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在这个没有项目的晚上，坐在房间里，轻轻的音乐，窗外点滴的灯光，很静，很舒服。又一年了，这两年来不断地跑啊跑，虽然辛苦，但是我总觉得很快乐。只要每天都过得充实有意义，我就会充满动力。
两年前的九月的一天清早，美联的航班把我带到了这个美国东岸城市，在这里我开始了新的旅程。踏出机场，身边陪伴的，除了一个高高瘦瘦的影子，就只有两个衣服箱子，还有一张MBA的入学通知书。一个刚来到这个都会的东方面孔，不知道明天会怎样，其实连当天夜里在哪里可以滚一个晚上都不知道。但看着繁忙的高速公路和林立的高楼大厦，看着四处匆匆赶路的陌生人，我知道这里充满了机会，在这个商业中心里我一定可以找到发展的空间。 金融界是我来美国的目标，而这领域的竞争是很激烈的。我是这届MBA项目最年轻的几个录取者之一，一个来自神州大地的年轻人，面对的是有丰富经验的美国本土竞争者，我想只有不停地追赶，才可以在最后的冲击中赶上他们。 两年来一边照顾学校的案例，一边不断地工作。从在一个只有几个人的对冲基金开始拜师学艺，到区域性的投资咨询公司实践资本运作，然后选进财富500总部基金部的企业培养计划，最后加入投资银行的组合管理实习项目，在毕业前经历了四间公司，都是资金非常宏厚的买方金融。经历了各种各样的面试，结构性的非结构性的想得到的想不到的，工作中接触了很多人，学到了很多，经验一天一天积累。 两年过去了，我已全职在资本市场冲浪投资银行和各大房地产商的融资运作。我清晰地记得过去的每一步，记得生活的味道，记得那深夜电脑旁的微温的咖啡，清早里根机场稀疏的人群，正午办公室里卷起的袖口，还有傍晚曼哈顿飘香的热狗.. 新的生活，依然的紧凑，依然的匆忙。穿梭在都市丛林中，汗水流过我的笑容。经过城中那片大草地，我会闭上眼睛感受一下吹过的微风，舒展手臂深呼吸，然后张开眼睛提起包包，还有很远的路呢。
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StoryofWind.com
写这篇文章，花了很多心思，把最想说的心得都解释了。
为了避免一阵子英文一阵子中文，按照大家的对商业术语的阅读习惯，用了英语成文。
When you are sitting in the headquarters of some of the largest companies in the world, talking to senior managements in their offices, or facing a whole strategy team in a boardroom, would you be able to manage the topic flow to demonstrate your value? How can you prepare for the toughest questions and convince the interviewers?
This article summarizes the strategies I have applied for the interviews to corporate finance and strategy positions. My spotless track record may show that as long as we are well prepared, we would always be able to do a good job in the interviews.
1. Preparations - It's an Art
Step 1. Annual Report/10K - a first look at the company
10K is lengthy, but the starting two sections could well serve as a starting point to understand their business and recent
developments. So sit back, relax, and let the CEO's welcome message and CFO's open remark guide you to a nice
two-hour tour to the company.
Description of Business
Management Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Result of Operations
Step 2. Wall Street Research Reports - where your in-depth research begins
The reports could be obtained from various public sources such as Themarkets, Reuters, or Investext.
Most business schools have subscriptions to one or more of these vendors. Talk to your librarian about brokerage
reports. Read reports by multiple investment banks covering the firm.
Focus on the key developments and major challenges. Understand their analysis on financials with an emphasize on
growth and ratio trends. For strategy position focus on competitive positions - the dynamic changes in market share and
competitors' possible response to our corporate strategies.
Compare opinions by each of the banks, synthesize and develop our own opinions.
We have done hundreds of case analyses. It's time to spend three times of energy on the company we are
interviewing with. Step 3. (which is to be done with 2) Ratios Analysis and Industry Research - time to stand out from the crowd
Download financial statements in Excel format from the corporate website.
Conduct ratio analysis, spot interesting ratio movements, and find out the reasons,
eg. new business lines, geographic market strategy adjustments, squeezed energy supply, or major M&A activities.
