 Welcome to the first annual Dolan School of Business Wall Street Boot Camp. As you know, finding a job is a job. And our goal today is to introduce you to the job market, to introduce you to Wall Street. I believe that what you'll learn today is that your job search can't start in the spring semester of your senior year. I think you'll learn today that you have to start building your relevant skills early. And hopefully by the end of today's discussions, you'll have an idea of what those relevant skills are. You're gonna have to start learning to demonstrate an interest in the field of finance. The fact that you're here today is a start. You're going to have to start by creating your own story. Who are you and why will somebody on Wall Street wanna hire you? And hopefully after today's discussion, you'll learn about things that are interesting to Wall Street firms. We've brought before you today three alumni. And we hope that they will help you prepare yourselves for your careers. By way of a little background, I just wanted to tell you how the seeds of today's boot camp got started. So about three years ago, Catherine Schneider, who's at Goldman Sachs, she pulled me aside at a DSB event in New York City. And she said, you know, Dr. Lewitska, she was a former student of mine, Dr. Lewitska, I'm really interested in participating in any activity on campus that helps students improve their interview skills and teaches them how to apply for jobs at Goldman and other Wall Street firms. And then about a year ago, John Fallon over at Merrill Lynch, another former student of mine, offered to host a round table at Merrill Lynch for students interested in pursuing careers in finance. I later received an email from Ada Sims, another former student of mine, also at Merrill Lynch, who, you know, let me know that John had been one of the greatest mentors for all Fairfield alum at Merrill Lynch for over a decade. So we've got John here today. And then last semester, Tom Luglio over at Barclays invited Fairfield DSB administrators and members of the faculty of the finance department to Barclays to talk about how he and other Barclays alumni can help you folks get jobs both at Barclays and at other firms on Wall Street. So Tom's here today and probably that meeting last semester is what got this meeting here today started. So we have three alumni who have actively reached back to the university to come here to speak with you to help you get jobs on Wall Street. They were sitting where you are sitting just a few years, a while ago, a while ago. And so they know a little bit about you already, all right? They are here to help. This is the Fairfield family that's here today. So take advantage of it, ask them questions. I think you'll hear this a number of times. There are no stupid questions here today. However, there are stupid questions to ask in an interview. So ask any question today so you don't ask the stupid question in the job interview and get started today on your job search. So the way we're gonna be organized today is Dean Gibson will make some introductions and then we're gonna get right to work, okay? Dean Gibson. Thank you, Walter. Round of applause for Walter. I don't know how many of you have had Professor Holowiczka, but he's really had an interest in connecting students better to our terrific alumni and specifically to finance firms. And so we've had field trips. We've had a lot more engagement with alumni here. And so I really appreciate his efforts across all these platforms. And I can just accentuate some of what Walter talked to you about, I mean, this idea began as a discussion with faculty and with students indicating that you wanted to compete on Wall Street. And then our realization that we needed to make sure that we helped prepare you, right? And the purpose of the bootcamp then started to look at that preparation. Our alumni, and you're gonna find this out today, also let us know that capital markets and investment banking is changing very rapidly, right? Technology has changed almost every aspect of the business. Risk and regulation now are a key part of the business. So we were talking about this at lunch, but I don't know if you saw any of that painful grilling of the CEO of Wells Fargo yesterday, but if you had any idea about the importance of ethics in business, that was a great illustration of why we emphasize that here. So this is about preparation. This is about meeting terrific business leaders who can help you focus your efforts and give you a better idea within this wide area of finance and then the wide area of investment banking. What goes on in there, right? What part of that should I aim for? What would be a great match with the skills that I have? I'm gonna outline the structure of this afternoon's program, but I'd like to thank several people in addition to Dr. Holowiczke. I'd like to thank several of our faculty, doctors McDermott, McDonald, Puleo, and Alon. And I think Professor Puleo is here today. He will aid you in discussion. And Professor Rosalind Lube, all of whom helped us prepare. You should know that the rankings came out last week for the US News and World Report and they not only do the school, the business school, but they also do rankings for departments. Your finance department is in the top 25 nationally. We are tied with Notre Dame, actually, and we'll be looking to defeat them in some upcoming rankings. So round of applause for the faculty. Thank you, that is tremendous recognition. I'd like to, oh yes, we got that. I'd like to also thank several students who helped work on, help us prepare for this seminar. Casey Berry, Scott Berlingay, Christy Kamarda, Alexander Cordero Villa Via Fuerte, Christopher Matheson, and Ryan Deiss, all helped with the preparation here. And we should thank Director of Internships and Professor and Professional Development, Sarah Bolinger, who worked very hard on this event, along with Kevin Delaney, who's our liaison from Advancement, John Hottinger, who's our liaison from Career Planning, and Karen Craig, the assistant to the Dean, who helps with just about everything. So thank you very much to you all. All right, so the structure looks like this. We are first going to start, actually, we're going to change the order slightly. We're going to have John Fallon start with us first. Chris Matheson, are you here? All right, so you may be doing his intro first. And he's going to talk about preparation, that initial preparation. And then Catherine Schneider is going to be here. She's going to look at different aspects of banking so you can get a little better feel for the lay of the land. And then finally, Tom Luglio, batting cleanup, will be looking at trends and alternatives. So again, you have a real feel for not only what's happening on Wall Street, but also some alternative ways for you to look at. There will be opportunity for speakers, and then some opportunity for discussion at the table, and then opportunity for you to raise that hand and participate with this whole group. So I just want to emphasize what Dr. Holowiczka said. This is kind of the safe zone today. You know, get it all out today. These are friendly people who want to help Fairfield students do well. So use your safe zone wisely. All right, so it's a full schedule. Let's have Chris introduce Mr. Fallon. Thank you. Good afternoon. John Fallon is a managing director and Co-Chief Operating Officer for Global Fix Income Currencies Commodities Sales at Bank of America, Merrill Lynch in New York. He assumed his role in 2010 and is responsible for the implementation of client strategic initiatives, client data, analytics, and cross product initiatives on behalf of the global FICC sales. Fallon joined Merrill Lynch in 1995 and spent seven years in investment banking before assuming strategy and business development roles for the global bank in markets. Prior to joining Merrill Lynch, he spent three years in public accounting for Arthur Anderson and Co. where he was an auditor and certified public accountant. