Tag: Finance

Finance Recruiting Step 2: Developing Soft Skills – Asking A+ Questions

By Michael Jimney, Financial Leadership Program (FLP) Correspondent

Generally speaking, soft skills refer to your ability to interact with others.  Think about that.  How you address someone, what subjects you raise, and how you smile or nod during a conversation are considered skills.  These nuances feed into someone’s impression of you. In Finance, it is critical to be aware of the impression you are making on others.  Because you will only have one chance to make a first impression, try to develop your soft skills before that first handshake.  Knowing how to create a good impression is important.  Luckily, there is one weapon that can be the key to your networking arsenal, and it will be the topic of this post – specifically: How to Ask a Question.

Networking is an essential component of your finance internship/job search.  To effectively build your network, you need to create a connection with your contact.  This means doing more than listening to them speak at a company presentation and collecting their business cards.  One way you can build a rapport that will establish a real connection is to ask questions.  In addition to creating a connection, it also allows you to gain insights and information into a particular career.  Before I explain how to craft a question effectively, it is important to know there really are such things as good and bad questions.  In order to better understand how your thought process works, professionals look at the kinds of questions you ask as a reflection of your judgment.  Asking a bad question may not do you any irreversible harm, but a good question can make a big impact in making an impression.

Consider the four kinds of questions students generally ask when meeting with professionals (listed below in order of importance):

  1. The insightful question
  2. The attentive question
  3. The typical question
  4. The wrong question

Starting from the bottom, there are some questions which are just wrong.    How much leeway you have with asking a wrong question is directly dependent upon the person with whom you are speaking.  If you are talking to a Managing Director, you do not want to ask him what an investment banker does.  That will make you seem lazy and gives off a bad impression, because you could easily have read about it on your own time,.  However, asking that question to a current student who interned at an investment bank or a recent graduate is reasonable (albeit typical).  Another wrong question would be “How much do you earn?” This is a question that makes most people feel uncomfortable.  Asking about something they just explained is another no-no, as it shows you were not paying attention.

Typical questions are those you will frequently hear being asked.  Those old standards include:

  • “What does a typical day look like?”
  • “How do you like working at company XYZ?”
  • “What do you do for fun?”
  • “Do you recommend any books or reading materials?”

Truthfully, these questions are an effective way to get information about the company and/or a position.  Questions about what their typical responsibilities are or what skills they view as the most important are a good way to understand if the role fits your interests.  When you first start networking, these will likely be the types of questions you will frequently ask.  Just keep in mind that these questions will not get you noticed or remembered.  Over time, try to shift from these typical questions to the insightful and attentive questions, otherwise known as the “good” questions.

The attentive question is where you take something the speaker has said and dig deeper.  For example, “Earlier, you mentioned your involvement in the ABC transaction; could you tell me a little more about it?”  The benefits of such a question are: 1) the speaker will know you are actively listening, and 2) you will get additional information about a subject where you might be lacking knowledge.  A good rule of thumb: people like to talk about themselves.  If you show a bit of interest in something they have done or mentioned, they will be more than happy to talk about it.

The final and most important of the aforementioned categories are the insightful questions.  These questions connect outside learning to the subject at hand.  For example, asking a banker “Considering the recent growth of the ABC sector, do you see the focus of your group shifting over the next few years?” shows that you are paying attention (like an attentive question) and you are also looping in outside information.  Here, you get all the benefits of the attentive question with one key difference: you demonstrate that you are learning about the finance industry on your own time.  The more detailed or complex the outside info, the higher the return will be when it comes to making a positive impression.  Make sure you understand what you are bringing up because it is easy for a professional, who probably knows more about the topic than you do, to tell if you are just trying to sound smart.

In Step 1, I discussed the significance of researching the finance industry.  Asking questions while networking is one way you could use that knowledge.  It is also very important to stay up on current events.  The Wall Street Journal is the standard (students get a discount price: http://student.wsj.com), but there are plenty of other periodicals or news sites like the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, Barron’s, and The Economist that are worth reading.  The more time you spend reading, the better your questions will be.

When it comes to speaking to professionals, you want to spend most of your time asking insightful and attentive questions.  That way, you get meaningful information from your networking contacts while leaving a positive impact.  Questions are a great way to make a great first impression, but it is not the only skill you need to cultivate.  In the next post, I will be going over how to develop your own personal pitch.

