Hi Jackie! Thank you for taking time to speak with Investment Society today. Could you please tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name is Jackie. I graduated in 2020, you know, a great year to graduate in. I was an Econ major and Math minor. When I first started out in college, I wanted to get a PhD in economics, so for the first two years of my college career, my internship experience and courses were more geared towards research. I gained a lot of valuable skills through this process, but I gradually realized that I wanted to do something that has more immediate business impacts. I interned at Search Fund Accelerator for my Junior year summer, which is similar to a niche private equity firm. I enjoyed the internship very much, but I missed the quantitative research aspect, and I did want to explore more options for a long-term career as well. I joined MassMutual’s corporate strategy team in July 2020, in a rotational program called iMMerse – which involves data research, strategy consulting, as well as mergers and acquisitions. I've actually just started my third rotation in M&A.
How did you decide to pivot from research to working in the industry?
Like I mentioned, I really wanted to see immediate results of my work. For example, during my first-year summer, I conducted field surveys as part of a long-term research program that tracks time use and household finance in China. It was cool to be involved in such meaningful work, but it’s potentially decades of data collection and analysis that maybe leads to some policy recommendation. I gained massive respect for the researchers, but unfortunately, I am not a patient enough person to do that in the long run. Working in the industry allowed me to create immediate impact through research and analysis, and I get to own my fast-paced projects, which is rather satisfying.
How is your experience at MassMutual as an analyst? What was the recruitment process like for that?
I don’t know if it’s the same for this year due to the uncertainty caused by Covid. For my year, MassMutual hosted a series of events including an analyst panel, a brief talk on investment banking, private equity, and consulting from the head of our group Aaron Miller (who has had experience across these sectors), and a case interview workshop. Try to attend as many of these as you can so you get a better sense of the team and the work we do. After an initial resume scan, you get chosen for an on-campus interview by three to four team leads and Aaron Miller, who give you back-to-back interviews. These are mostly standard management consulting case interviews but do be prepared to talk about your internship experiences too.
Could you elaborate on your experience at your search fund internship? How did you find your first finance-related internship?
For those of you who don’t know, a search fund is a niche investment vehicle where typically an MBA graduate sources a company, acquires it as part of the search fund’s portfolio, and becomes the CEO and manages the company for the rest of his or her career. Similar to a typical private equity firm, our sourcing channels included both proprietary and broker-dealer. Sourcing involved reading market reports and squeezing brain juice for industry pitches, which was challenging but also a great opportunity to get a quick glimpse of very diverse businesses. If your Searcher identifies a company that he or she wants to establish a conversation with, then you may enter an IOI. If that company proves to be very interesting, then you enter an LOI, which is an exclusive IOI and maybe you'll get to do an LBO model down the road. It's always really exciting work and definitely a good practice for IB or PE. I think the thing I liked most about SFA in particular is that the searchers come from very diverse backgrounds, so it's not like they're all ex-bankers or ex-fund managers. There are people who used to work in tech and there are people who used to work in operations and there were also a couple of ex-engineers, ex-lawyers, so they're all really fun to talk to. SFA really encourages coffee chats so I literally had a chance to grab coffee with all the Searchers when I was interning there. I got to know of the company through a friend who interned at SFA the previous summer, and she had a lot of good things to say about her experience and recommended that I apply.
How did you decide which sector in finance that you want to work in full-time?
That's a great question and that actually brings me back to talking about my rotational program. iMMerse is honestly a great choice for someone who is still not sure what they want to do for a long-term career. For these rotations, you actually get practice in Econ Consulting, Equity Research, Management Consulting and Investment Banking, so you get to feel out all the different fields and receive training from industry veterans. After you “graduate” from the rotation program, you'll find yourself looking at a lot of open doors.
How was your transition from college into an environment where you'd have to work forty or more hours a week?
Wellesley could be kind of hellish. The hours weren't really better at Wellesley is what I’m trying to say, so that wasn’t actually the part that I had to adjust to. I think the part that I really, really felt like a fish out of water is having to work from home. When I was at Wellesley, I never spent time in my dorm. I'm always out either in the library or the dining hall. I’ll hang out with people and then I'll go back to my dorm for five, six hours tops everyday just to go to sleep. Now, I step out to take out the trash and that’s it. That's a really hard adjustment to make and I think it's just important to learn how to compartmentalize your own time, even if it's working from home. One really good piece of advice that one of my second-year analysts gave me was to just shut down your laptop and go take a 15-minute walk when you feel like you're not being productive anymore. Make a schedule and make yourself unavailable at times, and your managers will understand that. That's not being unproductive, it's increasing your productivity the next working session. Mentally create a class schedule, separate your science center time versus your dorm time, especially when your bed is five steps away from your work desk.
Is there any other advice that you'd like to give to students who are looking to pursue a finance career, especially to people who are trying to get their foot in the door?
My answer is that is to start early. It really does make a difference. If you're a first-year student and you know that you want to get your foot in the door to finance, then definitely start early. Companies recruit earlier and earlier every year. The last bit of junior year scramble will not be fun.
Lastly, what is your favorite hobby outside of work?
It’s got to be cooking. I know it sounds like a very boring hobby to college students since you can just go downstairs and Tower dining hall is right there. But it's part of being cooped up at home, working from home, so you got to enjoy the little things, right? Weekly Whole Foods trips allows me to cook Mexican food and Spanish food and Chinese food, etc., and it's just so much fun to recreate that dining experience for myself and my friends. If the food turns out extra aesthetic it’s also a dining experience for Instagram. I actually have been told by my friends that they like my Chinese food better than what they get at restaurants, but I'm not sure if they're saying that just because they want free food (:
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