How I Landed a Job on Wall Street When I Really Wasn't Looking For One

E92: Taking chances by lowering the barrier to entry

TL;DR - Don’t try so hard. You shine when you are relaxed.

• Treat it like a warm-up

• Have low stakes in the outcome

• Find the fun - get playful, embrace creativity

[Subtext: This is also a message for all the emerging writers in WoP10 - Have fun.] And don’t miss the Ozan Varol YouTube at the end of this essay.

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How I landed a job on Wall Street when I really didn't want one

Why had I been interviewing for a job I neither wanted nor needed? It’s one of my favourite career tips.

Many have DM’d me, curious to learn more after I dropped this phrase in E83: The Education of Miss Karena.

I hadn’t been aiming to move across an ocean. All I wanted was for my boss to move me onto the project in Rotterdam. And maybe give me a pay raise. But I knew I’d have to give him a reason to value me.

I mean, here I was 23 and single. And commuting each week FROM London (one of the most happening cities in the world) TO a town in the middle of the sleepy British countryside famous for its sculptures of concrete cows.

I decided I’d get an offer from our primary competitor, and leverage that as my bargaining chip with my manager.

BUT, I didn’t want to come across flubbing my lines with the competitor. After all, this was a small industry. And I might actually want to work with them in the future.

The Warm Up: The Post Office vs Wall Street

It had been a while since I had interviewed, so I started small. The Post Office was looking for coders. So was the tiny 100-person electrical socket factory a five-minute walk from my parent’s home where I could be the entire one-person IT department. And a stack of investment banks was advertising for a one-year contract for coders from the UK as they began huge digitization projects on Wall Street.

No Stake in the Outcome

This was the easiest warm-up lap ever. I’d been coding for oil rigs in the North Sea. I had no intention of sticking stamps at the Post Office, or moving across the ocean.

“Half-hour interviews. In and out. No brainers. Then onto the competitor and back to my manager.” That was the plan.

However, there were personality tests at the Post Office, and three interviews over two weeks. Interviewers at the agency on behalf of the Wall Street banks included those from Drexel Burnham Lambert, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, etc. And one from Morgan Stanley who was a perfect clone of Clark Kent (Superman’s alter ego) right down to the rolled-up shirt sleeves, suspenders, and glasses - you could imagine him hanging off the side of a desk in a Manhattan skyscraper chatting with a colleague, with that hazy light flooding in from one window. Every employer had an interesting technology challenge they needed to solve.

It turned into a bit of a time investment. But I didn’t mind. It allowed me to update my resume, and got my “interview outfit”. I was discovering the latest interview practices. And as I never intended to leave the UK, these were “safe” interviews. Low, low stakes. I was searching for answers to two questions: “Am I employable? How much more am I worth on the open market?” [Always know your worth - the career tip]

“Am I good enough?” I soon grew used to being called back for second and third interviews. Turns out I had a very specific skill set. And it was particularly valuable to Morgan Stanley. I coded in some niche languages, including CICS/COBOL ADASQL. That muzzled my loud imposter syndrome.

Finding Creativity in Play

“Clark Kent” was adamant he needed me on his team. I didn’t speak ‘financial’, stared blankly when he asked about the IPO process, and couldn’t tell a stock from a bond. But we chatted. About food. About travel. About culture. About my story to now and how my Computer Prof suggested I switch to a Math and Computing degree after doing my first year in Psychology and Ecology, because coding seemed intuitive to me. About the difference between Dynasty and Little House on the Prairie (my only cultural reference for North America). He noted that I had moved countries quite often in my short life. I enjoyed my interviews our conversations because I was relaxed. He figured, through our chats, that I was curious, flexible, and teachable.

I soon held a stack of offers (many from Wall Street firms since defunct!) All I’d been seeking from these interviews was a number so I could confidently walk back to my manager. And I now had it - nominally four times my current annual UK salary (though barely enough to make rent in Manhattan as I would soon discover). That shut up my inner critic. But I was certain my conservative father would never let his single daughter live alone in manic Manhattan, so I kept turning them down. Which only made “Clark Kent” pitch harder.

