Damn, It Feels Good To Be a Banker

by Leveraged Sellout

  A large part of the résumé and cover letter screening is done by Human Resources, but since I was on campus, I got to see a lot of them. Perhaps I took my Banking intuition for granted, but glancing at the documents we received, I couldn’t help but scratch my head and realize that a significant number of people have no idea how to apply for anything. Here were some common faux pas.

  COVER LETTERS

  Overtemplating: Cover letters are meant to be rigid and structured, but many people get lazy, write one cover letter, and simply do a “find/replace” to change the firm name. This practice is mostly transparent and often another firm’s name will not get properly replaced and these artifacts will show up, blackballing an applicant from the entire industry.

  Honesty: I’ve seen cover letters in which otherwise strong candidates will feel this odd desire to be brutally honest, using them as some sort of means for emotional expression. Do you really think I care that “you’re not 100 percent sure” but “curious to learn more about finance”? Why are you telling me about your stupid study-abroad trip to Chile? I’m sorry your mother died freshman year and that’s why you got a B-in POL 210. I truly am. Ding!

  RéSUMéS

  Typos: How people can submit résumés with typos in them is completely beyond me. You think a Bank would hire someone who doesn’t know it’s from its, forgets periods, and misuses the first-person reflexive? No. But as you might say: keep that “between you and I.”

  Passive Voice: Bankers do shit. We make shit happen. Things do not happen to us. It was not raining the other day. We made it rain, bitch.

  Overzealous Hobby Listing: It is sometimes nice to know that a candidate plays tennis, is a decorated triathlete, and enjoys reading The Economist—these things add color. That said, no one cares that you are internationally ranked in badminton, volunteer at your local soup kitchen, and play Everquest—these things are disgusting.

  “Forgetting” SAT scores/GPA: A very common practice by people who know that their stats are unimpressive. Heads up: we realize it too, and you’re getting hosed!

  * * *

  IDEAL COVER LETTER

  INSTAOFFER

  Dear Sir/Madam,

  I am applying for the Analyst position with Lehman Brothers’ Investment Banking division. I am steadfast in my dedication to a career in finance and am certain I would be a tremendous asset to Lehman Brothers.

  I have read The Wall Street Journal cover-to-cover every day since I was seven and am able to recite most articles from memory. I know I have the eye for perfection and artistic vision to create truly immaculate pitch books. I am Microsoft-Certified in Excel, and I know all the shortcut keys (alt-i then r, to insert a new row) by heart. Further more, I consider myself a whiz with numbers and have no doubt that I would be able to build robust models and complete precise calculations for Lehman Brothers.

  Most important, however, I want to stress how willing I am to do “anything for the team.” I realize the possibility of long hours exists in such a position, and I am ready to work as hard as necessary. I have been practicing staring at a computer monitor for extended hours, I can currently sit motionless in front of a screen for twenty-eight hours, and I am improving daily.

  I appreciate your taking the time to review my application and hope you indeed “go to bat” for me. Please contact me with any further questions you may have at timsmith@ameritrade.com.

  Sincerely,

  Tim Smith

  * * *

  Interviews

  A close friend of mine had a younger brother on campus who was applying for finance jobs, so I agreed to impart some advice about interviews.

  He was nervous, but I sat him down and explained, “Interviews, like life, are based on two things: looks and attitude.”

  We went through his wardrobe and picked out a decent suit and tie and paired them with an impressive leather portfolio to sheath fifteen copies of his résumé. And then we fell over laughing as we saw his roommate leave in khakis, a button-down, and a five-inch-wide tie for his Amnesty International interview. I could already envision the poor, starving people of Myanmar turning away aid because that dude’s outfit was more painful than any of the parasites they were infested with.

  I stood the young Banker-to-be in front of the mirror and instructed him to visualize himself on Wall Street. He made a few pathetic attempts at an “M&A snarl” and eventually got something close. I let him hold my BlackBerry for a moment so he could feel the surge of pulling it out of his pocket and shooting it at the mirror. A quick “pew pew,” and he was enamored; I had to wring it from his hands.

