>> I think what's really key and I think my time at Villanova reinforced this, is you really need
to have a very holistic knowledge base ranging not across just business and across just finance
or economics, overall you need to be a pretty sound decision maker who has been exposed
to a wide range of educational backgrounds and you need to be able to write.
You need to be able to speak to your brokers.
You need to be able to know what's going on in the world.
So I think in order to prepare you just need to try to cover your weaknesses.
Make sure you have a few core strengths and be willing and able to kind of keep
up with what's current in the world.
I think a corporate finance class is definitely something worth taking.
Even if you're not a finance major maybe even
if you're not a business major nowadays it's an invaluable tool to be able to look
at a balance sheet, to be able to look at the companies financials and be able to have an idea
of what all that data actually means.
You really just have to be relentless.
The thing that's probably most different today especially in the business environment
than it was five years ago is that it's no longer the mass institutional hiring
that once existed where, you know, certain investment bank
or insurance company would send a couple of recruiting agents to your school,
they would hire three dozen people and most people got picked up one way or the other.
Things have changed to the point where hiring might be a little more ad hoc
and on a need base only.
So you really have to be willing to put yourself out there, to follow up, not just an e-mail,
but to call people, to shake some hands and use any contacts you have to try to get a foot
in the door because unfortunately the way it is now it's not necessarily the best person
that gets the job it's often times the most resilient and the person who follows up the most
and the person who takes it most seriously.