The interview technique he had honed over multiple interviews at the Ivy League and Oxbridge schools with candidates across North America and the UK was clearly not going to cut it here! I couldn’t tell a Bear Sterns from a Goldman Sachs, a Morgan Stanley from a Merrill Lynch. He could have said SVB and I wouldn’t have been any the wiser. With zero brand recognition, I was not intimidated. I didn’t know enough to be nervous! In the presence of this noob, he had to get more creative.

In the end, he got my attention not with money, but with this sentence: “Even if you eat a different cuisine twice a week for the full year you are with us, you will not have exhausted the cultural variety in Manhattan”. It turns out that the way to this girl’s career exploration was through her stomach.

It was the start of a very exciting career spanning decades, that would get me some amazing experience and a front-row seat at some significant points in history.

You never know where you might find gold when digging

I often tell this story to rooms filled with job-hunting young adults.

Take chances.

Look beyond your narrow set of the “perfect places to work”. A brand name may look great on your resume, but 95% of the world’s economy is fuelled by organizations not on the Fortune 500.

There is more to the world than Apple and Tesla. Try corporate McDonalds, the Post Office, the Mom&Pop factory down the road where their kids do not want to inherit. These are great low-risk places to do interview practice. Often you discover elements of the job - perks you didn’t know existed - and you can incorporate these as you negotiate at your next ideal interview.

Or you may discover the perfect job sitting invisibly in plain sight. They may offer a good training program. Or satisfy your secret dream of an opportunity to do good by designing sustainable packaging. Or offer funds for further education. Or be seeking to groom their successor as they get ready to retire.

Just Lucky

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”
— Seneca

In hindsight, a couple of things worked to my advantage in my negotiation. Because I had nothing to lose, I was relaxed. My parents had barely enough pennies to rub together. So I had no clue (honestly) what investment banks were or did. Ignorance, when masquerading as a beginner’s mind, can be very powerful. My imposter syndrome had nothing to hit up against.

“I was lucky,” I would say thirty years later describing that start to a fabulous career that would span decades. “It wasn’t luck,” responded my colleague, “it was serendipity. You had all the necessary experience in place to take advantage of an opportunity that was offered to you. AND you had the courage to walk through that door when someone opened it.”

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Make. Take. Talk.

Quiz: Did you recognize the line about serendipity and knocking?

This story raises a number of questions for some people. If that is you, please feel free to reach out, or ask in the comments section below.

Please share this edition with someone who needed to hear this message, today.

Pairings:

For similar flavours to this essay, I highly recommend this 3:56 min video from Ozan Varol, rocket scientist, turned lawyer, turned professor, and now the author of “Awaken Your Genius”:

The surprising strategy that the writers of The Office use to boost their creativity

Faced with a creativity block, the writers of The Office would take a break. And create a script for an episode of Entourage. You heard right.

“The same idea applies to creativity. It helps to warm it up first by playing a low-stakes game before you turn to what actually matters."

Why does this work?

• Have no stake in the outcome (low, low stakes)

• Find the fun - get playful, embrace creativity,

• It acts as a warm-up

It shuts down our inner critic. Try it in your current (creative) project and let me know.

Other similar varietals:

• E82: Leitmotifs I - Sound metaphors

• E83: Leitmotifs II - The Education of Miss Karena

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A warm welcome to the many new Tribe Tilt members who recently subscribed. Some of you discovered this newsletter through the panel I recently hosted on Mental Health for Young Adults in the Workplace. Others have joined from Nigeria, the UK, and Portugal - either my traveling companions or discovering each other’s work via classes we are taking together.

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And my sincere thanks to the growing number of regular readers who have remained so engaged in our discussions as I caught up in real life with my Mom, my kids, and friends new and old. I am taking

Steven Foster

‘s photography framing and editing class this week. So I hope to include a few more photos (embellished with stories) from the past few weeks of travel. Though I have to say - it is nice to sleep in my own bed again!

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See you next week. Until then, stay healthy. From there all else becomes possible.
Karena

PS. The sassy “fearless girl” with the ponytail featured in today’s photo reminds me of a special someone in my life who celebrates her birthday today. Love you forever!