Judging by the recent surge of F-14 air traffic in the skies above San Diego, I was suspecting that there may be something brewing in Iran. Guess I was right. Now, what would WW3 do for our careers?

Facebook. LinkedIn. How are they related? Pretty interesting interview with LinkedIn’s CEO.

"Morgan Stanley has set aside $151,563 of compensation per
employee for the first two quarters, compared with Lehman's
$159,074. But Morgan Stanley employees each generated $319,724
of revenue on average, compared with $108,404 at Lehman."

That doesn't really make sense... Read more here.

If you were impressed by the salaries of investment bankers in the previous post, wait till you see these numbers.

“Caddies are paid on the basis of how well their player performs: a base salary of $1,000 a week plus 5% of the tournament purse, 7% of a top 10 and 10% for a victory, according to Cone.”

“The demand for VC jobs is way in excess of the supply and probably always will be.”

That just about sums it up. It’s understandable why VC jobs are so highly coveted. I’ve had a flavor of VC and I must say it is pretty exciting. You learn about different industries on a daily basis, work with all sorts of experienced and brilliant people and get a lot of exposure in the community. However, getting a job as an associate at a VC firm is tough. Probably one of the toughest jobs to get. Every year, thousands of MBAs, burnt out I-bankers, and management consultants at the end of their 2 year rotations are looking to move into VC. These people are the creme of the resume crop so competition is intense.

This chart shows that job posts for VC’s are dropping substantially making supply demand gap even bigger.

Pretty interesting interview on CNBC with Tony Hsieh. Never really heard of this guy prior to seeing this. He seems like a low key guy but has a presence about him when he speaks. His demeanor and tone don’t scream CEO, but he communicates very clearly and effectively. Here’s a piece he wrote about ecommerce:

“The e-commerce business is built upon repeat customers. Like most Web merchants in the early days of online, Zappos spend a fortune on high-profile ads to acquire customers. It’s since learned that it pays off to focus on repeat buyers.

1. Word-of-mouth really works online. Unfortunately, WOM can work against you as well as for you, as Zappos realized when customers would CC their friends on complaint e-mails to the merchant.
2. Don’t compete on price. Early on Zappos offered a $10 coupon to anyone who made a purchase. This worked wonders at increasing conversion rates, but did not attract loyal buyers. Once its competitors came out with $15 coupons these customers jumped ship.
3. Make sure your Website is 100% accurate. The company ran into trouble when it used to have the manufacturers drop-ship orders, because their inventory was often off and created backorders and unhappy customers. Even 99% is not good enough, Hsieh said, because that 1% out-of-stock rate can make a big difference” when doing significant volumes.
4. Centrally locate your distribution. Originally based in San Francisco, Zappos started out with a California distribution center. But it took too long for customers on the East Coast to get their order, Hsieh said. Now headquartered in Las Vegas, Zappos fulfills out of a DC in Kentucky.
5. Customer service is an investment, not an expense. The goal is to create lifelong relationships with customers, Hsieh said. That’s why Zappos doesn’t measure call times; it’s also why the merchant will even refer customers to a competitor when it’s out of an item. Sounds risky, “but when they need another pair of shoes, they’ll go to Zappos,” he said.
6. Start small, stay focused. You’re never going to get a situation exactly right, Hsieh noted; “lots of weird little things will come up.” When Zappos made the move from shoes to selling apparel as well, “we didn’t promote it heavily—we’re slowly learning over time how customers by clothing online.”
7. Don’t be secretive. Don’t worry about competitors. “We believe in sharing as much information as possible with vendors,” Hsieh said, including reposts on sales, inventory, and profitability. “There’s a benefit to having 1,200 pairs of eyes looking at our business trying to help it grow” What’s more, “we don’t worry too much about what our competitors are doing—it takes the focus off our customers.”
8. You need to actively manage your company culture. Hire people based on how they will fit into the culture, Hsieh said. Zappos is all about customer service, so employees need to understand that and be willing to do what it takes to provide excellent service. “If you get the culture right, a lot of the other stuff will take care of itself,” he said.
9. Be wary of so-called experts, “including me,” Hsieh said. Zappos spent a lot of money on consultants in the beginning only to find that “we really should have trusted ourselves more.” Remember, he told the audience: “No one knows your customers better than you.””

