Dave Liu

The Way of the Wall Street Warrior


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the other. Don't be the ignoramus. Make certain you control your own particulars, rather than some A-hole ex-boss or professor who thought you were too big for your britches. This is another reason why you should scrub your LinkedIn. An ex-boyfriend might have linked to you in the past because at the time you were BFFs—although on Wall Street we prefer the term Asshole Buddies because nothing is forever. But now you're foes, and largely through your own laziness, that enemy is now available as a reference for any prospective employer to find. There's nothing like a backchannel reference to torpedo your chances faster than a German U-boat. So get ahead of it and know what they will say—or better yet, delink them from your network!

      Key Takeaways

       Interviews are unreliable and risky due to interviewer illusion.

       Prospective employers try to find reasons NOT to hire you.

       Social media is where your youthful hijinks can hijack your career.

       Scrub all of your social media accounts like leprotic calluses on gangrenous feet.

       Practice the TMZ Test: Never post anything you wouldn't want on the front page.

       Due to asymmetry of information, interviewers try hard to fill the gaps.

       Delink bad backchannel references easily discoverable on social media.

      1 1 You obviously did lie, because you have a dirty mind and don't even know that a coxswain is the person who steers the shell of a boat and is the on-the-water coach for a rowing crew.

      In preparation for interviews, ask your close friends and colleagues what they thought of you at first contact. What were their brutally honest first impressions? Maybe your friend from kindergarten remembers you running around without pants. Or another remembers how you were sullen and listened to Billie Eilish on repeat. Regardless, ask only for the bad, or the things you need to improve. You probably already know what's great about yourself, but we're often oblivious to what makes us less than perfect.

      Why is it so important to understand people's first impressions of you? It's not just that you want to put your best foot forward (and lock your worst foot in a safe room). People tend to hire those who are like themselves. It's all part of the field of cognitive bias, a discipline that uses psychology to explain why people make decisions, usually irrational ones. This field includes affinity bias—a concept that explains why employers tend to hire people who look like them and have similar beliefs and backgrounds.

      On Wall Street, there is a phrase, “Don't fight the tape.” It means not to trade against the market. If stocks are rising, don't sell. Obviously, this can be shite investment advice, but it's a useful maxim when you're first trying to get in the door on a job or a deal. So go with the flow, study the heck out of the companies, and try to determine their organizational biases. You may surprise yourself with what you can do to appeal to their affinity biases.

      Memorizing facts won't be enough. Look for any media, especially spin, about the firm. What do they claim about equal opportunity? Do they really just worship the dollar? Any disgruntled employees writing tell-all exposés? Any movie a thinly disguised parody of your employer of choice? Any alumni rotting behind bars?

      On Wall Street, it's a given to work insane hours with bosses yelling down your neck for you to be at your desk the next morning at 6 a.m. to prepare for the unexpected. Your boss will be rolling in at 10 a.m., so that will give you plenty of time to prepare a 100-page report. Are you really ready for that? Do you think your interviewer will tell you, “Our company is awesome,” while blinking “RUN!” in Morse code? In short, know what you're getting into (or out of, in case you don't get the job or if you're offered a much better one and can tell them to bugger off).

      At this point, just being knowledgeable about the staff lineup will help you wordsmith your cover letter. Find out who will be interviewing you and try to ferret out everything you can about the person. Troll them on the company's website, LinkedIn, Facebook, and anywhere you can get a sense of who these people are. What are their interests? Are they Dodgers fans, or do they prefer polo? Maybe you have mutual acquaintances. If so, don't hesitate to name-drop shamelessly.

      Most important, try to determine the biases your interviewer might have that could prevent you from being hired. Conversely, think about possible biases that will help bolster your case to get you on the fast track. Biases cloud human judgment, so crack the code and use them to your advantage. I've been stereotyped all my life: Asian American males are super-good at math, have Confucian hierarchies etched into their psyches, and work crazy hard because, other than their mothers, women don't find them attractive so they don't waste time dating. So if somehow I slip it in during our interview that I'm a workhorse math wiz (even if I'm not), I'm 1000 percent dedicated to my career, and I'm a total Yes Man, then I won't have to do much selling. I'll simply be confirming a bias that probably already exists with my interviewer and she will see me as being worth my weight in gold.

      “Don't stop with the obvious,” Chris tells his students. “If you're making a career switch, see who took a similar path as you did. If you're into unicycling, find the other unicyclists.”

      Students need to understand how the game is played. On Wall Street, for example, some firms hire by organizing into school-based teams. If you're not from one of the top schools, you'll need to try harder, but at Morgan Stanley, for example, they had teams of employees made up of those with degrees from the top schools, so they had a Wharton team, a Harvard team, a Columbia team, etc. They're made up of alumni, responsible for reviewing the resumes and setting up interviews from their alma mater. It's just part of employers’ leveraging affinity. They're also able to suss out the BS pronto, since they know which classes were gut classes and which were the real ones. They'll know which are better indicators of job performance. For instance, at Wharton, a C in Fixed Income Securities carries more weight than an A in Responsibility in Business.

      Key