Monkey to Millions

In this session, Victor and I review his updated resume. While it is much closer and looks more polished, we dive into each bullet and I push him to be more direct and less vague to give the reader more substance. We go over the differences between sell-side and buy-side, attack one of his internships from 3 years ago and debate how best to show his financial modeling training. 

This session is probably best viewed on Youtube since it's over an hour and 20 minutes long and for most of it I'm sharing my screen as I walk through his resume.

In this first session with Victor we cover a lot. We dive into his back story which includes:

1. Coming to the US as an immigrant from Turkey and knowing no English when he was 21

2. Getting his scholarship canceled to Pomona when the company that was sponsoring him went bankrupt in the Great Financial Crises

3. Working for two years at 3-4 dead-end jobs at at time to put food on the table

4. Joining the Navy as a professional linguist with his knowledge of 4 languages 

5. Breaking into Georgetown as an older, non-traditional undergrad and graduating in December 2019 with a 3.7 GPA

6. And finally, securing two full-time offers upon graduation, taking a strategy consulting role, only to have it rescinded because of Covid cutbacks in May 2020 right before his start date

After reviewing this long and winding path, we spend the rest of the session talking about his goals and taking a closer look at his resume and getting tactical. Listen why I think he needs to reduce the embellishment on his resume, how OVER-quantification can actually hurt you and how we're going to approach his candidacy to try and get him into front office IB.

In this session, Grace tells us what investment banking internship offer she accepted for Summer 2021. We also discuss her plan to prep for accelerated recruiting for the Summer of 2022 which is going to happen as early as March 2021. We expect that she will have at least interviews with Blackstone, Goldman and Moelis...not too shabby!

After several months since our last session, John gives us an update on which offer (out of 3) he ended up taking and how his first 3 months of full-time work has been going. This of course, is after he gives me a little trash talk for his Lakers winning the NBA Championship and my Celtics failing to make it to the Finals.

In this session, after a long time since our last chat, Grace shares some big news. Plans for the Summer 2021 are already taking shape and she has some exciting new developments from all of her hard work.

In this session, Andrew makes a bold decision as we near the end of the road of his participation with Monkey to Millions. Learn about his summer internship and what he likes and what his plans are for the future.

In this session, I give Grace another mock technical interview for about 15 minutes and we catch up about recruiting, hirevues and what is coming up over the next month. I try to push her to try her best but also stay grounded knowing that this is first interview cycle is not her last opportunity to break in and that she should focus on 1 thing.

In this short session, Andrew updates me on how his internship is going and how he was up until 2am the night before. We go over how to avoid mistakes and the struggles of trying to check your work with no access to a printer. I also encourage him to keep his priority on getting the return offer and with any downtime to start working through the financial modeling courses on WSO.

In this episode, Grace gives us an update on her move back to New York City and how her IB internship is starting to ramp up activity with work on a pitch. We also review a plan for her to do another mock next time we meet focused on behavioral questions and how she should carve out some time to start going through the new WSO financial modeling courses as well.

In this session, John gives us a quick update having finished his final classes and graduated college. He has pivoted to work full time as an intern for a real estate development firm that is indicating they may want to bring him on full-time, but that hasn't stopped him from his networking efforts and he is now in final rounds at a boutique investment bank working in the hotel and gaming space.