It's been a while since I had felt at a disadvantage, probably since the time I had dislocated my hip and I couldn't play basketball for a year. Today, I felt it again and it wasn't through sports. It was at my interview for the Sales & Trading Internship at Bear Stearns. I'm here to vent my frustration and through this, I know for a fact that it will help others learn from my mistakes, or I would call it, unpreparedness.
For the past couple of months, and yes I do express my opinions alot. You probbaly don't see it in class cuz I'm just dead tired from being up since 6. Anyways, for the past couple of months, I started learnign about the financial markets. I xfered from SBU and not bashing the school because I loved it there, but the business classes there that I had taken were general business management theories and strategies. As I heard BUS 1000 here talks about stocks, bonds, ipo's. Now it may seem easy stuff as we talk about it now, but I should of rightly learned all of these basic market lingo's freshman year, but I didn't. So in short, I had to learn the market lingo by myself, additional self-learning on my own. I wanted to land a job in these top investment banks because I was certainly working my way up on my resume. So at a disadvantage, there was a lot of technical questions about the market which I had basic knowledge about, but not quite confident about the subject entirely because it was all fairly new, given the circumstances of only watching the markets consistently for the past 3-4 months.
I got the interview and I needed to basically cram as much information as possible. My original plan was to gradually learn everything that I can possibly learn. BUT, there is just so much you can grasp in the world of Finance, it's not just number crunching, because you need to know the economy as well and theres news everyday that affects thousands of people everyday.
So some tips for future reference.
1) Know about the industry thick and thin about what your applying for.
- I read about Sales & Trading for the past couple of days, but I guess I gave a slightly BS answer because I didn't know everything that there is to know about it.
2) Don't just know how the DOW or NASDAQ did the previous day, but actually know what the index is at.
- How can I be so dumb not to know the actual index and what it was at when I have been watching the movement's daily.
3) Know the commodities market and how natural resources are affected through economic changes.
- The interviewer asked about a energy fund and quite honestly, I was more concerned with businesses and how they profit and how stock prices moves and how to figure out wheter or not if the stock is undervalued or not. I did not get to read up on commodities, and yes the question he had asked could of been answered logically, but I guess I was stumped to hear it so I froze.
4) When you're pitching a stock, Know exactly how and why you chose it, technical and logically.
- I did this part semi-ok. I pitched Starbucks, I gave my opinioned analysis of the stock in terms of logical reasons according to what's been previously stated on the media but also an analytical point of view. I then explained why I felt it was undervalued and I explained what ratios I used, but since the material was all fairly new to me, all these names of "P/E, Quick, Current, PEG, EPS" all rang in my head.
Yeah, I screwed up. Yes I'm dissapointed. It bothered me the entire day at work and at class. I was just out of it today and I just can't believe how stumped I was and how I prepared for everything else but the questions he asked, I just couldn't give a good answer. This is my second out of 15 interviews that I would say that I most porbably will not get.
My plans: I will continue to keep moving. It's a short grieving period, but come Friday morning, I'm just gonna walk up to these same companies I applied to and did not recieve an interview and also the same company I screwed up on the interview and still give it a shot. Why would I? Because I got nothin to lose, hopefully it will get across that I'm determined, not desperate.
THE END ... for now. Please feel free to comment or tell me to go cry me a river and better luck next time. I already know you're thinking of it.
-PCE, time for a beer.
1 comment:
Thank you for the tips. I hope you do well in the next one. Please post an entry when you have time. This is interesting. I feel there are many things I can learn from you. I am taking ECO 3220 "Money, Banking, and Monetary Policy," and I feel really lost because I have no idea what the financial and economic jokes and discussions in the class were about. There are just too many technical terms I do not have a clue what they are.
You mentioned "self-learning," so what book, newspaper, magazine, or website did you read? Where and how did you acquire the knowledge in preparation for your interview? Any advice for me?
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