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Fairfield University and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Chicago. Now, Mr. John Fallon. I'm John Fallon. I'm class of 90. Let me tell you my first story for you is my first interview trying to get on Wall Street. So I was, I'll tell you a little bit about where I came from. As Christopher mentioned, I was an accounting major at Fairfield. I worked in public accounting for three years and then I went back and got an MBA. That's one of the paths to Wall Street and I'll talk a bit about the paths you take. So set the stage first year at University of Chicago. My grades are fine, my shoes are polished and I had done a lot of prep to get ready for that first round of interviews for summer positions, summer associate jobs. I had informational interviewed. I had talked to a bunch of second years that had already been through the summer program. I thought I had it all down and I walked into the first interview of the firm that I really wanted and I bombed. It was awful. And it was just, I was prepared but I just didn't click with the interviewer. And that sometimes happens but I kinda bounced back from that one. The next round of these went fairly well. I ended up getting several job offers. I ended up turning down a bunch of callbacks in second rounds and it all ended up working out fine from there. So one message is about being resilient and just sort of bouncing back. You're gonna have to learn a lot along the way, ask a lot of questions and the faculty and the alum are all here to help you with that. So I'll go through a bit of what I call the interview, the applications, how to get prepared. Tom and Catherine will give you a little different aspects of the whole thing. But I am a product of the Fairfield U campus recruiting program too. I got my internship after my junior year from a job posting I saw right on campus here for the summer before my senior year in accounting role. I interviewed on campus and I got my first job right on campus through the campus recruiting program. Great program back then. It's phenomenal now. So the resources at your disposal are great and I would just encourage you to take advantage of all that as you go through this. So as you saw, I was an investment banker when I started at Merrill Lynch. I was an investment banker for seven years and then I moved into some internal roles, business development strategy and I'm now the COO of our fixed income sales business. And I'm basically on my fourth career at the firm. So another message is being adaptable. Being adaptable once you're in the door at a firm, whether you're in your dream job at the beginning or it evolves into something else, be adaptable and be flexible, work hard and good things will generally happen. So a little bit about why I like it, why I like what I do. The energy of it, the people working with very bright people, the role that the financial markets play in the world economy, working with companies to raise capital and help them expand, working with investor clients to help them invest or risk manage trade ideas for them. You're really at the epicenter of a lot of interesting things in this business. The challenges, it's pretty intense, the hours are long and that's one of those things that you're gonna have to learn a lot about this and you're gonna have to really figure out if this is something you wanna do and maybe an internship or just informational interviews will help with that. But if you don't like it, you're not gonna wanna stick with it. Unless you're really passionate about it, it's probably not for you and there are a lot of great things out there. So do your diligence about this and other aspects of this industry and other finance jobs, accounting jobs and see where you think the fit is best for you. And then as I said, there are a lot of different paths to it. There's the on-campus jobs, I'll talk a little bit about that. There are job searches you could do on your own for different types of firms or smaller firms and then there's what I call sort of adjacent ways into the business. In my case, accounting into an MBA onto Wall Street or there are a lot of ways to do that that others pursue as well. So a little bit about the sort of on-campus. Obviously the big banks come to campus, my firm comes to campus, I know JP comes, Morgan Stanley comes but there is a very broad range of other financial services firms. I talked to Sarah about it. I mean a lot of great names are coming to campus and you should cast a wide net and look at all of that as well. And at the big firms at least, that internship is fairly key. It's a fairly regimented internship before your senior year. That internship is sort of the feeder into the full-time programs, the full-time offers. So for the big firms, just know that is the path that one would take but that is by no means the only way in. And as I said, a number of other firms may have less structured summer programs but those are kinds of things you should pursue as well. And they may be things you have to do on your own. You may have to find connections into those firms but there's absolutely a lot of opportunity out there with them. And in some ways, while they may be a little less structured in terms of putting you through a two or three week training at the beginning and then put you onto a sales desk or a trading desk, a lot of these jobs are just apprenticeships anyway. A lot of this is what you learn on the job. So whether you go to a big firm or you go to a mid-sized firm or another type of firm, just know that a lot of what you learn and what you develop is just learning on the job from those around you. So every one of these firms, every one of these types of programs is gonna follow their own protocol, just work closely with the recruiting center. Some of them have you post online, some of them are gonna have you post through the career center yourself. So a lot of different ways, just follow the protocols there. And then, as I said, the smaller firms are great opportunities too. The programs themselves may be a little less structured, but generally speaking, the smaller the firm, the more broad range of things you might get thrown into. So that is good as well. And then the other thing I'd say is, think about where we are in Fairfield. I mean, down the road in Stamford and Greenwich, there are a ton of hedge funds, private equity funds, there's commodity and energy trading companies in Fairfield County. A lot of kinds of jobs around here that may post or they may be the kinds of things you do some research and look for them on your own. And then obviously New York City is right down the road too. So getting prepared, let's talk a little bit about that next. So I would say treat this like another course. I mean, focus on this and put energy against this like it is another course on your course load and getting going early on it. I think there's a lot you can do around reading the paper, reading Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, being curious, asking a lot of questions, trying to understand the dynamic of the markets in what you're reading about, translating that into the classroom and what you're learning there. I'd say the recruiting center frankly has a lot of tools as well in terms of learning about the industry, the different firms, the different types of roles. One of the things that really worked for me and I strongly advocate is the informational interview. And so this is the idea of making contacts, whether it's Fairfield alum, whether it's people from your hometown, somebody you know from La Crosse camp, anything, any connection you have, if they are in a position that sounds interesting to you, it's really on you to track them down and say, hi, I'd love to buy you a cup of coffee and learn a little bit about what you do. I'd love to learn about your firm, I'd love to learn about your role. A lot of this is the ability to make personal connections, understand what they do and the different types of roles that are out there. And I just think it's a great way to just understand and just sort of absorb the culture and what people do and see if you think that's a good fit for you. LinkedIn can be a real resource with respect to that and trying to find alum or trying to find personal connections to people. And I just say, and I'll put some slides up in a little bit, when people take the time out like that, be thankful, be appreciative, be on time, be professional with them. I think phone is a good way to do an informational interview in person is probably better, but depending on people's availability and time that they have, every conversation you have with somebody will make you better. It'll make you smarter. It'll make you a little more articulate about your own story and getting your story down. So talk about story. When you go into the interviews, you wanna have your storyline down. You wanna have answers to the basic questions and you really want your ability to articulate why you're there, why that's interesting to you. You want that in sort of a crisp format where you can convey that pretty easily. So there are a lot of basic interview questions. We can talk about those in a little bit or we can talk about those at the table, but have your storyline down. And ultimately that is your ability to kind of convey your message, your story about why you think that's a good fit to the person sitting across the table from you. So you wanna have a few good questions to ask at the end in the interview, not canned questions, not things that are very obvious, but show a little bit of insight and show some research on your behalf. Another thing that really was important for me, and I hear it a lot too, is mock interviews, which is this is the concept of, you find somebody you're comfortable with, a classmate, a friend, and you literally get in and you just interview each other back and forth. And a lot of that, it gets to the storyline. Just having your storyline down and why the industry is interesting to you, why you think you wanna do it. Back in business school, I have a good friend that we literally would close the door and we would sit and ask each other interview questions. And just getting, refining your story, getting your nervous tendencies behind you, just getting