Finance Recruiting Step 1: Understand the Industry

By Michael Jimney, Financial Leadership Program (FLP) Correspondent

Going through internship recruiting as a Finance major can be stressful.  Months of preparation culminate in only a few 30-minute interviews to prove that you are, indeed, more qualified than the hundreds of other candidates the firm is considering (all of whom go to schools with larger footholds in the finance industry).  Once you finally make it past the interviewing gauntlet, otherwise known as a Super Day, you will wait, seemingly forever, for a phone call with some good news.  Taking the time to develop the skills necessary for finance recruiting can determine whether you will be waiting for your dream firm to offer you an internship or if you will be evaluating your back-up plans.  As a senior here at Baruch, I survived this process.  I would hardly classify myself as an expert, but I can pass down some wisdom I gained after experiencing this process firsthand.  Over the next few weeks, I will be writing a series of posts on how and when to develop the skills you will need during the finance recruiting process.  This week, I will be tackling Step 1: Understand the Industry.

Recruiting for a typical junior is a long process.  While applications are due in December and January, there is a lot of prep work that must be done during the fall semester.  It may seem like a disproportionate amount of pressure getting placed on one semester of school, but it is important to understand that a successful summer internship could lead to a full-time job offer upon graduation.  To ensure your hard work pays off, invest time to do your homework about the industry for two reasons:

1)      You will know which roles best suit your interests.

2)      You will be able to speak intelligently to professionals.

While the second point is very important for networking and interviews, the first point can actually be very complex at this early stage.  Most students have a preconceived notion about the world of finance.  As a result, they quickly bucket themselves into a particular career path.  Usually these careers center around Investment Banking (IB) or Sales & Trading (S&T) because those are, by far, the most well-known roles.  I, too, was guilty of this and realized that it presented several problems.  Firstly, I did not have a realistic expectation of what such a position entailed nor what skills were required to successfully secure my place.  Secondly, there were several positions I had never considered and even some that I had never heard of which would fit my skill set far better.

Take the time during this initial step to actually learn about all of the diverse roles available in the world of finance.  Go beyond the job descriptions and focus on learning the actual skills required in each job.  A role like Credit Risk requires a similar skill set to IB given its focus on valuation and analysis of capital structure, but it has a different daily schedule.  Students who enjoy the markets and are therefore considering S&T can apply that interest to Asset Management, Market Risk or Wealth Management.  Finance and Operations also provides exposure to the world of finance by taking advantage of project management skills which most students do not fully appreciate.  Explore the Vault guides to learn more information about roles you find interesting (they can be accessed by logging into STARR search, https://baruch-csm.symplicity.com/students).  Such information might include what Analysts are expected to do on a daily basis, what skills they need, what their work/life balance looks like, and what you will actually be learning once on the job.  While learning about different careers, remember to research which companies actually employ those groups/roles.

When you transition from researching finance positions to understanding the financial companies, a good place to start is by learning about the major firms.  The biggest things you will want to take away are: what lines of business they have, how the firm makes money, and how they stack up against their peers.  The finance industry can be complex so understanding the big picture can help later in the process, when more exotic firms or concepts arise.  Annual reports are a great place to get specific company information (but can be very complicated for financial firms).  Try leveraging additional resources like financial websites and a Bloomberg terminal, available in the Subotnick Center (http://zicklin.baruch.cuny.edu/centers/subotnick), which can give a more simplified look at the industry.  Once you have the basic map of how major firms operate, it will be easier to understand the roles they contain.

At this point in the recruiting process, your goal is to form an opinion on a few target positions and companies upon which you can focus your efforts.  Landing a job requires hard work, so you want to make sure you are working smart.  Your interests and targets may evolve as you learn more.  It is important that you make a conscious effort to expand your understanding on a regular basis.  For the truly dedicated, this is a great time to get involved on campus with a professional club.  As a member of the Wall Street Club and the Financial Leadership Program, I benefitted from listening to guest speakers share about the industry or teach a specific point of finance.  These activities gave me greater exposure to experienced points of view.  Baruch is a school full of students who willingly go above and beyond to break into the financial services industry, so your classmates and alumni should not be overlooked in your quest for information.

Reaching out to students here at school is one thing, but communicating with industry professionals is a totally different league.  In Step 2 of this series, I will cover how to effectively prepare your soft skills to ensure you are getting the most from networking.