job search on my own, through which
I got a part-time internship during the school year, and one set of resources outside
of my career office that I found extraordinarily helpful was an organization called
the Five O'Clock Club that I had used to switch careers a couple of years earlier.
There is a series of books by Kate Wendleton that deals with the informational interview
process and how to conduct a smart job search. I found that many of these themes
were echoed in Berkeley's career recruiting office. These books are available to
anyone. They are published on Amazon and you can get them anywhere. I found those
very helpful.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Actually, that's great in terms of resources, whether they were resources you took
advantage of within your school or things you found outside of that. This is for
anyone. Was there any particular program or resource that you found helpful when
you were pursuing your career search and looking more into finance careers? Does
anyone have any thoughts on that?
|
|
Vasiliy:
|
I think for career switchers looking to get into finance, certainly, one of the
basic starting points is the Vault Guide, which does a pretty good job of linking
the basics of what you're looking to get into. It may be somewhat outdated, it
may be a little extreme and may not have all the latest and greatest information,
but it's certainly a good starting point if you have no idea what you're getting
yourself into.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Let's move into advice and recommendations. What is your advice for students on
how to contact and network with companies that may not recruit at their MBA program?
Let's start with Kristin. Do you have any advice for students that may not be at
programs that are on a company's target list?
|
|
Kristin:
|
We have that all the time at UBS right now. It's actually not that hard to get
in front of recruiters from non-core schools. Go to your alumni database and find
out who works there. I get referrals constantly. So get a sponsor from a firm. That's
probably one of the biggest things that I tell everybody; find someone that will
go to bat for you.
As everybody else said, get on the phone with an alumnus or somebody through a friend
or family, and talk to them so they get to know a little bit about you and they
can go to bat for you. Network; go to any event that you can get to.
When I came out of MBA School, I worked at Merrill Lynch. I actually went to a panel
over the summer, between first and second year. I was at a small investment bank,
and I wanted to go to a big investment bank and do sales and training, and somebody
on the panel was from my undergraduate school. I just hung around afterwards, went
up to her and said, "Hi." She said, "I remember you from undergrad."
That goes back to my advice of everybody is watching you all the time. You never
know who you're going to meet, so always put on your best face. She remembered
me and was my sponsor, and she told everybody about me before I even got to Merrill
Lynch. They were waiting for me there and it was mine to lose. It's really important
to get out, network and get a sponsor.
Then my other thing from non-target schools is to follow up and follow through.
You talked about the followup, thank you. If you talk to them in November, then
you want to talk to them again in February because sometimes opportunities do open
up later on. I actually have a couple of graduate roles now that I told people back
in the fall that I didn't have. They just happened to pop up.
Follow through is really important because you never know where you're going to
meet these people again throughout your career, and to follow through and say, "I'm
working here now," even if you didn't get a job at that organization, let them
know where you are now. I think those are two of the most important things for anybody
in their career, but especially as you may be there for a couple of years, you may
want to continue to move on in your career and people can help you, and people move
around.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Brian, what is your advice for students on how to contact and network with companies
that might not recruit at their MBA program?
|
|
Brian:
|
That's a tough answer to follow. That was absolutely perfect. At UC Davis, that's
a pretty common issue. Our class size was about 60, so very small, which makes it
tough to bring some of the larger, non-local recruiters to campus. We faced that
regularly. That's how I got my first job; one of my professors knew somebody and
made the introduction. The alumni network is probably your first, best bet. Your
undergrad network, absolutely.
Then all the social networking tools, especially LinkedIn, from a professional standpoint.
Go through your LinkedIn contacts, see who they are connected to, find somebody
that works at your target company and get an introduction. Then the followup and
follow through is absolutely key. That's what sets you apart.
I hate to say an MBA is becoming a commodity, but almost. There are so many new
MBAs every year that you really have to set yourself apart and make yourself key.
For thank you notes, the bare minimum is an email. If you send a handwritten thank
you, that's going to stand out.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Vasiliy, do you have any thoughts on the question?
|
|
Vasiliy:
|
I think these guys covered it very well. I would just once again mention the alumni
network. I think one of the biggest advantages of business school, in general, is
the alumni network. It's very encouraging how receptive those folks typically are
to just getting an email or a call, and being able to help out and talk about specific
careers, specific industries or just help pass your name along. It was said earlier,
and I would hammer it again, it has certainly helped me before and I would highly
recommend using your alumni network.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Wendy or Allan, do you have any thoughts on the question?
|
|
Wendy:
|
Sure. I would also say that if we are contacting anyone in our alumni network or
in our broader LinkedIn network, if we're trying to request information, it's
easy to get discouraged if someone doesn't respond to an email the first time we
contact them, but I think it's important for us to remember that everyone is busy
and we're not their number one priority.
I wouldn't necessarily put the onus on the person we're requesting to get back
in touch with us. Don't make it their responsibility, but rather, make sure to
say, "I will call your office next week to see if we can put something on the calendar."