  We went over the interview vocabulary. He loved every Bank’s “culture” and was fascinated by their “mission,” “vision,” and “corporate philosophy.” He lived for “projects,” and any structured problem-solving. Despite the fact that he worked on every problem set alone, he could not stand environments that were not “team-oriented.”

  He asked about the difference between “fit” and “technical” interviews, which I told him was irrelevant. A well-delivered response that utilizes the interview vocabulary is appropriate for any question.

  Example:

  Question: “Why might a company choose to issue debt vs. equity?”

  Answer: “Oh, I just love working on projects! Everything I do, I break down into discrete, actionable tasks with timelines and goals. I’m tremendously diligent and won’t stop until I’ve seen a project to completion.”

  Capital structure doesn’t mean shit if you’re convincing.

  I even took a moment to prep him on Trading interviews. I snuck up behind him and screamed, “What’s 14 times 59?!” And by the fifth time, he was able to immediately and accurately reply “826, asshole,” and huff excitedly like a Trader. I also gave him a large, manly phone, and he slammed it down hard, proving he could handle himself in any situation on The Floor if necessary.

  He had even prepared a joke, just in case:

  “What was the best part of Playboy Enterprises (PLA)’s IPO?”

  “The pitch book.”

  Not bad.

  During an interview, it is undoubtedly asked: “Do you have any questions?” I heard of a kid who once responded “No” in this situation, and he was instantaneously blackballed from every Bank on The Street. He could have made up anything, and it wouldn’t have mattered, but he didn’t. His little sister tried to get a job in financial services consulting three years later, but the myth was still alive and she, too, got hosed from everywhere.

  We reviewed the only other three relevant questions. “What is the effect of goodwill on net income?” “What is the correlation between bond prices and inflation?” and “If you had to use one word to describe you, what would it be?” To which he was to respond: “None,” “Inverse,” and “Driven,” respectively.

  The Close

  My protégé ended up making it through several Super Saturdays—the special days where a Bank conducts three hundred interviews in eight hours—and received a handful of offers.

  He was no longer the orphan looking for a family; the Banks were competing for him. He received personal calls from MDs, and was getting hourly e-mails from Jen Yang, an alumna working at a Boutique Bank, who was asking him out for coffee in case he “had any questions.” That must be everyone’s code word, because on the coffee date, he discovered that her Boutique was coercing Jen to sleep with guys to get them to accept their offers. I instructed him to partake, but, of course, not to go work at her Bank.

  With fairly equivalent salaries and notions of culture, mission, and philosophy now out the window, he did what any Banker does; he went with the most prestigious one.

  Post-Undergrad Recruiting

  While on campus, I had a second to reflect on the differences between undergraduate and later-stage recruiting. From friends already in MBA programs, I knew the process was similar but that MBAs are much better trained, professional ass-kissers who elbow and box out competitors if given any opportunity to netw
ork.

  From my experience applying for PE jobs, I took a moment to curse headhunters. “Search consultants,” as they euphemize themselves, make money by brokering deals between Banks and recruits; and like arms dealers, their tactics are morally abject but can lead to a fairly sizable income.

  I heard a very telling story from a Prop Trader about headhunters. One day, he picked up his phone and gave his usual warm greeting: “Trading. What?” The person on the other line claimed to be a FedEx delivery man who just needed the name and number of someone on the desk to sign for a package. The Trader gave a colleague’s contact info and fifteen minutes later his friend received a series of calls from a headhunter with various “opportunities.” Not only did they find the headhunter, tie him to the Wall Street bull, and hurl rocks at him, they also beat the shit out of the next three FedEx delivery guys, just to be safe.

  When my work was completed, I left on-campus recruiting knowing I was able to help Banking harvest the nation’s top talent. I had done a noble service.

