Scott Hoover - How to Get a Job on Wall Street: Proven Ways to Land a High-Paying, High-Power Job

How to Get a Job on
WALL STREET

Proven Ways to Land a High-Paying, High-Powered Job

Scott Hoover

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ISBN: 978-0-07-177855-8
MHID: 0-07-177855-1

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As a professor at Washington and Lee University (W&L) for the last 11 years, I have worked with numerous students who are interested in a long-term career in finance and with alumni who are looking to take the next step in their careers in finance. I also have worked with finance professionals and recruiters at every major investment bank and many other financial services firms in an effort to understand better how to place W&L students in the best finance jobs. Many of my students have sought to begin their careers on Wall Street, where they can work with the very brightest peers and develop skills and contacts that will benefit them for the rest of their lives. W&L has the distinction of being the only top 25 liberal arts school with a business program, and so it produces a unique brand of student. That uniqueness, coupled with the small size of the school, historically meant that W&L students faced a bit of an uphill battle in trying to land jobs on Wall Street. Those students had to network actively with friends and alumni on Wall Street to have their rsums reviewed and had to know finance inside and out to get through the interview process. For W&L students, this task has become a bit easier over time because the number of alumni on Wall Street has grown dramatically. W&L is now a core school at several major investment banks, and this gives its students easy access to the interviewing process. At other major investment banks, however, W&L students still face an uphill battle to be recognized.

Over the last 11 years, literally hundreds of students have spent time in my office seeking advice on how to land a job in financial services. Although those students have asked an incredibly broad array of questions, their questions typically fall into three categories: (1) questions related to how get an interview, (2) questions related to how to succeed in interviews, and (3) questions related to how to manage the offer process. After answering the same questions over and over each year, it became clear to me that there was a need for a book focused specifically on how to land a job on Wall Street. Although there are other resources available to students (I will mention a few of them later in the book), I found no single resource that was both complete and practical in laying out what it takes to get a job on Wall Street. That is where this book comes in.

There are numerous people I should probably thank, but in the interests of time and space I will name just a few. The origins of this book lie with Nick Sayers, a former student who went into investment banking and now works in Chicago in the private equity sector. After struggling through the job market process with little guidance, Nick took the time to write a brief manuscript detailing his experiences. His hope was to make the process easier and more understandable for the students who came after him. That manuscript helped countless students over the subsequent years and provided me with a conviction that a broader manuscript on the subject would be worthwhile. Both John Church at Wells Fargo and Ken Lang at JPMorgan have provided me with a lot more insight over the years than they probably realize. Hiter Harris and Stevie Toepke at Harris Williams graciously shared their corporate hiring strategies with me and in doing so gave me a great deal of insight into how they compete (quite successfully) against the bulge bracket firms. Over the years, Matt Bevin (who has been a strong and articulate advocate of integrity in the financial services industryhence the name of his firm: Integrity Asset Management) also provided meaningful insight into the hiring process. Others have been more than a bit helpful, including Alex Appel, Brian Castleberry, Don Childress, Natalie Day, Will Flynn, John Gammage, Steve Hostetler, Ross Jagar, John Jensen, Sarah Ann Knier, Jess Lipsey, Samantha McLemore, Bill Miller, Keith Pelt, Bob Sadler, Akshat Shah, Mike Stefan, and Erik Welle. Perhaps as much as any others, I need to thank the numerous former students who have gone through the interview process over the years and then shared their experiences with me. Finally, I would be remiss not to thank my wife, Annalie, who over the years has put up with a lot of late nights working and the stress that comes with that.