How to Get a Job on Wall Street Without Going to Harvard
By the time I knew I wanted to break into Wall Street, I’d passed most onramps.
I refused to apply to Stanford, because my parents expected me to.
While at UCSD, I was a horse trainer year-round, forgoing a banking junior year summer internship.
I didn’t join college investment clubs, network with alumni, or set myself up for success.
10 years after graduating college, I was running the #1 fund in the world with a job offer from Goldman Sachs.
I repeatedly did everything wrong in an industry that is difficult to enter. Why did I succeed? My passion for investing and need to share that passion overrode everything.
I had invested since the age of 16, and as I found success, I shared it with friends.
I built a habit of pitching ideas to anyone who would listen. Every job I got was a step towards Wall Street, and every boss told me they hired me because of my stock pitch. As it turns out, pitching is the only thing that matters.
Break into Wall Street from non-target schools using the power of pitching.
What makes a good pitch (what you are saying)?
The first thing that matters is the right template/framework. Your whole pitch needs to fit into 90 seconds max. Why? Because your portfolio manager, like everyone else, has ADD.
That 90 seconds is broken down into 2 main sections. In the first 10 to 30 seconds, you need to state what I call ACT:
Action: Which stock should I buy, sell, or avoid, and what is the target price/return?
Catalyst: What’s the 1 thing that’s going to move the stock? What will make the stock go up or down? You need to identify and define it. For instance, for Netflix, it’s user growth.
Timing: When should I buy or sell it? What’s the expected return over what period?
In the following 30 to 60 seconds, you need to elaborate.
Support the catalyst and the timing with TWO or THREE well-curated facts or data points. Why is this positive catalyst happening now? Why is it sustainable?
Address the resistance—what counter-argument will people have? What alternative investments might they have in mind?
That’s the anatomy of a good stock pitch. Here are a few short hypothetical examples.
EXAMPLE 1
First 10-30 seconds: Buy XYZ at $193 for 40% upside to the $275 level in the next year. Their role in blockchain payments will be far greater than anticipated.
Next 30-60 seconds: XYZ has done this before, where people didn’t believe in their ability to profitably lend to small businesses. Their CEO and founder has been involved in crypto payments since the early days of Bitcoin. XYZ itself has already built the infrastructure for crypto payments. XYZ is poised to be the leader in connecting small businesses to crypto payments.
EXAMPLE 2
First 10-30 seconds: Buy ZZZ at $65 for 100% upside in the next year as they move to the cloud and bring their loyal customer base with them.
Next 30-60 seconds: They remain relevant for customers wanting to automate their analytics by providing a drag and drop experience vs previously needing to work with SQL or R programming languages. They missed moving to the cloud, but can migrate by partnering with Snowflake which is the cloud database of choice.
EXAMPLE 3
First 10-30 seconds: Buy YZY at $3,437 for 30% upside in the next year as they continue to benefit from consumers hoarding as inflation fears increase.
Next 30-60 seconds: Their stock has been relatively flat over the past year as they absorbed the tough comps (record sales year during Covid). However, we will not go back to the way things were. People have been trained to use YZY for far more of their shopping than they did prior to the pandemic, and these changes are permanent. Of the mega tech stocks, YZY is most attractive vs others with more regulatory headwinds.
COUNTER-EXAMPLE: What NOT to do
First 10-30 seconds: I looked at ZYZ and found it interesting. They benefit from growing ad sales on the internet. Founded by two Stanford PhD candidates, they started in business in 1998 and came public in 2004.
Next 30-60 seconds: Their stock has increased over the past year as they are known as a leader in their space. There is some potential regulatory scrutiny that we should keep an eye on. However, since we all use search and advertisers are on the internet, I don’t think that risk is that high. The largest names on the internet will keep growing because we keep using the net more every day.
Mistakes: No action, catalyst, or timing (ACT). The candidate is wasting valuable time telling the company’s origin story. There’s no reason “why now” and no reason to believe the trend will continue.
Because of these mistakes, someone listening to the pitch would think, “This feels too general or non-specific.” That’s the impression it leaves, but it’s not the real problem. The real problem is that it’s missing the key elements of a good investment (Action, Catalyst, and Timing).
Remember this checklist of everything that should be in your pitch:
Action: BUY or SELL from X price to Y price, for Z return
Catalyst: What is the One thing that will move the stock
Timing: Why buy now, and why this change will last
Also, you support each of these with extremely succinct, well-curated data points and a sentence or two addressing the potential resistance to the action you’re pitching.
What makes for a good delivery (how are you saying it)?
'I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.' - Maya Angelou
When pitching stocks, you need to make them feel your idea will make them money. They need to feel FOMO.
DON’T Show Your Work -- Go Pro. You are assumed to know what you are doing until you prove otherwise. Don’t come across as a student who’s still in school mode. I have had students come in and “show their work,” never getting to the point. They start by sharing all the reports they read, like a laundry list of what they did with their day. Portfolio managers are busy and will just start doing something else.
Show Me The Money -- Number Go Up. “Show” you’re about making money. Every pitch starts with how much you expect the investment to return. Otherwise, why say anything? This may seem brash, but it’s the question on your audiences’ mind. Investment firms invest. Their number one question is: how much will I make here vs another stock?
Show Me the Fit -- Go Personal. It’s one thing to show you think about making money, but what if you recommend a coal stock to a green energy fund? Talk about getting coal in your stockings! Show that you think about the investment from the firm’s perspective. Personalize your pitch for this firm. Do they have too many of these types of investments? Does it fit with their style, values, and track record?
A successful pitch shows your value to the firm better than any interview answer.
The stock pitch is the key to getting hired
Delivering great stock pitches was the key for me winning every job offer in my career, each time over candidates with better resumes.
I then taught students at UCSD and select mentees to use pitching to pursue their dream career path. I’ve seen great success stories:
One retired at 29, and is on his second career running a crypto options analytics firm.
One launched a crypto hedge fund at age 27 and was named to Forbes 30 under 30.
One developed a new segment in bonds for Barclays and was hired to specialize in this segment for Apollo Global Management.
Now I’m launching an online course where I share the lessons learned from 15 years of mentoring students. You’ll practice pitching, analyzing, and networking. My goal is to help high-performing students from non-target schools break into Wall Street.
Learn about the course and join the waitlist here.