comfortable in that situation. So when you do get in the interview, you're putting your best foot forward. So mock interview is very important. Just a few basics around interacting with the firms. No typos. I mean, you'd be amazed at how many typos I still get from people. And I think it's, it just doesn't reflect on you the way that you wanna reflect yourself. It could be somebody dashing off a quick note after you've met somebody at a cocktail party or at a firm event, but just know that when you're doing that on your iPhone quickly, you're trying to get the message out quickly, but how that is perceived, if there are typos and things like that, so you get somebody's name wrong, that's working against you in terms of your first impression. I generally say email is better than calling. I mean, people are fairly busy during the day in the markets. Email is a good primary means of communication. Treat everyone you meet with respect. And I know that at Fairfield, I think that would resonate with a lot of us, but you'd be amazed at how many people do not follow that. Not treating administrative assistance well, not treating the person in the reception area well. It works against you. In the interview process, as you get your internship and as you get your job and you go forward from there. I'll mention network next. The network you develop here at Fairfield is so important and that network of people that you meet through the job search is critical. So I really encourage you, make good connections, keep them as part of your network. Your network serves you well, not only in finding a job and helping out your neighbor, your classmate, but helping people out and keeping those connections during the summer and then even as an alum yourself. So that's a little bit about the network. And frankly, the network still serves people like me even to today. As I said, I'm on sort of my fourth job within the firm and a lot of that and how you evolve over time is the connections you have in the network you've made. So you just help each other out and you build that network from there. I've had circumstances where friends of mine from Fairfield ended up becoming clients of mine down the road and that's all about the connections you make and the good relationships you develop and that's all about the network. So one other thing, different avenues into the business. I talked a little bit about that. Look, there's some ways, you'll go to campus, you'll interview for a job, maybe it's your dream job and maybe you get it and great, if that's you, God bless. But that's gonna be the minority of people who are going through this process and really what I encourage you is cast a wide net and keep your eyes open for just about anything that's out there. There are a lot of other ways onto Wall Street and a lot of other jobs out there. There are jobs in operations, jobs in finance, jobs in risk and that could be a great entree into the business or into a particular firm and don't be dismissive of any of those opportunities that may come your way. And I have a colleague, Natalie Reska, she's a Fairfield alum. She's about 12 years out of Fairfield and we were speaking to her a few weeks ago. She started in the finance program at Merrill Lynch, just doing finance books and records. It ultimately translated its way into a sales role and 12 years later, she's killing it. She's a director in commodity sales. She's great at what she does. That finance training was actually incredibly helpful to her as a salesperson and you think about your ability to understand financial statements and really convey that to clients. Somebody like Natalie, that was a great place to start and that's ultimately where she made her way into the firm. And then adjacent industries, that's something else. Obviously that's something I did. I was a public accounting major. I was an accounting major, went into public for three years and then made my way in from there. So be open to those kinds of things too. You may not be laser focused on a particular type of job, but if finance and Wall Street is of interest, there's a lot of ways in. So the next thing I wanted to do is I picked four people I work with. Like any good person, I try to find other people to do the work for me. So I picked four colleagues of mine at Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, that are involved in recruiting and I asked them some basic questions of do's and don'ts. So I'll throw some slides up. It may be a little hard to read so bear with me and squint if you have to, but I'll take you through a few of these next. Tyler is a first year analyst that I work with a lot and I asked Tyler just some basic do's and don'ts. So what did he say first? Learn the current environment of your role, understand the political, economic, political business climate. Use your peers for guidance, but stay focused on yourself and what you can control. Everyone's path to success is a bit different. Don't focus too much on your neighbor. You help each other out, but it's your job search, it's your situation. Remain positive. Your attitude and being positive will come across in the interview. That's a bit about your brand and how you're perceived, so attitude counts for a lot in this. In terms of his don'ts, don't make the same mistake twice. Don't take any interview for granted, which is interesting. It may not feel like it's your perfect role when you sit down for the interview, but you're gonna learn from that. You're gonna learn from the person across the table, and what part of the business they're in, and each time you sit there, you just get better. Don't believe that there's only one way to success. There are a lot of different ways. We're all running our own race. We're all doing this on our own. Don't worry too much about your neighbor. Next up is a guy I work with named Hostway. He's an interesting guy. He was placed into a job right out of school. It was not his dream job, and he absolutely hustled, and he made a name for himself, and then that ultimately led to a much better, sort of different job. So it's all about what you make of it and the situation you're in, and he's doing great. So his key theme, networking, and I talked a little bit about that too, reaching out to alumni, going to the corporate events, meeting people, asking a lot of questions, talking to current students. So for sophomores and juniors, talking to the seniors, understanding what they've been through, learning from them, learning from recent alum, learning everything about the industry was one of the other things he talked about, having answers to the standard interview questions, what's your story? What value can you add? Basically, and his last point, how has everything you've done up to now really built a foundation for your job search where you wanna go, Wall Street? Mock interviews, I talked a bit about that, and it's nice to see somebody else saying that. He did that a lot. Practicing with classmates, great way to just refine your story, being persistent and networking. I talked a little bit about that as well. His don'ts, don't sort of oversell yourself if it's not true to you. You'll get called out on that. So, even an interview question, if it's a little beyond you, it's okay to say you don't know rather than just sort of fudging it. Don't be overly confident. There's a fine line between confident and obnoxious. Show a little humility. Don't wait till the last minute. Obviously, sophomores, juniors, and even seniors, just getting going on it. This is a journey, not a destination, and really taking the time and getting going on that early. Trust your elders, find your passion. Really don't go through the motions. Find what you're really interested in doing. Jeff is next. Jeff's another VP, different role, also at the bank. What did Jeff have to say? Let me get my notes. Looking and acting professional, turning off your phone. Yeah, a lot of people don't do that, or at least put it on silent. Don't be late, but don't be more than 10 minutes early. I've literally had people show up at my door like 20 minutes early, and obviously you're in the middle of something and just you want to be prompt, but not too early. Don't overthink it. Be thoughtful about how you answer your questions. Don't get too hung up and having the perfect answer there. Turning the interview questions back on the interviewer, really understanding and trying to understand what they like about the firm, what they like about their job, that will inform you if you get to the point where you're trying to make decisions between roles and firms. Doing your homework, very important, and knowledgeable about macro events and current events. We talked about that a bit, too. Don't just talk about yourself, really use the interview to gauge if it's something you'd be interested in doing as well. And then Megan is next. Megan's a director. She managed one of our recruiting programs, and she had some good things to say. Just about getting knowledgeable about the firm that you're talking to using Google news alerts, using Twitter, other outlets. Just so when you're asked why are you interested in this particular firm, you have