I hit the professional jackpot 3.5 years ago when I, having zero working knowledge of the capital markets, interviewed for and got the job I had up until yesterday. I was a college senior, disenchanted by the cut-throat competitive nature of the pre-med track (which I finished but not without causing irreparable damage to my grade point average) when I dropped my resume in my college's corporate recruiting platform. It was pretty heart-breaking at first, receiving rejection e-mail after rejection e-mail... my "subpar" GPA and lack of relevant internship (my internships had always involved a lab-coat and safety glasses) put me out of the running for most consulting, investment banking, entry-level rotational business-analyst jobs. It was beyond a miracle that I was able to secure an investment analyst position at all, much less score the truly incredible learning experience that mine turned out to be.
Yesterday was the final day of my three-year analyst program, and I wanted to write this blog post to sort out my storm of feelings, and to address a question that a friend once posed, which had burning at the back of my mind for months.
How do I feel about leaving? Well, the most pressing/superficial feeling is sad. I am leaving an organization that has a mission I truly believe in (quite frankly, yes, investment firms can have great missions, outside of making high compensation for senior partners), teams of intelligent, hardworking people whose company I enjoy, and venues for learning that I can't find anywhere else. I am also leaving Boston, a city that I love and consider home. I'll address the latter in a separate post.
But I also feel grateful, relieved, wiser, and excited. I am grateful for so much that my former employer endowed me. Beyond a salary, my job gave me a comprehensive set of skills - quantitative, analytical, interpersonal. Many jobs do that - but my job also helped me develop a "J-factor" skill -- an ability to analyze and deal with unexpected happenings. During my tenure, we had a major asset class (and personnel) reorganization, where my initial group was split into two, and I suddenly found myself in the group of investments that I understood the least. I had to learn to learn. My portfolio manager was kind and patient, meeting with me one-on-one, assigning me a teaching mentor, and bestowing advice from her 15+ years of investment experience. One piece of advice I still take with me today is being flexible in how I learn. There is a time and place for learning academically, but often in investments, one must learn iteratively. It's hard to explain, and it is something I still work on, but it's based on the premise that you might conduct analysis or read an article, understanding just 50% of it. But then you do another project, using the 50% you already know plus what you've learned from the first project, to learn more. Then you can revisit the initial article/project/whatever and you'll realize you didn't understand something before but now do because of the incremental knowledge from the second. See? told you it's hard to explain. But it is very effective. Also in J-factor land, we have had some troublesome investments -- all high-return generative investment portfolios inevitably do, as return is compensation for risk. Dealing with those have prepared me to not be phased by smaller dilemmas.
I am very grateful for the opportunities that my former employer opened up for me. As I mentioned before, I found myself facing so many closed doors in college. My shot GPA, irrelevant major, seeming lack of interest (because of my unrelated internships) precluded me from the offers in finance that my friends received. This time, though, my former employer's strong brand reputation in the investment world, well-known high-quality investment process, and great network of individuals meant that I had a set of master keys to open any door I wanted. The tables were totally turned. I was also in the enviable position of being able to consult openly with my group about my job search, because it was a fixed-time-period program. My PM, mentor, and other senior analysts were able to act as references for me, and gave me feedback on their impressions of the firms I was considering joining as my next venture.
I also feel relieved, believe it or not, despite having no income for the next week, until I start my new position. For the first time in a long time, I do not feel the loom of impending deadlines. I took my sweet time relishing in everyday tasks: doing the dishes for 30 minutes straight, folding/packing clothes for a couple hours, sweeping/cleaning/making the bed with more meticulousness than I have in a long, long time. I'm having a great time!
I feel wiser having learned the methods of my mentors' madness, so to speak. The senior folks in my group did not have one way of doing things...even for the same person across different tasks, if you know what I mean. But you know, consistency is not a characteristic of alpha opportunities - dislocation is... and that requires thinking in not-so-ordinary, not-so-routine ways.
Finally, I am freakin' excited! While I am saying goodbye to a job I enjoyed, a firm I loved, and a city I called home... I am also welcoming into my life another exciting job, in Manhattan! I have wanted to live in New York City since the first time I saw the famous skyline from Liberty Park, a mere couple of weeks after my family moved to New Jersey. Nearly 2 decades later, that is finally happening.
So what does all of this have to do with nut farmers? Well hold your horses, I'm getting there! My PM kindly took me and the team out for lunch to celebrate my departure. We got to talking about people at the firm who have pursued other careers ... completely unrelated to investment management. In this conversation, I was reminded of another conversation that I had had with one of my college friends, who had seen me push my way through MCAT preparations, pre-med courses, and various chemistry internships. We had been talking about the real-world recruiting process, and at the time I hadn't yet accepted my offer at the firm that I am now joining in a week. I had commented about having dual passions. Sure, chemistry had not panned out into the career I thought it would be -- if you had asked 5 years ago, I would have said that even if I could not go to medical school, I would want to continue my science education, and perhaps get a PhD in chemistry to be a researcher -- but my career now is exactly right for me. I can still pursue my passion for chemistry/medicine (and I do ... I learn so much about new medical innovations in the investments we make... I follow scientific developments in my own time as well). But I felt that she questioned this greatly at the time.
I posed this question of my group at the departure lunch. What would you want to be, if you weren't an investment professional? What is your "other" passion? The answers were shocking to me. I got everything from mystery book shop keeper to professional golf player to wedding planner to high school history teacher to astronomer. And yes, someone even wants to buy land to cultivate a particular breed of nut that he believes to have high demand for its supply. These are the people I respect the most in the investment community -- and they have very different passions. They are very strong passions, too. The individual who said, "professional golf player," for example, spends a lot of his time outside of work hitting the course. The mystery-book shop keeper is part of a book club, and has recommended many great reads to me during my three years at the company. They are not any less dedicated to the investment profession -- in fact, I think the diverse alter-ego passions only enhance the environment we work in. It can even lead to a great, diverse portfolio of interesting investments. For example, someone who is very interested in pharmaceuticals may be closely following development of a drug and realize a particular trial may provide a good entry point for investment in something that could be a 6-bagger but is downside-protected in the event that it isn't.
I am grateful beyond words to have had the co-workers I did (who helped me realize life is too short to only have 1 passion at a time), and to have worked for this organization. Winnie-the-Pooh once said, "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." I feel ya, Pooh.