Make it easier for them to help you because, more often than not, they really are
willing. It's just a matter that you need to make it easy for them. And within
limits. Obviously, don't hound someone, but be willing to follow up with a phone
call or with another email at an appropriate interval.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Allan, any thoughts on the question?
|
|
Allan:
|
I would just add one little tidbit that worked for me. I think some of the other
panelists have already alluded to this, but when you do finally get a contact with
someone or set up a meeting or call, think through ways of continuing to expand
that network. A question I always used to close with is, "Is there anyone else you
think it might be helpful for me to speak with?" You speak to one person and maybe
they introduce you to two more, and those two introduce you to three more apiece.
It helps you deepen your network over time and I think that was pretty helpful.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Excellent. Thank you everyone. I'm going to move into my final question, which
is if each of you could offer a final piece of advice for MBA students that are
considering a career in finance. I'll go in the order of Brian, Vasiliy, Wendy,
Allan and then we'll wrap up with Kristin. Any advice you have for students that
are currently considering a career in finance?
|
|
Brian:
|
Finance is so broad. Narrow it down and make sure you know what branch or area you
want to focus on. From my background, I've dabbled in a bunch of different areas
from traditional corporate finance to private equity to the CFO role, and now actually
running a company. Figuring out where you want to focus is going to make your conversations
more meaningful and it's also going to target your search a little better so you're
not wasting your time or other people's time.
|
|
Vasiliy:
|
I think that's a very good point that Brian just made. It's very important to
be focused early on and know what you're looking to get into. One other thing to
consider is that I think the finance industry, in general, is challenging and cyclical,
and it's especially challenging today when you have a lot of uncertainty in the
market around the future; the economic picture here in the United States and in
Europe.
Given that backdrop, I think it's important to be more prepared in interviews and
show more enthusiasm in what you're looking to get into. One of the mistakes that
I see most is people are certainly prepared and they know their ABCs, they know
their basic skills, but they just don't show any interest in what they're interviewing
for. You interview somebody like that and you get the sense that those people check
the boxes, they seem okay on paper, but they have no passion or enthusiasm in what
they're looking to get into as a career. That certainly should not be the case.
Again, I think it's important to show that you are interested, excited, that you
know what's going on in the industry, at least to some extent, as somebody who
is starting out, and to take that extra time to prepare and show that you actually
care.
|
|
Wendy:
|
To extend that same idea a bit further, I would even say it's important to take
specific actions to demonstrate your commitment to your area of interest. It's
possible to work towards professional certifications. Even before business school,
you can work towards professional certifications in your area of interest.
While in business school, I think it's important to be engaged and take on consulting
projects or club leadership roles, or conference panel duties, any activities that
will really be able to set you apart from someone else. Someone else may be able
to say, "I'm interested in this field," but if you really invest time, energy and
effort into throwing yourself into that topic area, I think you'll know more of
the content and you'll probably have a stronger network from these activities that
will, in turn, probably lead to more employment opportunities.
|
|
Allan:
|
I would say that the better researched you are, the better off you are for a few
reasons. As Brian mentioned, finance is a very broad space. The skillsets that you
can develop within these positions is very different. The types of people that succeed
in these various roles are very different. Some roles are more relationship-based,
some roles are more analytical. The types of career opportunities that they open
up, depending on the role that you've chosen, can be very different.
It's important to think through what your five-year plan is because certain roles
may give you a leg up to get to what your ultimate goal is better than others. Some
are just more suitable. Do as much research as you can upfront to understand the
different roles that are available, what types of people the recruiters look for
in those roles, and understand what skillset you'll be building, as an individual,
and how it will fit in with your own career and personal plan. I think that will
give guidance as to what in finance you should be pursuing.
|
|
Kristin:
|
Going on the back of what Allan just said, I think you do need to be focused early
on, you do need to have a plan and network, but I think also being open. Finance,
as you've all said, is a very open, broad industry and there are a lot of things
you can do. Do your research in the different areas of finance because you may end
up talking to investment bankers and think that is what you want to do, and you
just don't click; it's not the right personality fit for you. Be open to saying,
"Maybe I want to do corporate finance. I want to work at Boeing and I want to do
finance in the treasury department." The same skillset; however, you are in a different
environment and working with different types of people.
Just be self-aware, listen to what other people are telling you as you're networking,
and also just be open to other opportunities as well. I've seen students pigeonhole
themselves in one specific career and they have blinders on, and at the end of the
day, they get a job in a different part of finance and they are thrilled to be there.
It's such a great fit and they are very successful. Just be aware of that.
|
|
Veronica:
|
Terrific. Thank you all for taking the time to join me on this panel with Beyond
B-School and for sharing with us your background and advice for MBA students. I
think everything that all of you have said has tremendous value and will offer a
lot of guidance for MBA students, so thank you.
|