a good answer, and it shows you've done your homework. It shows you've been thoughtful about preparing because that serves as a proxy for your interest in that firm and that role. Company websites are very helpful, knowing the name of the CEO. A little bit about proofreading your resume, your emails, your letters. We talked about that. That is part of your brand, and that's important to be tight on that. Knowing the names of the people you're interviewing. If you have the ability to do that ahead of time, you can do some research on them. Great, a practice interviewing. We talked about practice interviewing. Taking phone screening seriously. So a lot of first interviews or first touch into the firm may be through the phone, and take that seriously. That is a first impression, and unless you do it in the right way, ask good questions, you may not get past there, so encourage you to take that. Find a quiet place to do those calls. Look your most professional, bring a copy of your resume when you are meeting people in person, using body language to convey enthusiasm. That's your brand. That's your showing how you care about where you are. Listening intently. Finding the balance between trying to get your point across, but not cramming too much in and rambling on as well. And then her last point here, you thank somebody for their time. You send them a thank you email, and make sure they're no typos. That's a common theme. A few don'ts from Megan. Don't pretend you have an expertise when you don't. We talked a little bit about that before. Don't oversell yourself. Don't get over your skis if you don't know the answer to the question. When asked for a few different examples of leadership teamwork working under pressure, don't pick the ski team for every one of those. Pick different examples from your background to make different points, because that helps make the case of your well-roundedness and your experience and exposure across a broad range of things. Sometimes people talk about these kind of crazy questions you might get asked. It's really, her point here is there's really no right answer for these perhaps, but what they're trying to do is get to your thought process. If you have a methodical way of breaking something down, I think that's what they're trying to look at. How many golf balls fit in an airplane, for example. If the person you're talking to is very relaxed and casual, just make sure that you're conveying the right side of you. Don't be too casual back. Show your professionalism. And then if you know somebody senior at the company, name dropping is a bit of a turnoff. So just be cognizant of that. And so that's what I wanted to cover. I wanted to hit some main themes with you. I wanted to give you some examples of some things you've heard from colleagues of mine that have been through the process. And so what I'd like to do next is, see how we're doing for time, but let's put it back to the tables and maybe talk amongst yourselves about anything that I might not have covered that you've heard is a good tidbit on getting prepared. Talk amongst yourselves. We'll walk around as well. And maybe I'll call a few people at the end just to see, did you come up with something good that maybe I didn't mention that is worth flagging for the group? Ms. Schneider is a team member of the Goldman Sachs asset management credit alternatives team with focus on investor relations and client management. She also serves as head of investor relations for Goldman Sachs BDC. And her primary responsibilities include client management and business development for institutional, third party, and high net worth channels. She's worked with the team since 2008 when she graduated from Fairfield University with a Bachelor of Science Magnetium Laudite in finance, marketing and management. So covered just about all the business disciplines there. And so without any further ado, Catherine? Hi everyone, thanks for being here today. And I'm pleased to be here too from the Dolan School of Business. So I'm actually gonna start out a little bit differently. And hopefully Sarah and Walter are okay with this, but I'm gonna pull a group activity to the front first. And what I'm gonna ask you guys to do is to, on a piece of paper, write out what are your three of your strengths and what are three of your weaknesses? But what I'm here to talk about today is what are the different aspects of an investment bank? So everyone sits here, you know, I myself was a former student within the Dolan School of Business, within finance, I was a finance and marketing major. And I ask the same question. What is an investment bank? What do you do? And if I join a firm like this, what am I gonna be doing in my day to day? You know, I think the biggest thing that I've seen while working at an investment bank for the past eight years was there are a whole host of opportunities that you could do within a bank. And those skills may range from, you know, portfolio management, trader, research, communications, marketing, a whole handful of skills that are really available within an asset bank. You know, but I think the question that you guys need to think about while you're in school and looking about the different, various career opportunities path that you could take is how is my skill set gonna align myself with whatever might be my next role or function within my life? So breaking down the different parts of the investment bank, again, at the very high level, you know, I remember being in college and always hearing folks, I wanna be a trader or I wanna work in sales and trading or I wanna be an investment bank. But what does that actually mean and what are all the roles that are still available to you while you're in the interviewing and job search progress process? So first in terms of just what are the four, you know, what are the kind of high level functions within an investment bank? So first of that, one of the critical elements of it is investment banking. So what is investment banking? Well, investment banking is a part of the organization that is going to be driving more from a underwriting process or financial advisory. So if you think about a company, Google, for example, taking that company public, you're gonna hire an underwriting team to facilitate that transaction. So at the very high level, investment banking is doing a broad range of services for them to actually have corporate transactions, whether it be from an M&A perspective, a refinancing or growth capital perspective. And then there's underwriting. So if you're a company too, right that wants to take this company public, you know, you're helping in that process of getting that company listed, you know, maybe finding buyers who are actually gonna purchase that company. Another part of the investment bank is the securities division or more of the sales and training aspect of that. You know, what do they actually do on a daily basis? So at a very high level, they're facilitating transactions for clients, which are mostly financial clients, corporates. So it's very, when you think about just the day-to-day in a broker dealer, they're gonna be highly, highly in tuned to just the day-to-day dynamics that are going in the market. You're gonna have, you know, prices of stocks, of bonds, of commodity prices moving every single day or every, you know, time within the day and your job is to act as the market maker. Another part of the business is the asset management arm. So how do clients get access to a range of clients, to a range of products? So, you know, if you hear a lot of folks want to say, I want to work at a hedge fund or I want to work at a private equity fund or I want to work at a mutual fund. You know, where does that fall into the overall organization at a place like Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JP Morgan, et cetera? You know, the asset management part of the business, you know, is going to be comprised of products that you offer for clients to invest in. And there could be a whole range of job opportunities within that function, whether or not they're ranging from a research side of the business, a trading side of the business, a marketing side of the business, a communications, a more support role. You know, there's a whole handful of opportunities within there. And then the fourth, you know, high level in terms of the different, the different divisions of the business is going to be more on the support side. So most people, you know, will hear of operations roles, accounting roles, legal, compliance. What are all going to be the support functions that need to be in place to make sure that investment bank, right, can carry their day-to-day activities? You know, I know myself coming into or coming into and looking at various job opportunities, you know, kind of I think most importantly, when you're thinking about these four aspects of an investment bank, just getting your foot in the door, right, is the most important. You know, I think the benefit that you have of, you know, being exposed to an investment bank is you're going to see all of these different aspects that occur onto a bank where then you could kind of really