The margin and return ratios are the most important ones to look at. Wall Street reports will help you understand and
reason the trends.
If you could not figure out some of the ratio changes, they could well serve as a point to discuss during the interview.
Interviewers love to see you show initiative and ask insideful questions, as long as you have some research done
around it.
To prepare for an interview to treasury departments, you may also want to perform your own financial forecast and equity
valuations using DCF and Multiples.
To assist my preparation, I developed a flexible forecasting and valuation package, which is accessible from
http://www.storyofwind.com/Articles/Equity%20Valuation.xls
Ratio trends are also available on MSN Money and Yahoo Finance.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/invsub/results/compare.asp?Page=TenYearSummary&Symbol=IBM
Click on the menu on the middle-left for margins and return ratios.
2. Books and Materials
We can't start our research without a solid background knowledge in financial analysis.
Here are some really good literatures for a quick review on corporate finance:
Financial Statement Analysis - Stickney chapter 5 (9th edition).
Financial Planning and Cash Management - Ross chapter VII (6th edition)
Financial Forecasting and Equity Valuation - McKinsey Model for Valuation of Companies, L. Peter Jennergren
Strategy - What Is Strategy, Harvard Business Review, Michael E. Porter
- Consulting Theme Cards, Job Juice
3. In the Interview Room
Wear your suit straight, shirt tight. While demostrating the best part of your background, gear the topic from you toward
the firm, eg. the position, their financial performance, and the market. Show them the analysis your have done, discuss
the findings (eg. your ratios analysis, valuation results), ask them questions. That's what they are looking for.
When answering scenario questions, keep in mind that profit is ultimately driven by sales, costs, and scale.
The general guidelines for organizing your answers:
To discover corporate problems, use Porter's Five Forces for the external environment.
1. Competitive positioning
2. Customers
3. Suppliers
4. Barriers to Entry
5. Substitutes
For certain industries (eg, basic material/energy) regualtory eniromnent also plays a significant role,
so be sure to take it into consideration
More on competition positioning because it's importatnt:
1. Scales/Intensification
2. Market Segmentation
3. Consolidation
4. Innovation
5. Dynamic Trends
For financial service firms, make sure you are awared of the recent Fed fiscal policies and how it may
affect the yield curve, the firm's asset/liability, and the short/long term profits.
Internal enviroments
Sales - the 4P's:
1. Product Line/Mix
2. Pricing
3. Promotion
4. Place/Distribution
Cost - the company's value chain:
1. Opereation Efficiency
2. Capacity
3. Outsourcing
4. System Integrations
Possible strategy provisions are
1. Merger and Acquisition
2. Divestures/Spin Offs/IPO
3. Joint Ventures
4. Alliances
5. New Markets Entry (Geographically/Business Lines)
6. Diversification
Always follow a root cause analysis, focusing on the 80-20 rule, and compose your analysis in a logic tree structure.
The interviewer will be impressed to see you lay out your answer in such a well-structured manner. I found analysis on ratios and competitive positions the most effective way to show your understanding and interest in the firm.
Most candidates, and even the employers themselves often focus too much on their own business and neglect the actions and strategies taken by the competitors in the industry. Points on the dynamic nature of the competition is an out-of-box thinking that could really impress the interviewer. Industry research requires substantial efforts, however. Make sure you have gained sufficient understanding the company, which comes in at a higher priority, before starting the research on the market as a whole. My background as a large cap equity research analyst really helped in the research, but it still took me so much time, even when the firm was in the industry I covered.
4. Behavioral Questions
Finally, for behavioral questions, prepare two instances for each of these three most-often-asked topics
Leadership
- manage a complex task force, develop goals, manage a tight project timeline, or assign people efficiently
by skill sets
Teamwork
- work with people internally and externally (cross department / with client team), solve conflicts and develop
relationships, focusing on project goals
Problem Solving
- frustrated but make it finally, learn a great deal. With the experience, should we face a similar situation
again, the issue would be handled so smooth just like flying in the wind.
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