Hi Lily! Thank you for taking time to speak with us today. Could you please tell me about yourself?
My name is Lily Wetherington and I'm originally from midcoast Maine, so not too far from here. I'm a junior, Class of 2022, purple class. I am currently studying economics and English. Outside of my internship at U.S. Bank, I actually work at Wellesley College mail services. I also did a brief internship this past spring with a real estate investment firm outside of Boston called Evolston. I had the opportunity to work on structuring two deals that ultimately led to us acquiring our first two commercial buildings, so that was really cool.
How was your experience at the U.S. Bank as a Corporate Banking Analyst? What was the recruitment process like?
I really loved my time at U.S. Bank as a corporate banking intern analyst. The recruitment process was really quick actually and a bit later than most firms, I'd say. I applied in early January of 2020, so this year, and heard back about a week and a half later. That's when we scheduled the first phone screen interview with the campus recruiter. That was basically just to go over job requirements, program logistics, walking through resumes, and all that good stuff. I actually was notified the next day that they're considering me for their second round interview, and they helped me make arrangements to take a trip to their New York office about a week later. With COVID, unfortunately I think things are different now, of course. The second round interview was pretty laid back. I spoke with two hiring managers for about 30 minutes each. The first interview was typical behavioral and cultural questions that you would see for a job like this, and then the second round was more technical. Both interviews were definitely more of a conversation than a super-strict, formal interview, which was nice and I appreciated that. The hiring managers really made all of us feel super comfortable and relatively stress-free, which is nice. My interview was on a Friday and then I actually heard back the next business day—so Monday—that they had extended an offer, which was really great. Overall, the entire process took about a month. Everyone between the recruiting process and the internship itself was super nice and I actually still talk to several of my co-workers weekly. It's very exciting to go to them with career advice and they fill me in on deals they've been working on so it's been really cool.
What did your day-to-day look like in the U.S. Bank? Could you explain what a Corporate Banking Analyst intern does?
I guess we can start off with what the corporate bank does. It is essentially just loaning money to businesses to allow them to grow. My team specifically focused on clients within the hospitality and leisure division. We were working with, for example, Delta Airlines and Royal Caribbean, but we also work in the divisions of aerospace and defense and consumer products. The types of products and services that we offer to those companies, for example, I'll just give you a couple words, like revolvers, which are essentially credit cards for large corporations and then different types of term loans, which are essentially just the specified repayment schedules. The main role of a corporate banking analyst intern, or just analysts really, is to assist the senior level bankers and your fellow analysts at this level. I was actually the only intern on the team so I was pretty intimidated at first, but the tasks that I performed are pretty standard. I was doing a lot of financial forecasting, creating credit approval documents for companies, for example, that were requesting larger revolvers. I also did some company research for prospective and current clients using the Bloomberg terminal and S&P Capital IQ. I also had the opportunity to create, what we call at the US Bank, PIBs, which were Public Information Books. Then, we used all the information within those to create pitch books for prospective clients. I also had the opportunity to do a little bit of salesforce work, which is a customer relationship management system. and we really just use that to kind of monitor deal progress and where we work and the deal, obviously. I also had the opportunity to listen to client calls and actually lead a research project on environmental, social, and governance topics around our clients. We also call that ESG, which I think is a topic that's really top of mind for companies right now. Outside of those tasks, I helped the analysts and bankers with whatever they may need. Of course it was virtual because of coronavirus, but it was definitely an overall really good experience. In terms of the day-to-day, it honestly is a mix of everything that I listed. Things will pop up randomly but I think a typical shift was around eight-to-five or eight-to-six and then a couple of days just really depends on what fields we're working on that week or that month. Some of the days got to anywhere between 12 and 16 hours, so it really depends on what's going on.
How was your experience at Evolston and what was the recruitment process like for that?
Evolston is actually a very new firm so they're not—I’ll be completely honest with you—they're not very well established. They are currently working on their third and fourth deals right now so they're very, very small. They are a Babson college startup. It was a great internship, but ultimately, that was because I knew a lot of the people that were there and I was super interested in real estate itself. Full disclosure: no recruitment process here, just because I already knew most of the people but I got some really great experience using customer relationship management systems like salesforce that we used at the U.S. Bank. At Evolston, we use a different one called Nutshell. I also helped doing smaller tasks like creating vacancy reports and potential deals and the market trends in Boston at the time, earlier this spring. I was also working with the two guys calling and emailing brokers and investors. Ultimately smaller tasks, but still equally as good of an experience, just a bit of a difference with different firms.
What did your day-to-day look like in Evolston?
Of course, it varies, but something that was really cool that I also do is actually go on tours with the owners. That was really cool just because I don't come from anything relating to real estate as well as finance, but in this particular instance, real estate. It was cool to be able to go and see the different aspects of what they thought made a good building or a good investment or something that they would want to take on essentially. A lot of this was done after school so it wasn't a huge time commitment. just calling and scheduling times for the brokers and investors to have these monthly or weekly meetings, whatever it may be with the owners, and just doing a little research here and there. Nothing too time intensive, but definitely equally as cool as an experience.
What skills or qualities do you think are necessary to succeed in the role you were in?
