eFinancialCareers

Week 8: Crunch time

And so this was the week when things got really interesting – 'karmic realignments', scandal, sex (OK, so there was no sex, unless you count the trader who claims he recently had a fling with an A-list celebrity).

It was also crunch time: would my firm offer me a job or not? Whatever that news, it was a nice week to wind down, with breakfasts, brunches, lunches and dinners, you name it, we ate it.

But first, the karmic realignments: it was firing week at work, and not just for some of the interns. From an earlier diary entry you will know that I had been privy to certain information regarding who was in the firing line. I actually think my firm got it completely right: it was the loud bunch of traders who often claimed to have done far more than they actually had (you could put this down to insecurities, however I put it down to stupidity).

As this was the first firing session I had ever seen, it provided some much-needed distraction on the trading floor. It's exactly as you hear it is: the victim gets a phone call from HR and leaves their desk to go to a meeting; whilst they are in the meeting someone from HR chucks all their belongings in a box, and takes it away never to be seen again; nor do we see the victim again, we just assume they're in a better place (outside in the sun).

You could instantly see the fear on people's faces as this happened. One by one, they were called for, never to be seen again. I thought to myself, these people have gone to some of the most amazing academic institutions, their jobs consisted of predicting events, yet they couldn't see they were being led to the guillotine. If it were me, I would have danced on the tables, opened champagne, and run around so they would have had to catch me, but no, these people who acted so brash became meek sheep.

Again, from my earlier comments, you all know that there was no love lost between me and these types, but I was a little sad for them as they were the ones who needed their jobs the most, to support their vices and addictions.

As i mentioned earlier, I was wined and dined by various people on the trading floor this week, and come Friday I was to have dinner with some MDs to discuss whether I would be offered a full-time position (it seems the oil desk does things differently around here, none of those boring HR appraisals).

Friday rolled around. The day itself was pretty boring, mostly admin, with a lot of "good luck for tonight" messages. However, come the evening, I dressed up well for the first time in weeks and went to a very exclusive restaurant.

Nerve-racking it was not, dreary it was. During dinner, it occurred to me that these people are so dull, so pretentious, so not me (with the exception of my MD). They're good at their jobs and they're very successful, but only because they have sacrificed everything else in their lives for it – family, personality, humour – in a very Mr Burns fashion. After the niceties, starters and general conversation we moved onto the nitty gritty.

Wait for it...NO JOB OFFER!

Hearing this actually did make me happier. It made my decisions about the future much easier. My MD told me this was now the end of the internship (I told you oil does things differently), so basically I was fired and would not be finishing my last two weeks. We finished dessert said our goodbyes and left.

To sum up, it was a very unusual eight weeks out of a possible 10. This is a world which is very difficult to understand, until you have first-hand experience of it. It’s one where the righteous and just fail, yet the corrupt and greedy thrive, a world full of so much diversity and so many characters in a delicate co-existence, a world of many prejudices but one that scarily pursues multiculturalism, one where the least clever people in the whole firm are in charge of hiring, but where those who are best for the jobs rarely get hired. It's a very, very weird world.

My advice for those wanting to pursue banking for next year is, do try and get an internship, build your own view of this world; like I said, some do thrive.

I'll also let you in on one more tiny little secret. Having networked like crazy, a surprise awaited me in my e-mail inbox this morning from the private equity woman I schmoozed from here to Kathmandu: would I be interested in taking up a grad position in New York as a merchant banker? So networking does pay, and this has flung me into a full-blown dilemma, but that's another story....

Bye-bye, everybody!

Week 6 & 7: A very good period for networking

And so Weeks 6 & 7 turned out to be carbon copies of Week 2, albeit longer and with greater opportunities to network with people from many different fields of finance, viz. merchant bankers, investment bankers, traders, exchange board members, directors…well, you get the picture.

Overall, a very good period for networking, an exercise which I did truly despise, because people who you talk to obviously know what you’re after, so it's all very awkward. Don't these people who we network with feel cheap? Because the sole reason we pretend to enjoy their company, and the way they snort like pigs when laughing, is to get something in return.

Well, that was my rant on networking. Now, for those who have waited so patiently, I will take the opportunity to answer the questions asked of me over past weeks.

Emma, Student, Wed 23 Jul 08: Finding an internship was fairly difficult, mainly because you have to have something extra over those who pursue degrees in economics and maths. One question I had to answer over and over again was, "You're studying medicine yet want to be a trader, explain?" This was often accompanied by a questioning look from the HR person. However, the fact that you are studying medicine should not be considered a negative – it gives you a whole different thinking pattern from the majority of bankers, and you have one of the largest skill sets without a massive list of extracurricular activities – the long hours, dealing with all sorts of people, the stress and the competitive nature of the medical world.