start to narrow in in where do I actually then want to take my career to the next step. You know, I think what an investment bank does offer you is, you know, you're going to be interacting on a day-to-day basis with legal, with compliance, with a trader, with a portfolio manager, with someone in investment banking, with someone in research, you're going to be exposed to, well, what do they actually do on a day-to-day basis and do I see myself in that, you know, role? But again, I think the most critical point or at least, you know, coming from myself was, you know, you're going to be spending a lot of time here, you know, within Fairfield interviewing for a whole host of jobs and opportunities. You know, so if you're looking at an investment bank, not narrowing your focus into a certain business or division. So now we're going to maybe talk a little bit about the skill set for each of those. So take investment banking perspective. What is the skill set in this job to succeed in here? Well, if you're an investment banker, right, you're going to be doing a lot of financial modeling because if you're, you know, helping a company be taken public, you need to understand their financials, you need to, right, you know, build pretty extensive models there. So you're going to be doing financial modeling, very attention to detail, right? Think about just your own courses at Fairfield that you're studying now. How many people like taking, excruciating attention to detail? Or how many people like looking top down at the high level summary and not spending their time in a PowerPoint presentation, making sure every line is right? You know, you take securities division, for example, which is more of the broker-dealer trading function side. You know, you need, or I think to excel there, you need a, you know, very deep economics type of background there. You know, you're highly engaged in the markets on a day-to-day basis, which, right, depending on your skill set and where you want to go next in your career, you may have a, you know, very big desire to be, you know, very integrated in that decision, you know, staying on tune of what is the Fed going to do today and come out with their news, you're going to be highly attuned to that to be able to process transactions there. And then on the sales side within there, too, right, interpersonal communication skills. When you're thinking about the asset management division, right, there's a whole host of skill sets there. So whether that be from an analytical perspective, whether that be from a research side of the business, right, how many people, you know, love spending the time reading about a company, right, and understanding what are the demand drivers within that respective industry? You know, I know for myself when, you know, spending time at least looking at the different aspects that I could go, do I love reading all day, or do I love talking to people all day, right? I think there's going to be different parts that you're going to see within your career that are able to align your objectives. And then on the operations and finance division or legal and compliance, right, what is your skill set? You know, within that division, you're probably spending a lot of time interacting with everyone within the business, you know, so when you're thinking about just more of the broad team collaboration skills internally, you know, how many of you guys are go-getters and making sure that this is getting done, you know, and I think teamwork, collaboration is going to be highly important there. You know, so I think, you know, to my earlier remarks too, you know, how do you match your skill set, right? So, you know, I think what you guys, you know, that may be helpful to spend a little bit of time on is what courses do you like in college, right? Whether you be a sophomore or a junior or a senior, you know, if you're a senior, maybe take a little bit more time to reflect, what are the courses that I really liked? And probably more importantly, what are the courses that I didn't like and that I wanted to see less of? You know, I probably spent some more time thinking about myself, you know, I was a finance and marketing major, but I did not like economics. Economics to me was challenging, it was hard, and trying to understand and be integrated in the full macro environment wasn't something that I was, you know, had a good drive for. On the financial modeling side, there were finances courses that I take, you know, where you were involved in coming out, coming up with an MPV or, you know, IRR type of analysis on a product, on a project, and you're building that model from scratch. You know, again, that was something that I remember, you know, recall being at school and saying, I'm glad there's someone in my team who knows how to do this, because if I was doing it myself, it would not be good. You know, so I think just taking the time to reflect on that will help you as you think about just, you know, where do you want to go next within your career? You know, I think also, you know, I was a finance and marketing major, you know, so part of the time in just reflecting and understanding on the finance side, I love numbers, right? I love being involved in understanding if there is a change in interest rates or if there's a change in interest rates, how will my bond price be moved, you know, what is gonna be the impact of a bond price on that, and doing that calculation in Excel, I enjoy doing it. I was also a marketing major because I also liked doing presentations, and I, you know, thought I had strong, more interpersonal skills. I liked a little bit more on the creative side of the business and helping together put it, put it, put it across client presentations and then be able to not only present them, but also be involved in how are we gonna communicate the strategy, both from a visual perspective and just kind of a succinct perspective as well. So kind of matching those two together, at least within my own role, you know, has helped me both while I was in college and probably most importantly when I was out of college. So I started, so I was again, finance marketing major within the business school. I joined Goldman Sachs in a finance role, so I was more in the controllers, more accounting side of the function, and I loved being in Excel spreadsheets. I loved doing reconciliations, I loved interacting with different parts of the business, being in kind of constant communication with various team members to getting something done, getting something completed, but what I didn't like about my role was, I didn't understand where the numbers went, right? I loved putting them together, but I had a interest in saying, well, where do they go and how are they being communicated or who's putting together a client presentation? This looks nice, you know, I would love to help on more of the design aspect of that. You know, so I spent some time within Goldman Sachs of just saying, well, what are all the roles that are open to me? Right, and I think, you know, really understanding, you know, the benefit of being at such a large bank is, you know, there's internal mobility, right? You know, you could really take the time to understand, you know, what are your strengths? You know, I thought to myself, what do I want to see more of in my day to day and what do I want to see less of? You know, and I think, you know, that's something similar that you guys could do, as it relates to maybe just your job functions or your more business majors. Another element too is culture, right? Looking at the different parts of where you're going to apply to, you know, the culture is important. You know, you're going to be spending a large majority of your time at work, probably over half of your day, and you want to make sure you like the environment, right? I think that's going to lead to just a successful career. You know, for me, taking a look back as, I was a waitress, you know, I waitress back when I was in high school and when the restaurant was busy, I was happy. And when it was slow, I was kind of bored. So you transition that to an investment bank and a place like Goldman Sachs, it's constantly busy, right? Whether or not, you know, taking a minute to reflect on, do I like operating in a stressful environment or don't I, right? I think either way is an okay response, whether or not the answer is yes or no, but it'll help you align what is the type of environment that I want to be at within my next role. You know, I think there's a lot of resources within Fairfield, such as a career center, you know, taking a look at the various job descriptions as you're applying for internships or, you know, actual full-time jobs. You know, I know when I was at Fairfield, I probably struggled a little bit in, well, I'm reading this job description, but I'm not sure I know what that means. You know, when you would constantly just read it and say, how do I make controls more efficient? You know, so I think when you're looking at that job description, you know, the person who's interviewing you is not going to assume you're gonna bring on hand experience. You know, right, joining the firm as an