Morning Coffee: Most intense man at Goldman Sachs made another video. Students opting for less alluring finance jobs
If Jim Donovan, a Goldman Sachs managing director of three decades and 'vice chairman of global client coverage, based in Charlottesville, Virginia, were to hang up his MD hat and do something else instead, he could probably become a YouTube sensation. Already well known for his 2016 talk 'Are you destined to deal' to students at the University of Virginia School of Law, which has had 2.6m views on YouTube, Donovan is back with a sequel. Titled,'The making of an investment banker,' it was also filmed at the University of Virginia School of Law, three days ago and already has nearly 50,000 views.
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While the title might imply a Frankensteinish attempt to assemble a banker out of Ferragamo loafers and dress shirts, the video is actually Donovan talking to the students about a) getting a banking job, b) keeping it. While some of his advice seems likely to render anyone acting upon it highly irritating («Never ever ever ever give up, don't take no for an answer»), there are also some good observations that explain Donovan's YouTube popularity.
When you're in a banking interview, he says the ideal thing to do is to steer your interviewer onto talking about themselves. «People enjoy most talking about themselves,» observes Donovan. If you can get them into this sweet spot, you'll turn the interview into a «dialogue not an interrogation.» Ask the kinds of questions which won't elicit a one word answer — things like 'Why did you decide to become an investment banker?', and «What was the most interesting deal you've worked on?» People love this stuff, says Donovan, blind to the risk that millions of students will ask the same questions.
Once this has got you an analyst or associate
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