MBA & US Job Hunting | From the Big Four to Finance in New York! Do You Need to Be Great at Socializing and Drinking for an MBA? (Part 3)

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This episode is sponsored by "OfferLand", a forum built for international students and new graduates entering the workforce. Besides the forum, we also offer an admission results lookup system for study-abroad applications, helping close the information gap as we build a professional study-abroad & career platform together!

Hi! Welcome to "Jason 學長的職涯資料夾" (Jason's Career Folder). I'm your host, Jason. I've been sharing content about careers and studying abroad for a long time. Here, you can not only "open" the folder and explore stories, but also "edit" it with me: gaining experience and insights and learning new things!

During your MBA summer internship, what did you do to improve your chances of getting a return offer? In US finance, what traits or skills do they care about most in interviews?

Let me answer the first question first, about what I did.
I think there were two things. The first is that I asked a lot of questions back then, which is also one big change the MBA brought me.
Everyone is really eager to ask questions; in one class there might be
thirty or forty hands raised with questions, in maybe two hours, so lots of questions, and I gradually got into the habit
of asking a lot of questions too, because I genuinely wanted to know why. So I kept asking questions, sometimes in meetings or
when my manager was doing a walk-through with me, explaining things, I'd keep asking questions.
And they really encouraged questions, so back then he gave me positive feedback, saying I wasn't afraid to ask questions and was good at asking them.
Asking questions also shows, in a way, that you're interested enough in the subject, which is my second point:
I think I was genuinely interested in this, from the inside out. Actually, I once asked my manager about it,
because for my role they happened to hire only one person in the whole US,
just one in FINANCE, and they'd never hired for it before, never recruited for this, because for our company
it's not a common MBA program. We only started recruiting MBAs around 2019,
and that was the first time FINANCE recruited, yeah. I don't think they recruited again this year, so for now it's just me.
So I asked him why, out of so many people, he hired only me. He made a joke first, he's really funny.
He joked, "Are you trying to talk yourself up and tell me how great you are?"
He was kidding, of course, but I said no, I really just wanted to know. Then he said that teaching someone
the skills for FINANCE actually isn't that hard: this stuff, these skills, this mindset,
building them from zero isn't that hard, and you know, especially with business,
you learn by doing and do by learning, that's really how it is. He said the hard part is that we can't make someone who isn't interested become interested.
He said that when he interviewed me, he felt I was genuinely interested in this from the inside out,
plus my background was a fit too, of course, so that's why he hired me. So I think these two things
were the keys to my getting the return offer: first, I was good at asking questions, and second, I really made them feel
that I was genuinely interested in this from the inside out. When someone's interested in something, you can't fake it,
you really can't fake it, yeah. So that's the first question. Then your second question was
what traits they look for. That's a hard one for me to answer. I think every company wants something a bit different,
and every function is a bit different too, so I can't really answer that, but I'd say the same thing again:
especially for IB. My role isn't really an IB role, but if you're going for IB, you really need to do networking well,
so you may need to put a lot, a lot of work into that. IB is definitely the career that involves the most networking.
Next, practice whatever hard skills you can, some finance stuff.
Of course they'll say background doesn't matter, but if you already have some finance background, that's best, or if you have some skills,
like a CFA. It doesn't have to be that hardcore, though. Some people say
they don't have that, but they may have taken some finance courses at school, which may be enough to show you have some foundation.
Because I don't think what they want is really hardcore hard skills, since they can train you, but they still need
as much as possible... they hire a lot of veterans. If you come here, you'll find that a lot of positions are open to veterans,
as a kind of guarantee, I guess. Veterans are tough in a way, and they don't tend to quit,
so what they actually need is people who can really hang in there in this kind of environment.

What should you watch out for when job hunting in the US? How is it different from job hunting in Taiwan?