I think a lot of people are focused on getting these hard technical skills coming into a role as an intern. I'm going to be completely honest; I don't think that those are necessary and the reason being that at this point in your career, people are more looking for “Are you curious?” and “Do you have the drive?” Specifically for the U.S. Bank, they want somebody who's going to be willing to put in the long hours as well as take control of your learning. Obviously you're not going to know all of the terminology going into your first finance internship, but asking questions is really important to figure out what you don't understand. If you have some downtime, going to Investopedia or Google or whatever resource you think is best for figuring out these terminology and stuff is definitely important. At U.S. Bank specifically, people want to see you succeed and if you're succeeding, you're adding value to their company. Showing you have a genuine curiosity, you have drive, you're not afraid to do things a little differently, you're not afraid to ask questions about why they're doing something that way, and you're just in general not afraid to speak up—I think that those skills and those qualities are, at this point in your career, going to make much more of a difference than if you are just able to say like, “Oh, I know how to use Excel”, for example.
How and when did you know you wanted to pursue something in finance? How did you spend your previous summers?
To be completely honest, I really had no idea what finance or banking was before I came to Wellesley. My dad was a carpenter and my mom was a hairdresser so all I ever really known is like the trades and services industry, which is fine, but I didn't really know anything other than that. I really thought that I may want to pursue a career in finance as I started taking a few econ classes at Wellesley. Also during that time, I actually had the pleasure of meeting the former head of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve and current chairman of Citigroup. That's when he recommended that, with the econ background, with a math background, you could still get into finance. We explored options together which was really nice. The full experience with U.S. Bank was the deciding factor for me and then I knew I wanted to pursue a career in finance. A simple answer but I would definitely say doing an internship can change your perspective. Since this experience, I know for sure now that this is something that I want to do. Going back to previous summers, I spent the summer after freshman year working at hotels in housekeeping. I also worked at Corey Hills, which is an elderly community, in their restaurant as a waitstaff. Nothing finance related at all, but I will say that it definitely teaches you the value of good education and the places that it can take you, and how to effectively communicate with others. So not necessarily finance related, but definitely transferable skills that you can use within finance.
How did you find your first internship? Is there any advice you would give to students who are just starting out in finance?
I would say that I was a little late to the game in applying to the finance internships just because I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do at that point in time, quite honestly. I found my internship with U.S. Bank by simply doing a quick Google search, but part of the school advice aspect of this question is that I would definitely recommend checking out Handshake, which is something that Wellesley mostly uses. Also LinkedIn jobs can be really really helpful. If those two fail, do your research and use Google to help you find companies whose values align with yours and just apply directly through their website. Going a little deeper into this advice portion is that never doubt yourself and, honestly, I think the biggest hurdle is just applying. In terms of not doubting yourself I would say don't do it because companies, and banks specifically, now more than ever are recruiting talent with diverse backgrounds and thoughts. Traditionally financial institutions always looked for those target schools with finance programs, but that's not the way that it is anymore. Financial institutions really value the liberal arts education because students bring fresh, new perspectives. They also know that if the person that they're hiring is hardworking and dedicated, they can teach you the hard skills that you need to survive in the fast-paced environment that is banking. Jobs in corporate banking, and even more so investment banking, are highly competitive, so be sure to get your applications in early. Make sure that you're applying to companies that you love, obviously, but cast your net wide when searching for companies that you want to work for. If you're only focusing on JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, you're up against thousands of kids who want the same job so don't be afraid to look at other companies as well. I'm sure you've probably heard the famous “You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.” My dad taught me this since I was young, and I think it's really true. If you never apply to the job, you're never going to know if you could have gotten it. If you get rejected, take it as a learning opportunity. Don't get stuck on it, go past it and take the skills and work on them and apply them to the next opportunity. The moral of the story would just be to do your research and apply and don't be afraid to get after it.
Is there any other advice that you would like to share with students who are looking into pursuing a finance career?
You need to network. Reaching out to employees—and even more specifically Wellesley alums—at the companies that you want to work for is super, super important. Personally, I've used LinkedIn. I know you can also use the Wellesley Hive too but I think those are both great tools for doing so. With the LinkedIn connection requests, always remember to send a personalized message when sending a request to connect with somebody. Don't be afraid to reach out. I found that—this might be terrible to say—but most people love talking about themselves and their experiences, and therefore they really don't have a problem talking to those who want to learn from them. Most of the time they are going to be willing to talk about their experiences, but also I'd say that if these people are in your area, ask them to get coffee. If you don't live near them, shoot them an email and request to do an informational interview over the phone. Make sure you're asking questions you really want to know the answer to and be yourself. Another piece of advice piggybacking off of that is ask a silly or fun question at the end, just to get to know them better. I also think it lightens the mood. I think some people may say that it's a little unprofessional but my thought process is that it's going to provide you more of an opportunity to connect with somebody personally. So my go-tos are usually, “What are you currently reading?” and “If you were a Microsoft Office program, what would you be?” I think it tells a lot about the person and you just get to connect with them on a different level. I remember one time I was talking to a woman, and she asked me the question back to me, “What are you reading?”, and it was cool because I was actually reading Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell at the time. She had also read the book so it was nice because we had a conversation and connected over that. Definitely connecting and networking with people, you are going to learn a lot about them as a person, but also their company culture, and if they have a job in a role that you're interested in, you can really tell if it's a good fit for yourself.
Lastly, what is your favorite hobby outside of work and academics?
I will give you a serious one and then a funny one too. Over quarantine, I actually picked up archery, which has been really fun. But I guess a little more silly is that I really enjoy making YouTube videos. I specifically make them on my experience at Wellesley. It's fun because I also get to connect with some of the prospies. They will send me messages on Instagram asking about it so it's been really fun.
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