analyst or as an intern, you're gonna learn everything on the job, but I think what's most important to communicate at least within that interview process is what are the skills that are gonna be necessary to succeed in this internship? And how can I take my own strengths or my own weaknesses and say, how can I add value based on this role? Or at least using my own strengths where, you know, I've succeeded in these, whether it be at previous jobs that you've held in high school, in your summers, or even in projects, whether it be for different courses that you've had. You know, and then I think I heard some earlier remarks that John mentioned on this, but what I want to emphasize was following up is critical. You know, I think when you guys are in that job interview process and are following up with folks, you know, keep following up. Even if you don't get an email back right away, or even if you might send two emails and still might get another email back, keep following up because, you know, you'd be probably surprised at the number of students who don't follow up. And when you do follow up, you know, you stick out a lot. You know, I know myself, when I was in college and I was in your viewing, I sent one email or two emails and I thought, oh, they didn't respond. They probably didn't like me. And I thought about maybe I should just not email anymore. And now sitting myself, you know, at a firm and getting those emails from students, you know, working at an investment bank, you're busy. Your day-to-day is, you know, gonna have a whole host of issues that end up taking over your day. You're getting probably 200 to 400 emails a day. So you may just boost track of time and you may just be onto something else that might be a little bit more time sensitive. And the student that's actually following up, following up, you know, you're not necessarily gonna think negative them. You're just gonna say, oh, I'm glad he followed up because now I have a chance to respond. You know, so I think just keep following up, you know, while you are, whether it be in the interview process or maybe you don't get selected for an internship but you wanna kinda make sure that, you know, you're on their radar for a possible position down the road, you know, it's gonna be very critical and probably make you stand out relative to other folks. So now I'm gonna ask you guys to, based on what you've heard in terms of just the overall, you know, aspects of, you know, different criteria that you could be at within a bank, you know, how do you think your skill set matches of where you said that you might wanna go? And I'll let you guys take a little bit of time to do that. Hi, everyone. So I'm introducing Mr. Tom Luglio. Mr. Luglio is a managing director at Barclays and joined the firm in September 2008 from Lehman Brothers where he was head of capital markets financing sales within Prime Services. He was also responsible for managing sales activity for the global central banks across fixed income products. His previous responsibilities also included managing short-term credit sales at Lehman Brothers. Mr. Luglio joined the firm in 1987 after beginning his career at Drexel Barnum Lambert. Mr. Luglio holds a bachelor's degree from Fairfield University and sits on the board of Equiland. So I'll tell you just what I'm gonna talk about and then I'll introduce myself a little bit. So I'm gonna spend a little bit of time talking about the dynamics in the financial industry. Okay, I'll go off script a little bit and we'll be able to maybe have a little bit of interaction, but I wanna give you a little bit of the picture as to what's been happening so that maybe you'll think just a little bit more broadly about sort of what the opportunities are out there. Little bit about myself, so I have probably one of the few people in the financial services industry that have worked for the two firms that have gone bankrupt. So I worked for Drexel Barnum Lambert, I left before they went bankrupt, but nonetheless they went bankrupt and I did ride the Lehman ship right to the end. I started there in 87 and was there through the bankruptcy. So I think my colleagues at Barclays are a little nervous, three times a charm, but so far I think we're in good shape. So before I sort of get into the topic itself, I'd also like to highlight for you folks, and we talked about this at lunch with a couple of folks from Fairfield. This is a long journey, right? And I know right now it feels like everything rides on what your next opportunity is going to be and whether you land the perfect job, and it really isn't about that. You're all talented folks, it's why you're here. You're all interested in a career somewhere in the financial services industry and you've got a leg up on a lot of people. You're going to a good school, got a great alumni network and you're all very bright. And so I think you'll find as time goes on that a lot of the breaks that you're going to get in your career you're going to make for yourselves, and this is kind of the beginning of it. So be impatient, but understand that it's going to take some time and that you'll get there. So this is the beginning and you got to build the foundation. So with that said, my speech is over. I'm going to get into my topics. So what I want to do is I want to talk about a little bit of a snapshot as to what's been happening in the banking industry. Because I think my experience in talking to students is that there's a lot of focus placed on the core investment banking industry, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Barclays, Morgan Stanley, and it's a good place to be. But I want to give you a little bit of context as to what's been happening because it might sort of spur your thought process that I should be thinking a bit more broadly in addition to that. I want to talk about some of the catalyst for what's been happening in the industry. And then I want to discuss other areas of focus that you might want to be thinking about as you think about your career. Okay, so we all know what happened in 2008 in terms of the financial crisis and it caused a tremendous amount of structural change in the banking industry. The amount of regulation, the new and expansive regulation has had effects on the industry that are going to be long lasting, too permanent. And when you look at what's happened, it's just changed the nature of the business a bit. We still do the core sort of investment banking, capital markets, businesses that we've been in, but the way we go about it has changed. Volcker rule has spun out prop desks out of banks and it's moved some of that more into the asset management industry. Unauthorized trading has caused a tremendous amount of strain on the banking system, with the investment banks within the banking system, to increase the regulatory oversight that it has within the institutions and beef up our control processes, which has both changed the way front office works and increased the amount of opportunities in the control functions. And that's something to think about. The banks have operated with much larger capital buffers, forced by regulation, which has impacted profitability, which has impacted what we need to do about our cost base in order to return appropriate returns to shareholders, which means that certain parts of the industry has had to shrink. So I'm gonna talk about that in a moment. And then lastly, I was talking earlier with John Fallon, we talked about fines and some of the fines are looming. Fines in the banking industry has had a tremendous impact on what the banks have done and what their growth rates look like. I will tell you, and my firm alone, so fines in US banks alone have paid an excess of $200 billion since the financial crisis, 200. It has wiped out most of the earnings for many of the banking institutions, including the one that I work at. We've not returned a dollar to shareholders in the last four years, all because of fines. So when you think about the impact of that on those firms, it's had a real pronounced impact. And I bring this up, and I'm gonna pull up a slide and show you, I bring this up with two trains of thought. The first one is to make you aware as you think about what you wanna be looking at. And I'll kinda get to that later. And the second is, and we talked about it all throughout this, preparation, understanding what you're interviewing for and understanding the context of the environment that you're entering into is an important part of being successful in terms of acquiring an opportunity and then being successful once you get it. So you gotta understand sort of where the industry is coming from, not just what happened at 215 today when the Fed announced their rate decision. It's more than that. And a little bit of research. So hopefully I can provide a little bit of context and maybe get you to sort of do a little bit more research and think about it. So let me just show you a couple of things. I know he showed me how to do this. There it is. So just to follow up on what I talked about earlier, banks have had to change their human capital plan. And if you look from the first half of 2011 to the first half