  Additionally, two beautiful undergraduate girls did me a noble service after they recognized me out partying, still in my suit and my Bank’s nametag. Turns out, they “had some questions” after all.

  CASE STUDY: FITZWATER

  This is the story of what to say to people who fall short of their dreams.

  Recruiting for Banking reminded me a lot of Bicker, the rush process for Princeton’s exclusive coed eating clubs. Just like a Bank on Wall Street, which eating club you belonged to at Princeton defined your entire social experience and self-worth. “What club were you in?” is without fail the first question asked when random Princeton alumni meet, and just as “Piper Jaffray” isn’t a great answer in Banking, neither is “Cloister,” one of Princeton’s crappier eating clubs.

  Bicker is more formal than most fraternity rushes, and as in finance recruiting, people interview you and then discuss and ridicule every minute detail of your life behind closed doors. Bicker is held during the spring semester, in the middle of sophomore year, which gives students enough time to find the club of their dreams and induces freshman girls to sleep with as many upperclassman club members as possible. It’s pretty genius.

  But there’s a weird kink in the Bicker system: You’re technically allowed to bicker multiple times. The next year, in the fall, juniors can bicker again and try to gain acceptance. You can even try a third time the following spring. It makes no sense at all to allow these rejects to get up to bat a second time, and very few succeed. Those who do—mostly girls who’ve started dating guys in the club—are treated like second-class citizens for their tenure as club members and the rest of their lives.

  At Ivy, my eating club, there was this kid, Ryan Fitzwater, who bickered for the first time in the spring, along with a few hundred other sophomores. He was a disaster. Ivy is a selective place, but it’s not impossible to get in. Have a father who’s a famous U.S. politician? Mother get quoted regularly in the Wall Street Journal? Last name written on our library? This was all it really required. Beyond these simple qualities, not too much mattered, except that you weren’t a raging douchebag.

  Fitzwater, however, was a raging douchebag and pissed off all ten of his interviewers. A short, fat little guy from North Carolina, he was overt about his connections and mentioned repeatedly how his father had donated several million dollars to Princeton. You aren’t supposed to say that kind of shit, Fitzwater, we just know it. Naturally, he got hosed.

  Fitzwater then gave bickering Ivy a second attempt in the fall of his junior year, only to get hosed yet again.

  At that point, we all thought it was over with him—that he might have gotten the message.

  But then, around December, Fitzwater actually came back to the club for a party. Gutsy. Like a little kid who just won’t realize no one wants to play with him, he kept trying to schmooze and brownnose with everyone. “I’m really excited about bickering again this spring,” he’d say. “Was just having an off couple days the past two times around.”

  Right, Fitzwater. Sure.

  That night, Fitzwater got absolutely smashed. He was playing Robopound, the intelligent man’s version of quarters we employ at Princeton, and losing severely; he couldn’t bounce a quarter to save his life. After twelve or so losses, he started stumbling around like a drunk idiot, screaming obscenities and throwing things—acceptable behavior for an Ivy member, but not Fitzwater.

  To top it off, he began groping girls on the dance floor. It wasn’t solicited, so it came off creepy as opposed to appropriate. The bouncers ended up forcefully removing Fitzwater from the club and physically throwing him out the back door. On his knees in the grass, he lingered for a moment, grasping longingly in the direction of our mansion. A bunch of us were on the balcony, sipping drinks and enjoying a brisk but relatively warm winter night. The mild weather was a blessing, because we got to watch this pathetic display.

  Finally, Fitzwater got up and started to stumble toward the gate, his sobs audible but gradually getting quieter as he got farther away. Our house manager, Ethan, a large, athletic guy, got up off a lounge chair and leaned over the balcony. Plastic cup in hand, he bellowed at the staggering reject: “GOOD LUCK IN THE SPRING, FITZWATER!”