This is super, super important! I think the US, and this is something I really struggled with when I first got here, because when I came I had no idea how to look for a job in the US. We didn't know how to network, because nobody in Taiwan networks, or at least I didn't. A lot of networking in Taiwan is probably more like friends of friends, who you know, friends of friends. Here it's different: you might really have to send a cold email or reach out to someone on LinkedIn, really network. That's their culture.
So there's a lot to learn about networking, plus how to write a thank-you letter and even how to write a cover letter. Especially interviews. I think interviews are the hardest! Their interview style is completely different from Taiwan's. Here, I think for interviews you may also need what we call an Odyssey. Odyssey in Chinese is 奧德賽. Not every school calls it that, but ours does. I think it's a Greek story. Anyway, it's your self-introduction, your story, so in one to one and a half minutes you have to tell many of your important stories, but you have to hit the key points. We trained on this for a long time. Don't underestimate this one minute: it's not improvised; you really have to speak right to the point.
They also ask a lot of behavioral questions, like "Tell me a time when you have a difficulty" and so on, and you have to tell a story as an example, with a lot of setup. We practiced that for a really, really long time. So interviews are definitely one of the hardest parts. And like I just said, there are also thank-you letters and cover letters, and there are lots of techniques for networking too. For example, when you ask questions we keep it within 30 minutes, you prepare 6～7 questions, you research the other person's background, you ask questions based on their background, you don't ask Googleable questions, and your questions should sound smart! That's true~ Don't ask dumb questions, although dumb questions aren't completely off-limits. But you need to do your homework and let them know you've done your homework, instead of asking them questions as if they were your Google; that really counts against you. So there are lots of ins and outs here, and I think everyone really puts a huge amount of time and energy into this.
Actually, I also wrote this part into my package, including how to network,
how to ask questions and sound smarter, plus some thank-you letter templates
and some cover letter templates, and how to chat with people so that you might eventually get an internal referral,
because internal referrals still have a higher success rate, that kind of thing. So you really need to spend a lot of time and energy learning this.
It's worlds apart from Taiwan. In Taiwan I might just send in a resume, see if they want me, and then interview.

Part 4 Running a personal media brand (multitasking, 下班後 升級時光)

How does KC balance running a personal media brand, job hunting and writing a book, 下班後 升級時光 (Level-Up Time After Work)? How do you manage your time?

I think this part is really interesting, because like I said, it's actually one of the big reasons I wanted to go into corporate finance.
It's because I have a lot of other interests, like the education side I mentioned earlier. When I first started writing my blog,
I felt there was an information gap, and I wanted to write this information up in Chinese
and share it with more people. I'm really interested in that, so over the past year or two
I've done a lot of things. For example, I also made an online English resume course, which I really recommend,
because when I made it, it was kind of semi-charitable, because I dare say that in this space
mine was the cheapest, and I donated all the money from the first month, though that period is over now.
I did it because I felt a lot of people in Taiwan really miss the point when writing English resumes. When I was in Taiwan
writing my English resume, it had already been edited by a consultant, and I thought it was pretty OK. But when I got to my MBA, I realized, wow, it was really unreadable. The difference was huge! The gap was really huge. The resume I used to get into my MBA from Taiwan,
looking back now, it's a disaster, really way off. So I put everything I know
into that course. You can find information about it on my IG too,
maybe in my highlights, or just DM me
and I'll send you the link. I really think that's something important.

KC wrote a best-selling e-book, 下班後 升級時光 (Level-Up Time After Work). Could you tell our listeners why you wanted to write it and what it's about?

I also wrote a book, like Jason just mentioned. 下班後 升級時光 is mainly about the three or four years I worked in Taiwan, when I worked a lot of overtime. At the Big Four I often worked very late, but I still kept doing lots of things, like writing my blog, or making online courses during my MBA, and kept at them.
I think the main reason is that I'm genuinely interested from the bottom of my heart. It's because of that interest that I chose corporate finance. Going back to why I chose corporate finance: it has very good work-life balance. Besides being a part of finance I really like, it's an environment with great work-life balance, and I need that kind of environment so that after work I can keep building these things up. Because I used to work a lot of overtime, and when the overtime got too heavy, I realized: wow, that's not a state I want to keep up long term.
I could do it for five years, sure, but for ten or twenty years I probably couldn't keep doing it. So when I chose this path I took that into account, because I feel my interests are, in a way, still in education.
I'm very interested in education. But let me put it this way: back in Taiwan I worked very long hours,
but I still kept producing this content. I think the most important thing is interest. When you're really interested in something,
you can put a huge amount of energy and some inner strength into keeping at it.
Like what Jason is doing now: Jason has a job too, but he keeps doing the podcast and running these websites,
because you have a mission you really want to achieve, and no matter how tired you are, you'll still find the time.
Even if you're still at it on the weekend, you won't feel... well, you might feel tired, but you'll feel fulfilled, let me put it that way.
You'll feel really fulfilled.