of 2016, and this is from a consulting firm that provides this, front office headcount is down 21%. And you can see a good, so some of that is the result of what I just described, which is the industry's changed. We've had to increase our capital buffer. We've incurred fines. We've had to reduce our cost base, but we've had to increase the investment in the control function, which means the only place it can come up from is front office. The second dynamic is, if you look at where most of it has come from, the red line, and the red, where am I? Yeah, and a lot of it has come from FIC, which is fixed income, essentially. And what's happened there? Well, technology has changed things, right? If you think about the technology that existed in the equity markets before this, a lot of that technology has now come into fixed income. So I say that because it also opens up opportunities for folks that are coming into the business today, right? So your experience in terms of understanding technology and understanding how to apply data towards decision making is a critical component of your ability to be able to be successful in this industry, right? So it's not the only skill you need, but if you wanna get into, for instance, trading, it's a necessary skill. So practical advice, learn how to use data, right? Learn how to use it really well. Understand if you think you know how to use Excel, you probably don't know how to use it well enough, right? So dig in and really understand that because it's an important part of being successful, right? So you'll look at that trend, what's happened here? The winners in the smaller group are the ones that can do that really well, right? And so you guys actually have an advantage in that regard because you're coming in fresh. So you can bring in skill sets that my generation didn't have, right? So let me show you a couple more things. So as I think about, I'm gonna jump ahead. I didn't wanna show you that yet. Excuse me. Oh, now I'm going backwards. There you go. So now I wanna talk about, and I wanna make it clear, it's not a discouragement from getting into banks. I just wanna balance what you think about when you look at opportunities in the financial markets. Not every great opportunity is sitting on a trading desk at one of the big Wall Street firms. That's not the only thing you can do. There are so many other applications for what you can do, and I'll talk a little bit about it, that I bring this up to ask you to expand your horizons a bit. So what else has grown as this has shrunk, right? So you think about everything that I talked about around regulation and capital buffers. The asset management industry has not had that, right? So we've seen tremendous growth in global wealth. We've seen tremendous advantages from globalization that have resulted in continued growth in the asset management industry, broadly speaking. And when I say asset management, that includes the traditional asset managers that you would think about, so Fidelity and Vanguard and Alliance Bernstein, as well as the hedge fund community. And they offer tremendous opportunities in BlackRock. I mean, these are great companies with really great opportunities for you to get in and be able to build the skills necessary to be able to do whatever you want in the world of finance, right? And what are some of those fundamental skills? Some of the fundamental skills that you really wanna grow when you think about this are, I talked a bit about analytical skills around data, understanding economic fundamentals, being able to pick apart a balance sheet. John talked about his experience in accounting, wonderful skill to be able to have and apply towards anything that you do in finance. Some of these opportunities that exist that aren't on a trading desk at one of the major firms offer you those opportunities which then you can apply towards anything. And you can apply them by the way to be able to be a trader if that's what you wanna do for a living, right? But remember, the markets have changed. So if I think about it from my perspective in a client facing role on Wall Street, it's, there's a relationship element to everything that we do. In other words, nobody likes to do business with someone they don't care for, right? Either they don't think they're ethical people or they just really don't like to spend time. But ultimately, what clients really want, they want ideas and information. And so even the job of sales, and I know as my two colleagues will walk around the room they'll say the same thing. Clients want ideas and information so everybody that works in the financial industry that touches a client has to be able to add that. And so if you don't have the fundamental skills to be able to, so if you're selling bonds on Wall Street and you can't talk about the fundamentals of the company for the bond that you're selling and be able to speak to their balance sheet, you're not offering your client anything, right? You're just not, you're not giving them any value. So these skills are incredibly important and the only way you get there is kind of bottom up. And so you gotta learn them as you go. And so your ability to get that is not limited to just working at the bank. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about what's been happening in the asset management universe. So I'll start with hedge funds and I'll start with mutual funds. And you look at the growth, right? Now this stops at 14, unfortunately, I couldn't get all the data that I wanted because I was in a little bit of a rush, sorry. I talked about preparation, I'm guilty. But you look at the number of funds and the growth that's happened over the last generation, it's been tremendous and it's leveled off a bit but there are, and I'll go through the list, there are a tremendous number of opportunities that exist at many of these companies and I'll talk about the hedge fund universe as a specific example. And I'm gonna end up concluding with showing you some of the funds that are out there and some of the large firms that you probably haven't thought of and that you should dig in and do some research on. But you look at this growth and you say, wow, well that's a starkly different picture than I got from the banking universe, right? The number of, for instance, primary dealers in the bond market have shrunk dramatically over the last 15 years while this has continued to grow. The demographics in the asset management industry are again in your favor, right? So you think about where you sit. You're an hour away from New York City, right? The U.S. market is the biggest market by far, both in stocks and bonds. It is a center along with London for currency markets. Everything that you could want to be able to buy or sell sits right here in New York. The highest concentration of wealth is in the United States, which means that the asset management industry in the United States is the most robust bust as it is anywhere in the world. And even the global firms, as we go through that, that exist in Europe and increasingly in Asia all have to have a home market here. So there's a tremendous advantage that you have just from being here. And the demographics in terms of the world, obviously in terms of building wealth, continue to be on your side, right? Your swim, the banking industry right now is trying to not swim upstream anymore, but it's not been working over the last few years. This is a different environment, right? So there's growth. So I want to talk a little bit about hedge funds. So hedge funds, and again, this ends at 14, but it's roughly stable here. It's just under three trillion in terms of assets. And there's been an increasing sort of thought process when you look at hedge funds and hedge fund returns. If you look at this growth, it's just been tremendous around returns and how big is too big, right? And is there a crowding out effect that exists in the market because they're all chasing the same ideas? And you see that investors are now saying, I'm not so happy, right, with my returns. So it's an interesting dynamic and I bring this up again, not to say hedge funds are not a good place to work, but to say, everybody wants the crowd into, I want to be on a Wall Street trading desk or I want to work at a hedge fund. Well, guess what? They have three issues as well. So you got to think more broadly, which you got to be thinking about are building skill sets that allow you to do the things that you want to do in the financial community. And when you look at this, what's been happening with hedge funds? Hedge funds have also gone through a tough time. Their fee structures are high, right? They built them to be high, which is why hedge fund managers are so rich. So they have a different fee structure than the typical asset management firms. The idea for the high fee structures are that the returns are going to be outsized. Well, guess what? Over the last few years, they haven't been, right? And so investors are moving now, beginning to move away in terms of net inflows, away from hedge funds and back towards traditional asset managers. So no secret, BlackRock's been a winner. Now BlackRock has an incredibly