First Offer On The Table

I have officially gotten my first offer from a tech company. The interview was relatively smooth as the industry is one that I am fairly familiar with, even more than the financial industry. I am going to go for more interviews and build up my interview skills as well as hone my experiences. I believe that I need to speak with as many people as possible at this stage of my life, more for learning purposes rather than for deciding what I want to do, as I have a fairly good idea by now.

With that said, the offer can also be used as leverage for future interviews. I have not really given any acceptance and the team has not really asked me to finalize any process. It was more of a soft agreement and asking me to email them before they send me the term sheet for my internship at a later date so that there will be more concrete details on what is the exact job description.

My recruiting efforts are not finished yet. I am actually waiting for a couple of big names in the tech world to open up before proceeding with the next part of the application. I am also looking at certain asset management firms and trying to learn as much as possible about valuation methods and skills like VBA and Macro before going for future interviews.

With that said, this is an interesting time and I am waiting to see how far I can go in the next one and a half year before my official "First Job".

Creating A Personal Website For Your Finance Recruiting Efforts

Recently, I have noticed an increasing trend of people creating a website for their resume. I was thus wondering if I should do the same seeing as to how I plan to get into equity research for my first job and I really need a differentiating factor against competitors who desire to get into the different investment banks. After reading many different articles, I came to the conclusion that having a website to enhance your resume is actually a good plus to your recruiting efforts if done in the right way.

Therefore, I have decided to create a personal resume website soon, after my venture capital internship. I also plan to start publishing research reports at my resume website. However, I will not be disclosing the personal resume page live on this blog as I want to be free from scrutiny. After my media appearance last year, I have decided to focus on my own personal development first before further communicating my dreams to people.

There are a few things I need to fix first before creating my website and that includes:

• Getting in shape, losing at least 5 to 7kg
• Continue to read up on investment books
• Write a lot more for this blog and polish up my writing skills so that when I do create the personal resume website, it is going to look presentable and good
• Get into the CFA society for student members

With that said, I foresee many busy days ahead juggling even more commitments aside from work and studies. 

Internship Dilemma

With less than one month to the start of my semester examinations, as well as my summer break, I am beginning to worry about the possibility that I might not be able to seal a solid finance internship. Add to that the stress of studying intensively for the past few weeks, I really feel myself on the fringe of going crazy. I have sent out around 20 to 30 resumes, but the responses have been pretty muted, with little companies referring back to me.

I know that I want to get into the investment management career next time and is seriously looking for any available openings. I have hence decided to dedicate one hour per day to finding a good internship for this summer. For the venture capital firm, I still have not received any response from them and its starting to worry me quite a bit.

I really need a solid internship this year to be able to walk the talk, and become someone more trained, and experienced, more fluent and confident and compete against the best and brightest from all over the world for the most competitive jobs. At this stage, I am really praying that some companies will get back to me and give me a chance and I will definitely outperform myself and give 120% of effort.

On a side note, my portfolio is up by around 10% this year due to solid performance by Global Premium Hotels, a stock I have been holding for close to 7 months. However, I do not know if now is a good time to exit. I still see certain potential for growth in this stock but the prospect of being able to cash in at a 30% profit is nudging me quite strongly.

Cold Emailing Companies

For the past few weeks, I have been trying to compile a list of asset management firms, private equity firms as well as investment firms. In the last few weeks, I have sent close to 30 to 40 cold emails with limited success. I have received almost no replies and I have thought about calling the companies up instead. For now, I am just compiling more firms into my personal financial firm directory. I have only gotten one interview from my recruiting efforts and its a venture capital firm. I have managed to pass the first round (there are still a few more rounds) but I will only talk about that in the next few posts.

Even though there is limited success from my current recruiting efforts, I am not giving up. I feel like giving up and feel like the world is going against me when I get so few replies but I know that if I want to get into the world of high powered finance, I have to be more assertive and determined. There are many other individuals like me and maybe even better than me who are willing to give an arm and leg just to get into the industry. That is what I will do as well.

I will begin to follow up with the companies and try to brush up on my technical skills as well. Summer is still 2 months away. I need a solid internship this summer and I have to be more determined, more passionate, more assertive than my competitor in order to get a chance at scoring a good internship. Time is running, and with exams and project deadlines nearing, change is necessary.

Following Up After Getting Namecards

Continuing from my previous post, I was able to get 3 name cards during the career fair organized by a bulge bracket firm and I have followed up with 2 of them, thanking them for their time during the career fair and asking them if they would be willing to take a look at my resume to determine my suitability for the respective department.

To be honest, one should spread their net as wide as possible but I was simply not too interested in one of the positions but maybe I could have emailed him as well asking for referrals? Well, the fact is I only emailed 2 and I felt that I was already doing a lot. I seriously need to change my mentality, I am still not assertive enough in the pursuit of my dreams, I have also failed to impress the bankers I was speaking to at first sight and I only have myself to blame. I have not been following market news for a while after my prop trading nightmare and I am running away from my dreams and responsibilities by giving myself excuses. That has to change, especially when I want to be a networking ninja.

For those of you who are interested, this is what I sent to 2 of the bankers:

• Who I am and a short common topic during the fair
• Background information about myself
• How they made me learnt something new (they really did)
• Expressing gratitude and asking for help with resume

I am not sure if they will respond but I honestly hoped they do. Anyway, now that I am writing this post, I feel I really need to email the last banker considering he is a VP and I would not want to waste any possible opportunities. How about you? How do you usually follow up with someone after getting someone's namecard?