In this book, of course inner motivation is important, but I think a lot of the time it still comes down to technique. So the book brings together all the practical techniques I had back then. I love listening to podcasts and reading classic books, and I blended all that into my own experience to come up with an approach that I think suits most people in Taiwan better. So it's not just inner spiritual guidance (the inner side matters, no denying it). Actually, the reason I'm a bit put off by chicken-soup-for-the-soul stuff is that sometimes after reading that kind of book you feel great, but you don't know what to do. This book won't leave you like that.

I don't really like that kind of thing, so whenever I write about something, I always include some steps, telling you step by step what works better. I don't want you to finish reading in a great mood but not know what to do; that's not what I was going for. It's all small techniques, and when you stack them up, that's really everything I've built up to this point, like my secrets, all written in there!
I think some classic books are very well written, but I really can't do what they say, at least I can't,
so I don't put that in. I write what I can do, and what most people can do. Because some books say
it's great to... I know that if there's something I really want to do, I'll give it everything, but sometimes it's not like that, right?
Sometimes you get home from work and just want to rest, just want to veg out. So what do you do then? I write about methods for that.
Some methods can... you know, the long term matters, but the short term matters too. I don't think it's just a long-distance run;
a long run has some sprints mixed in, and that's how you gradually get there. So it's kind of like a practical handbook?
Yes, right, a handbook. It's a... right, a handbook, still with some
concepts, but there's a handbook side too. So I'm actually really happy doing this,
even though it's hard and exhausting, because you have to carve out extra time. And sometimes, I don't know if Jason has run into this,
sometimes you still run into people who aren't very polite, or
questions that make you uncomfortable, or people who treat you like Google.
Sometimes that leaves you speechless. Of course, with more people you sometimes run into
people who are exasperating and don't respect you as much. Nothing you can do about it; I think that's something I have to adjust to along the way.
But mostly, I think it actually helps me want to improve myself, because to write better posts
I want to keep improving. So I think the two feed each other: I love doing this, but I want to do it better,
and I want to keep improving. The more I improve, the more fulfilled I feel. So I think it's a positive cycle, and I love what I'm doing now.
Let me finish with a quick plug for my Instagram,
and thanks to Jason for having me. So mainly, like I said,
you can go to my Instagram and find some pretty useful resources. For example, since my background is in accounting,
I've also put together a growth-oriented financial accounting course for people with no accounting background
or with a little accounting background, to learn more practical things, since it draws on my work experience.
I've found that not everything we learned in accounting is all that applicable.
For example, pension accounting takes us a long time to learn, but in real life, when we do financial analysis,
we don't spend much time on it, so I probably won't cover it. So it's for people heading to an MBA
or to business school: you can take this course first. I put all the important things
up front so you can study them in advance, or if you're already really interested in financial accounting,
you can take it early too. And there's 下班後 升級時光, the book I mentioned that draws on my experience.
I think if you feel a bit stuck in life, or there are things you want to do but can't,
or you don't know how, this book is a great fit for you. And there's another one, a guide to applying to US business schools,
for those of you who want to apply to business school semi-DIY, not fully DIY, semi-DIY,
and don't have a lot of information. You can find a way to DIY it, because it has a lot of very clear instructions,
so check it out. Yeah, and there's the English resume course I mentioned, which I also think
can help a lot of people. And if you have questions, feel free to DM me;
I'll do my best to answer. That's about it, and
thanks again to Jason for the time. I think what Jason is doing now is really meaningful,
because there's really not much of this in Chinese. OK, thanks. Everyone can check out OfferLand,
whether it's the admission results lookup or related practical articles. I'm sure whether it's OfferLand
or KC's content, blog or Instagram, you'll find useful information and experiences to refer to.

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👉🏻 Transcript Part 2