  I nearly keeled over from laughter. From then on, that phrase became our go-to whenever anyone was failing at anything in life, even if there was no hope at a second chance. See a guy wearing Old Navy? GOOD LUCK IN THE SPRING, FITZWATER! Meet someone without a trust fund? GOOD LUCK IN THE SPRING, FITZWATER! The object of derision doesn’t even have to be animate; I say it to the Bank of America building every time I pass it.

  Most important to the idiom, however, is the delivery. It has to be spoken exactly the way that Ethan said it that night—belted from the gut, as if introducing the starting lineup of a basketball team or announcing a goal during a soccer game on Telemundo. Also in this spirit, the “r” in “spring” is trilled and often drawn out for added effect.

  This story yields an important lesson about recruiting in Banking—do not be a raging douchebag, at least not at first. These kinds of people need to be punished. So when a similarly annoying kid gave me his résumé at a career fair, I turned it over and in big, block letters, I wrote: “GOOD LUCK IN THE SPRING, FITZWATER.”

  He figured out what that meant pretty quickly.

  FACT #7

  Mergers are a girl’s best friend.

  Girls

  AS MUCH AS we would like the only girls we interact with to be nineteen, tipsy, and still dressed from their last photo shoot, even Bankers have to mingle with nonmodels. This happens primarily with colleagues, but also when a Banker hits that critical age (forty-five to fifty) when he’s done sowing his royal oats. At this point, we need to settle down and find a quality wife with whom we can create and train future financiers.

  Banker Chicks

  At my apartment, we have a drawer where we keep all the random crap that girls leave behind after we hook up with them. This appears to be a well-known relationship device among women, who frequently call the next day, try to come by, pick up their item, and finagle a date; depending on the weekend, the drawer might either be nearly empty or require an entire extra cabinet.

  It’s a shrine to New York City’s finest women, having been filled with necklaces, earrings, and other personal items. These things often “get left” on bedside tables or “fall out” of purses. Once, a $2,000 handbag itself was “forgotten” and had to be stuffed inside. But over the past two years, three things have remained in that drawer from the first week we moved in. My two roommates and I were all in various training programs, and we each ended up hooking up with a Banker Girl who left something behind.

  The three things were: a pencil case, a half-eaten cheeseburger, and a Chanel bracelet.

  The Joy Luck Investment Club

  The pencil case was left behind by an Asian girl who worked in Fixed Income at UBS; my roommate Gopal hooked up with her. We don’t know her name or whether she wa
s Indian or East Asian, but we do know that they bonded over some second-generation plight nonsense. In her stickered-up pencil case was a “Math Counts” pen, a Westinghouse/Intel International Science Fair pin, and a Japanese retractable eraser.

  As we became more familiar with finance, we found that this pencil-case girl was part of a clan we named the Joy Luck Investment Club. These are primarily Asian girls who majored in electrical engineering, molecular biology, or some other hard science that leveraged her innate diligence. In engineering, they got outshined by other, more Asian, Asian girls and ended up seeing if they could regain their dominance in Banking. They can’t, and over time, their core personalities erode. Now they can no longer even integrate x2, and all of their brain power has been allocated to memorizing and being able to recite, verbatim, the entirety of The Journal. The economics and repercussions of what they can mindlessly spit out, however, are of absolutely no importance to them. (Side note: . Still got it!)

  The Big Uglies

  My Trader roommate, Jon, has virtually nonexistent standards. After a day of being on the Trading floor, I don’t even think he can see straight when he goes out at night; at least that’s the only explanation I can come up with for the monsters he brings home.

  The half-eaten cheeseburger was from Kate, a girl in Equities whom Jon met at a sports bar drinking pitchers of Bud Heavy. We slotted her in the group of Banker Girls called Big Uglies, which refers to large, bloated industrial stocks (steel, oil, etc.). Big Uglies played lacrosse, softball, basketball, and rugby in college and got into finance through sports connections and the claim that as a result of their experience in athletics, they’d be great “team players.” As investments, Big Uglies aren’t “sexy,” and neither was Kate.