As to fitting the internship in with my degree, I must admit I plan to be a bit naughty and miss the first two weeks of term; it's a sacrifice I am willing to make for the experience.

Hello to you too, At my desk, Investment Banking / M & A, Wed 13 Aug 08: Actually, I am not Arab, half-Persian, though. The reason I'm fluent in Arabic is that I travelled the Middle East for a year. I am currently studying medicine, therefore not finished yet. As to whether I'm leaving medicine or not, watch this space and keep reading, it depends on whether I'm offered a job in banking at the end of the internship.

Commodities (oil) consulting it is all about consumption, supplies, discoveries, impacts of possible crises (eg, Georgia) and therefore advising clients on scenarios and what would be the best course to take if such and such happened at this point in time.

Weeks 4&5: This week I met a real life oil sheikh, ON HIS YACHT

And so this was the week where I stepped back from the trading floors and said "Hello!" to the genteel world of consulting. I had no idea what to expect, all I had been told by everyone from the floors was that these people were really lazy and were paid far too much for it. How wrong they were: even though these guys aren’t as profitable, their world is far more intellectually challenging than that of the salespeople or the traders.

It also helped that I moved away from the hubbub to the pleasant quarters of the consultants. It was a nice change of pace; there were corner offices, plants, fish tanks, people who spoke about something other than the job at hand, and most of all it was quiet.

I was working on a project that is featuring very heavily in the news. For obvious reasons it can't be mentioned. As a brief outline, the consultants were working on a project for an oil major, doing number crunching and liaising with various different elements of the business eg, drilling, exploration, etc to see which path is the best to take in the current situation.

Another fantastic aspect of the job is that you can sleep in the mornings, or so I thought on the first day. Come Tuesday, I was back in the office at 6am after only going home at 1am. This kind of pattern continued throughout the week.

Work-wise, consulting has given me a peek into the shady dealings of the oil world. OK, so that's an overstatement, but what it has allowed is unbridled access to the world of big oil. At one point I got so immersed in reading about a particular oil company and its dealings that I felt I was watching some MTV-style documentary about the fabulous life of oil tycoons.

This week I also met a real life oil sheikh, ON HIS YACHT (are you getting the picture about the glitzy world of consulting now?). His security staff were fairly nice, they allowed me to actually meet him when they realised I was fluent in Arabic. The yacht was amazing as well; it's a shame I was only delivering a consultation report as he required it urgently.

The week overall was a nice change of pace. However, I couldn't possibly do this permanently: it's far too boring. I need the pressure and stress of a trading floor or the accident and emergency ward to keep me going. There were actually points during the week where I dozed off and no one even noticed. The work would stimulate great academics though, people who enjoy pondering and philosophising.

To Emma, Student, Wed 23 Jul 08: I haven't forgot about you, will aim to answer your question next week.

To Currently in the Garden, Commodities: Keep up the posts, I actually look forward to reading your comments.

Until next week guys and gals, who knows where fate will take me…

Week 3: Dipping a toe into the domain of the sales sharks

And so I returned from my trip to the international office feeling very tired. Don't get me wrong, the hours as a medic are far longer, but I personally find when you're doing something that helps others, it's a lot easier to get up. Overall, the week was very positive and some of my initial judgments about those around me proved to be quite wrong.

Having had Monday off to recover, it was back to work on Tuesday. I sat down at my desk and was given my first project, a sales task, consisting of testing the reaction of airlines to a new product created by structurers that could possibly help them hedge their future needs better. This meant a move to a new desk for the week, and joining the sales sharks as a small fish in the big blue ocean.

It felt like I was stepping into a completely different world. Placed far from my desk in the trading world, in the middle of the inane sales chatter, I was assigned a new mentor – this time an associate. He seemed nice enough, but was always attempting to juggle speaking on 10 phones at the same time. Although he was more than happy to answer any super-urgent questions, we didn’t really get to talk properly until we went for lunch at the end of the week.

Another thing to note about this side of the floor is that if you have difficulty tackling more than seven tasks at once and can’t concentrate with a lot of different conversations in the background, then sales is definitely not for you.

By the end of the week, however, my opinion about sales had changed considerably: it's an amazing job. Sales is all about explaining products to clients, not giving too much away but knowing your product thoroughly, building rapports, and then accompanying the senior sales people on business lunches with some of the most important people in the world of oil and gas.

The cliché goes that traders spend big and live fast. From what I've gathered, salespeople spend sensibly, and live sensibly (they just don't feel they have as much to prove), and that too is on the company expenses.

It also seems that this side of the business is a lot more multicultural, and with far more women, and it's a lot more supportive. The people are happier and seem to be mentally stronger – including the younger grads – whereas the young traders are all very insecure and the older traders are on their third or fourth marriage and still having problems.

