The day I met Sarah, the perfect banking graduate
Last month, I was invited to a luncheon hosted by a European investment bank in Hong Kong. Amongst all the boring middle-age bankers, was a young Chinese lady - her professionalism and natural elegance awed the surrounding guests.
At the age of 21 and a fresh graduate from a Chinese university, Sarah is already a budding employee in the corporate finance department of a top-tier international investment bank. She translated her secret into one motto: define the right milestones and reach them one step ahead of the herd.
Opportunities and the possibilities behind them are only constrained by our imagination as we enter university. We must work out how to invest our limited free hours in the right enterprises that have the highest net present value.
Here's another of Sarah's beliefs: create your own opportunities and squeeze out the last drop of value. In her freshman year, she selectively participated in two high-profile international business-case competitions and championed both.
In her sophomore year, she defied the objections of her family and joined an overseas internship programme at a major bank on Wall Street by paying a considerable application fee.
She justified this decision with her snowball theory: your career path is no different from a snowball.
First thing first, you have to create a "snow core" from scratch and push it with all your strength in the right direction, i.e. the slope that provides the greatest momentum. Once the ball is on the right track, the initial investment and hardship will fade into insignificance in the face of its unstoppable acceleration.
Sarah thinks that the height of one's glory and the distance of one's life journey is determined by that of the people you surround yourself with. She exhausts every opportunity to network with industry pioneers and giants, experienced mentors and key decision-makers. She perfects herself relentlessly to be worthy of their advice and friendship.
According to Sarah, it is vital that the important figures you meet can feel your insatiable curiosity for this industry, as well as your ridiculously meticulous preparation for every task, equalled only by your inexorable quest for glory in the finance world, which makes it a pleasurable obligation for them to provide a new platform on which your dreams can blossom.
How you can be Sarah
As the applicants for investment banking jobs become more homogeneous, a straight-A academic transcript, pages of extra-curricula activities, and global exposure are less a competitive edge than a prerequisite. Academic excellence is indispensable and can be obtained by 'cutting the Gordian knot'. Sarah got her CFA certificate in her junior year while working full-time in the bank.
Almost every semester, she took the risk of cramming down a semester-load of academic work three weeks before her final exam. By eliciting critical information from professors, by precision in time management, by extraordinary resilience and fortitude, she appeared on the dean's list more than once.
A person with first-class strategy and third-class execution is destined to lose against someone with first-class execution and third-class strategy.
As US writer Malcolm Gladwell mentions in his book Outliers, it is not goal-setting or strategic planning that separates the good from the great, it is thousands of hours of intensive practice and training: days and nights of sweat, toil and tears. That is what Sarah has gone through. Hers is a tale of a true outlier.
