Happy Holidays!
My best wishes for a wonderful and peaceful holiday season and new year.
If you are looking for great books to read over the break, here are my five top favorites to help prepare for rigorous finance interviews. These selections cover a variety of essential topics, such as employer target lists, networking, diligence, discipline, positivity, technical skills and an understanding of global issues. I am a huge fan of all of these authors and regularly use their books and tips in my own work, in one-on-one student appointments, the LYGC course, interview workshops and coffee chats. I hope you are as inspired by their words as I have been.
Happy Reading!
Jennifer
The 2-Hour Job Search: Using Technology to Get the Right Job FASTER by Steve Dalton
I consider this book a must-read on how to conduct an efficient and effective job search. Students often express frustration that they send out hundreds of online job applications but don’t receive any responses. The problem with this approach is that it is not an organized one. As Steve Dalton, Program Director and Senior Career Consultant at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, writes, “although it’s easier than ever before to find jobs, why does it now seem so much harder to actually get one? It is now far more difficult for employers to pick out the few interesting applicants from the massive new influx of casual applicants.” Given the growth of online job postings coupled with an extremely talented pool of job candidates, both domestic and international, it is essential to conduct an organized and disciplined job search. This book tells you how to do just that and is widely used by business schools around the country.
GRIT: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
Finance industry practitioners often speak about the importance of grit and being “gritty”. Of not giving up when things don’t go according to plan, of resilience, and creative, out-of-the box thinking. Having observed this trait among so many successful people throughout my career, I couldn’t agree more. Angela Duckworth, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and Founder/CEO of the Character Lab, has spent years studying what makes people successful and has distilled her findings into her famous GRIT equation:
Talent x Effort = Skill
Skill x Effort = Achievement
She defines grit as, “passion and perseverance for long-term goals.” As her GRIT equation highlights, talent counts once and effort (grit) counts twice in determining achievement, and its impact is multiplicative. Bottom line: Effort matters, and it pays off big time when preparing for job interviews, career fairs, and networking opportunities. Employers are quick to notice a well-prepared job applicant. Angela’s book gives numerous, highly readable examples of grit across industries, and importantly, gives specific advice on how you can grow your own grit. Highly recommend!
The Happiness Advantage: How a Positive Brain Fuels Success in Work and Life by Shawn Achor
Students may be tired of hearing my mantra that, “soft skills are as important as hard skills in the finance industry.” One soft skill, the ability to connect with clients, colleagues or in networking situations, is priceless, and employers look for this trait when interviewing job candidates. A related soft skill is positivity. People like happy people…joy is contagious. I can remember countless times throughout my career when situations or markets were bleak, and stress levels were high. Often, to diffuse a situation, someone would crack a joke or say, “I’m doing a burger run, who’s in?” Nods, smiles, the odd, “oh yeah” went a long way to letting the air out of the balloon.
Now, it can be hard to maintain a positive, happy-go-lucky attitude when you’ve been rejected from (quite possibly) hundreds of dream employers. It’s natural to start to feel desperate or low. However, it is vital to maintain and project positivity, especially in that next job interview. As a colleague once told me, at all times, you have to act like a duck, gliding along above the water while paddling furiously beneath.
Shawn Achor spent twelve years at Harvard and is one of the world’s leading experts on the connection between happiness and success. His research in the field of positive psychology, specifically, that happiness fuels success and not the other way around, is especially important during these trying pandemic times. Find what makes YOU happy and success will follow. I love this book and have laughed through his TED talk several times. In both, he gives specific tips on how to increase your positivity and consequently, improve your mindset. Two thumbs up!
The Handbook of Fixed Income Securities, Ninth Edition, edited by Frank Fabozzi, Steve Mann
Quite simply, THE BOMB, as we used to say way back when. Don’t let the 3.5 pound weight or almost 2,000 pages deter you. If you are considering a career in fixed income, derivatives, risk, sales and trading, analysis, or portfolio management, this book needs to be part of your library. The authors’ ability to simplify complicated material is beyond compare. There’s a reason why their books are included in the CFA curriculum and used in business schools around the world. Worth the investment.
The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions by Jeffrey Sachs
I was first introduced to the writings of Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development, in graduate school and was immediately drawn in by his writing style and ability to bring economic and finance topics to life. I have been a fan ever since. Most finance interviews require job candidates to be familiar with an employer’s ESG and DEI initiatives as well as with real-world, macro issues. Job candidates should always look at an employer’s website to see what an employer is doing on these fronts so that they can, not only converse intelligently during an interview but also, determine if the employer’s initiatives resonate with them. In a competitive interview process however, employers often look for applicants who go the extra mile and show a deeper, macro understanding of critical global issues. Jeffrey Sachs’ library of books is extensive, covering wide-ranging topics such as poverty, public health, sustainability, wealth, and trade, and provides a firm foundation to understand and analyze these issues. I am looking forward to reading his latest, The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions, over the break.
Jennifer Voldins is Associate Director, Career Strategies MSF Career Coach at Brandeis International Business School.
