This Week on The Floor

We’ve had dozens of you reach out this past week saying you’ve got your Super Days coming up fast!

We’ve got a secret weapon to help you nail the technical interview questions.

In this exclusive video masterclass, Kristen walks you through the top five technical concepts you need to master if you want to ace your Investment Banking or Private Equity interview.

And in the article below, we give you our top four tips for converting your super day into a full time offer.

• Brush up on the latest market moving news

• Top 4 tips for converting your Super Day into a full time offer

• Week 3 of learning to read the financial news

• Don’t forget to subscribe to our new podcast, an unofficial companion to HBO Max’s hit show INDUSTRY

Markets Recap / Deal News

Interviewing this week? Here’s some content for your conversation.

How do I ace my SUPER DAY?

A lot of you who are interviewing for full-time jobs are gearing up for your Super Days right now.

What’s a Super Day?

It’s basically speed-dating from hell, and the prize is a job offer.

It’s a part of your interview cycle — often your penultimate or even final round of interviews — where you’ll have anywhere from 4 to 10 back-to-back interviews with one firm. 

Back in my day these were held at the firm’s offices, but increasingly these may take place over Zoom or at an off-site location.

Super Days can be grueling.  

A successful interview, for most people, feels like a huge expenditure of energy. This is like sprinting a mile — you have to keep your energy high and wits sharp over an extended period of time, facing off against multiple different personalities and varying levels of seniority.

Here are our top tips for a successful Super Day:

1)  They hate it too.  

Remember, your interviewer probably dislikes this as much as you do. They’ve been pulled away in the middle of their work day. They’re tired. They probably don’t actually want to be there. 

If you can make this conversation FUN for them, they will be infinitely more predisposed to liking you. Smile. Show your sense of humor. THANK them early and often (don’t forget to send a “thank you” email within 24 hours!). Friendly energy matters a ton here. 

2)  Don’t get too big for your britches.

The person interviewing you may not work on the specific desk you think you’re interviewing for. Or maybe they are only a first year analyst. THEIR OPINION STILL MATTERS. You need buy-in from as many different perspectives up, down, and across the firm as possible to support a full time offer. 

If you’re interested in the Financial Sponsors Group, but your interviewer works in say, the Consumer Retail Group, build a bridge by asking questions about their role. You might say “I’ve always gravitated most towards FSG for xyz reasons, but this recent LBO of a consumer/retail company really made me more curious to understand more about the sector. What’s your role like and how does it differ from the roles I’ve been drawn to? How often do the desks interact and in what capacity?”

3)  You’re gonna blow one of the interviews. 

Be prepared to have at least one interviewer that you simply do not click with. Maybe you get an answer to a question wrong. Remember: you’re sprinting a mile. You’re not going to have a PR split on each and every lap around the track. Recover quickly from your mistakes and do not linger on them (even though you’ll inevitably replay that interaction 1,000x over in your head). Don’t make excuses. 

If 7 out of 8 interviewers thought you were fantastic, and the 8th just thought you were “meh”, you’re likely fine. People tend to go with the flow if they don’t have a reason to strongly object. Just don’t give that 8th interviewer a reason to leap up in the meeting and say “ANYONE BUT that CANDIDATE!!”

4)  Get them talking about themselves.

Be sure to ask as many thoughtful questions specific to the interviewer and specific to the firm as possible. Not only do people love talking about themselves, but these conversations will be far more memorable than the 10th candidate who answered “how does $10 worth of depreciation flow through the three financial statements?”.

And as much as they’re interviewing you — you are interviewing them. If you absolutely despise everyone you meet during your Super Day, that should tell you something about the firm. Maybe you don’t want to work there as much as you thought. 

On the flipside, these interviews are where initial connections can be forged that may last your whole career. Someone might be scoping you out as a hire directly onto their desk. The person you’re speaking with might be your future lifelong mentor. If you enter with a spirit of looking to build those connections, you are likely to have a far better outcome than simply trying to get it over with as quickly as possible.

Public launches new 6.5% yielding Bond Account

All-in-one investing platform Public recently launched its new Bond Account, offering a new way to invest in corporate bonds and take advantage of some of the highest bond yields in years. When you invest your cash in a Bond Account, you can lock in a 6.5%* yield with a diversified portfolio of investment-grade and high-yield bonds that generate 20 interest payments annually. Unlike other investing platforms, many of which charge $10,000+ to invest in just one bond, Public allows you to get started with as little as $1,000. Plus, you can continue earning a 6.5%* yield, even if the Fed continues to cut rates.

Discover a new way to invest in bonds and lock in a 6.5% with a Bond Account on Public.

Lock in your 6.5% yield.

See disclosures at end of newsletter.

This Week in the Markets

We’re helping you learn to read the financial news.

Last week, we asked you to pick ONE PRODUCT and track its movement throughout the week.

This week, we want to track that same product over the course of 7 days again, with the following wrinkle:

On paper Day 1, decide whether you are going to buy or sell it. And not a retail clip of $1,000 or something — assume minimum institutional size of something like $1,000,000 worth. It’s important to get used to thinking in larger numbers.

Track that purchase or sale over the course of the next week, and calculate how much money you made or lost.

Forget financing/borrow costs for now — that’s next week’s problem :).

Good luck!

Public Disclosures

*This yield is the average, annualized yield to worst (YTW) across all ten bonds in the Bond Account, before fees, as of 10/02/2024. Because the YTW of each bond is a function of that bond’s market price, which can fluctuate, your yield at time of purchase may be different from the yield shown here and your YTW is not “locked in” until the time of purchase. A bond’s YTW is not guaranteed; you can earn less than that YTW if you do not hold the bonds to maturity or the issuer defaults.

A Bond Account is a self-directed brokerage account with Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Deposits into this account are used to purchase 10 investment-grade and high-yield bonds. The 6.6% yield is the average, annualized yield to worst (YTW) across all ten bonds in the Bond Account, before fees, as of 10/02/2024. A bond’s yield is a function of its market price, which can fluctuate; therefore a bond’s YTW is not “locked in” until the bond is purchased, and your yield at time of purchase may be different from the yield shown here. The “locked in” YTW is not guaranteed; you may receive less than the YTW of the bonds in the Bond Account if you sell any of the bonds before maturity or if the issuer defaults on the bond. Public Investing charges a markup on each bond trade. See our Fee Schedule.

Bond Accounts are not recommendations of individual bonds or default allocations. The bonds in the Bond Account have not been selected based on your needs or risk profile. You should evaluate each bond before investing in a Bond Account.  The bonds in your Bond Account will not be rebalanced and allocations will not be updated, except for Corporate Actions.

 Fractional Bonds also carry additional risks including that they are only available on Public and cannot be transferred to other brokerages. Read more about the risks associated with fixed income and fractional bonds. See Bond Account Disclosures to learn more.

 While corporate bond yields should fall in reaction to a Federal Reserve rate cut, we cannot know whether that will be true of the bonds in the Bond Account, how quickly bond yields will respond, or how much they will decline.

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