diversified business model, but they've been a winner in this. And you look and you can go through the same thing with Vanguard, you can go through the same thing with JPMorgan asset management. You can say the same thing about Goldman Sachs asset management. They've been the winners in this because they have a diversified business model. So another important theme that I would give you is that when you're looking at firms, generally speaking, those with diversified business models generally offer you tremendous opportunities to be able to have mobility, right? So if all things are equal, those are great opportunities for you and you should be thinking about that. And luckily we have a high concentration of them right here. I'll spend a minute on, and it's just a really a minute on private equity because we said we'd talk about alternatives a bit. Private equity is also a market that's been growing. It's had a different dynamic in terms of returns. Actually returns have been quite good. Your approach there, I haven't heard it come up. Generally speaking, to be really effective in private equity, you either need an accounting background or you're gonna need some sort of an advanced degree. But to the extent that they're hiring undergrad and I know that firms like Blackstone do, those offer also tremendous opportunities. You should think of them as diversified asset managers because typically speaking, the pure play private equity firms are recruiting very discreetly, but the larger, more diversified ones might be recruiting on campus and you should be thinking about applying or sorry, either applying online, but firms like Blackstone and the like, and you look at this and this has been a trend that doesn't appear to be abating. Private equity has been here to stay for some period of time. It's continuing to grow and it's going through a different dynamic than the hedge fund community because returns have been really, really good. Last thing, I have two more slides. We talk for a minute about asset management as a whole and you look, I described to you earlier, the concentration in the U.S. and the number of funds that are here, right? And you can see it when you split it by the domicile of the manager, the U.S. is almost twice as big as Europe, right? And that's really saying something when you think about, and that's just domicile, then you think about some of the European firms and their presence here and this number changes a lot. It even gets more concentrated in the U.S. The last thing I wanted to show you is and then I'll take whatever questions you have. This is just an example and hopefully you guys get a copy of this. This is all available, obviously, publicly. These are some of the largest asset managers in the world, right? And they all need analysts, right? And they all need the skills that you guys have and these are tremendous places to be able to build your career. And so, again, I say it not as a discouragement because I've had a long career at a bank and it's been great, but as an example of the way that you guys should be thinking about expanding your search, right? There are probably names on here that you never really thought of, right? But they're all hiring, right? I don't know if anybody here has really thought about, you know, whether or not they're putting a research into TIAA-CREF, but they're a world-class asset manager, right? And they need analysts to build their business. So you should be thinking about things like that and expanding and that's where some of them, maybe the sort of hidden gems will be, right? Because if we're all gonna run the six firms, not a lot of room to get through that door, right? So we gotta think a little bit more broadly, okay? I wanna close with just a couple of random thoughts, right? Just on some of the things that... I went around the room a little bit and earlier and I talked a little bit about preparation just picking up what John had said earlier. I can't stress enough the value of preparation and preparation has to come in a couple different forms. You know, there was a lot of focus around preparation of understanding the company and I think that all those things are super important, right? But your preparation can't start right before your interview process. Your preparation should begin now, right? And it should begin in the sense that you need to build a foundation of knowledge around the financial industry, whether it be markets or what's happening in the industry that you can draw on when you go through this process. And that time series can't be three months, right? The financial markets don't work that way. So while it's valuable to know where the S&P was when you walked into the room, in my mind, it's way more valuable for you to understand what's happened over the time series between the equity markets and the commodity markets. That's more interesting to me because it shows that you care. It shows that you've done your work and it shows that you're actually interested in the underlying business that you're trying to get into. Rather than just, I studied before I walked in and I can pass your little test, right, of where the S&P is. So it's far more important to begin your preparation now before you begin to start thinking about your job search. And if you're behind, catch up. There are ways to catch up, right? You can always catch up by reading. If you're not behind and you're a sophomore or a junior, begin it now, right? Start to read the financial press and you gotta read it every day. And if you're not doing that, it's sort of hard to know what's going on, right? You can quote a random factor too, but it'll show that you just crammed, okay? So that's one random thought. And then I wanna emphasize again, you know, the competition that's out there, right? When they walk in, the analysts that I find that are, so let's get out of the interviewing process for a moment and let's see what happens when folks start, right? What are the jobs you're gonna get, right, when you walk in? Like what are the things they're gonna hand you to do? You're gonna use PowerPoint and you're gonna have to be good at it, because I'm not, that's why you're there, right? So if I can't give that to you, whom am I gonna give it to? I don't know it, right? So, and there's a pretty good chance that the people on the desk either don't know it or don't wanna do it anymore, right? They did that, that means it's your job. So you have to know how to use it and you have to know how to use it well, really well, charts, graphs, everything. And you have to be able to be proficient at Excel. Not a rudimentary understanding, proficient. And if you're not, it's really gonna be hard for you to have an impact. So if you wanna work with data and you can't use the primary mechanism to communicate data, it's gonna be really tough for you, right, and the competition that's in there now, the kids that are coming in now are really, really good at it. You can just hand them something and they do it. And so if you can't do that day one, it's gonna be difficult for you to have the impact that you wanna have, right? So if it sounds a little intimidating, you know, it is what it is, right? You really have to figure that out. So I'd encourage you to take extra work on it and I encourage you to be as tight as you can be because if you're asked in an interview, if you say I'm proficient in Excel and they ask you question one and you can't answer it, that's not gonna be a really good thing, right? So you really need to spend as much time as you can on that. It'll make you not only a better candidate, it will make you more successful when you get there, right? Because that's what you're gonna be asked to do, right? You're not gonna be asked to comment on the new merger. They're gonna ask you to run a spreadsheet or put a PowerPoint together for a client presentation. If you do it really well, it's really valuable, right? You'll get more work. So those are my two random thoughts. So I'll take questions at the end, but the question that I was gonna pose to the tables are I talked a bit about, and you've heard from some of the other talk, the different sectors within financial services and I break it down two different ways, right? There's the disciplines within them. I like sales or I like marketing or I like accounting, versus I'm interested in asset management or wealth management or investment banking or capital markets. I like to focus on the second and I want you all to sort of sit at your tables and think about what you're interested in, what you think has good forwards for you and why, right? So if I'm interested in asset management, I'm interested in asset management for the following reasons and not just because I like talking to people. I'm interested in asset management because I think it's an important part of the capital markets and I think it's got a room for growth and I'm making the story up for you, so if you give me that answer, that's not a good answer now. So just think about it in that context, why you think it would be interesting and just have a debate, right? It doesn't have to be the thing you love, but I'd love to hear your thought process.