I think sales staff are more like lions than sharks. They would sell their mother if it produced a hefty profit, they smell weakness quickly and will get rid of it, they will tear to shreds anyone who encroaches on their territory…but they do look after their own and work very effectively as a team.

To Derivative Sales, Derivatives, Sun 13 Jul 08: I hope that answers your post about how I now view the salespeople. Although they do still provide me with entertaining comments, the best ones you get to hear when you're deep in their world. Favourite this week…

Young salesperson 1 (having received an email about a charity darts event): Do you want to go to this charity event?

Young salesperson 2 (peering over at screen, then shuddering): Urgh, isn't darts something they play up north?

Until next week, guys and gals, who knows what I'll be doing then?

Week 2: One intern arrived in the family chauffeured car. Another decided to take the family jet.

And so I flew out to our international head office bright and early on a Monday morning. It was nice to be given an all-expenses-paid trip abroad, but in actuality I didn't do anything constructive. Let me explain.

We arrived at the airport quite early on Monday, all having to make our own way there. I expected the others to arrive pretty much same way I did (bus, train, tube, etc) and looking like they'd been through an F5 tornado. How wrong I was.

Student recruited by nepotism 1 (SRN1) arrived in the family chauffeured car. Even better was SRN2, who decided to take the family jet and would meet us there. I wouldn't normally include such information, but I'm trying to make it clear how much I actually differ from the others.

The flight was nice enough: business class. However, SRN1 seemed very disappointed and paid to be upgraded at check-in, so I only saw him when we got off the plane. This however paved the way for me to sit next to a fellow medic, albeit a very qualified one (he was a consultant) and I began to get the distinct impression that maybe the world of investment banking isn't for me.

We got to our destination and again the hotel was nice enough, but SRN1 felt it was too shabby for him and went elsewhere (I'm starting to think he doesn't like me). SRN2 stayed and we decided to tour the sights and sounds of what this place has to offer.

After the initial interesting start to the week on Monday, the rest of the week was quite boring. We met the other interns, mostly in the mould of SRN1 & 2, just with their own countries’ individual twists (I'm starting to think maybe I was hired as a diversity ploy), and we had endless networking events.

The networking was interesting at first. But after a while, you begin to realise how materialistic everyone is. Now I’m not stupid, I knew how material this world was way before, and I thought I wanted to be a part of it, but now I think maybe I don’t - the financial rewards can never match the rewards of a career in medicine.

I hope this answers the post from Currently in the Garden, Commodities, Tue 08 Jul 08 about fulfillment. We have very different filters on life, and what you see as fulfilling is not what I see, and there lies the confusion between us.

Week 1: I wasn't expecting to be amazed, I just thought it would be more fulfilling than this

And so began the internship, bright and early on a Monday morning at 7am. After the endless banking milkround, interviews and assessment centres, I finally gained a position on a world renowned commodities trading desk. However, the build-up produced possibly the biggest anti-climax in my life. I wasn't expecting to be amazed, nor was I disillusioned as to what happens on the trading floors, I just thought it would be more fulfilling than this.

Monday morning consisted of meeting the other interns. This was quite amusing: whoever argues that the world of banking recruitment is fair, would have been completely dismayed at this meet and greet. But I won’t focus on the obvious nepotism of the recruiters here as any discussion forum will say the same.

Individually, we were then shuffled along to our chosen desks, mine: oil & gas. Here I got to meet the team and my mentor, an MD who is one of the greatest things about this internship. He gave me a huge report produced by our research department to read through, giving an overview of the current state of the market. We then tested out my login and password, and I was given a quick rundown on how to use the various software packages, allowing me to be home free by 4'o clock.

Tuesday was when the real fun started: my desk was next to my mentor. I thought this was a great location until I realised I was in the last row of traders before the great big ocean full of sharks; SALES! Becoming accustomed to their endless nonsense, lunch plans, foul-mouthed obscenities and silly questions was a task in itself (for example, Young Salesperson: "Why does Nelson Mandela get a party in his honour in Hyde Park? What's he ever done?" (Thankfully, one of the senior salespeople answered this before he got too hyperactive.)

I can’t really start my projects yet, so am being given odd jobs here and there by everyone. The most interesting and time consuming so far was finding the trader who hadn't been entering in his trades properly. Turns out he wasn't of Jérôme Kerviel's ilk, just someone who had trouble with a Gregorian calendar.

Next week I am off to our international head office, where I get to meet the global interns, so my diary post will be delayed. Worry not, though: in the immortal words of the Terminator, "I'll be back."

Should you have any questions, post them on the discussion boards and I shall try to incorporate them into my postings. And I leave you with the advice given to me by my mentor on my first day: "Should you have a question, I'd rather you ask me, be humble and understand the right concept than be quick, show off and be completely wrong. That does neither of us any good."