Here’s a nice Four hour work week inspired blog entry.  Gotta get some Virtual Assistants, its the way of the new rich!

Personal: Thomas Fang … born in Austin, Texas … parents are Jyh-Chen and Chi-Jen Fang … has a younger brother, Patrick … hopes to attend grad school and receive his MBA … intends to major in electrical engineering or computer science.

Hmm, that last line sounds awfully familiar..

Dear Mr. Bracken:
Joseph Rebas suggested that I forward my resume to you for your consideration. I am a second-year MBA student at the Anderson School at UCLA, and I am currently working as a summer associate at J.P. Morgan in New York.
As Joseph may have mentioned, I am in the top 5% of my class at Anderson, and I was recently elected President of the Investment Banking Club. In and out of the classroom I have consistently demonstrated my capacity to make a positive impact regardless of the situation. My analytical and personal skills are ideally suited to investment banking, and I am confident that I would be an asset at Merrill Lynch.
I will call you next Wednesday to discuss next steps. If you do have any questions regarding my resume or qualifications, please do not hesitate to call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx. I look forward to speaking with you.
Sincerely: Tim Walinsky

Dear Ms. Carsen:
I am in the second year of an Accounting and Finance degree at the London School of Economics and am looking for a summer internship at your company. During my degree programme, I have become very much interested in how investment and corporate finance institutions operate, and I would like to use my internship to learn more about the interactions of markets and how individual business units operate.
I am attracted to ABC Investments because of your dynamic work force. I’d like to be part of a team that can participate in joint ventures with notable firms like Lehman Brothers on projects such as the one on Izodia, taken up last year. My analytical skills are strong, and I can solve problems accurately in high-pressure conditions. I can also interpret numbers to come up with relevant ideas and suggestions. In addition to English, I speak French and German which are both widely spoken in continental Europe, and my Russian and Ukrainian may be useful since there is a great scope of investment opportunities in eastern Europe.
I am available for interviews any time and can start the internship programme as early as 20 June 2004. I plan to call for an appointment next week. If you’d like to contact me in the meantime, please call xxx-xxxx. I appreciate your consideration.
Yours faithfully,
Kathryn

Tell me about the three classes that have best prepared you for a successful career in consulting.

As is typical with interview questions, there is a wide range of good answers to this question, and your response will obviously be based on your academic focus. Just as you do with your work experiences, think about what your class work has taught you. An effective answer will not only demonstrate that you have paid attention in class, but also that you understand the key skills required for consulting.

Interviewee: Thanks for asking this question. On the surface, it may not be apparent why a history major would be interested in or equipped for consulting, but there are several classes that have helped prepare me for this job.

The interviewee does a nice job of deflecting a potential “gap” in his resume (his major). If you feel that your academic focus is not directly related to the job, you will need to do two things: 1) find a way to relate it; and 2) make sure that the interviewer hears your story, even if she does not ask you about this issue directly.

Interviewee: First, I took a course last year in basic accounting. The course taught me the essentials of accounting, but did not just focus on a strict definition of accounting such as T-accounts and debits and credits. Rather, it focused on all three financial statements and the interplay between them. I learned a lot about how to read and interpret income statements, cash flows, and balance sheets. And, because a lot of the class was taught using a “case” format, we were exposed to a lot of real life examples.

Interviewer: What do you think is the most important financial statement?

Yikes! If you mention a class, make sure that you can speak intelligently about it.

Interviewee: Well, that’s going to depend a lot on the question you’re trying to answer. If you’re interested in growth rates and share vs competition, then the income statement is probably going to be most relevant. However, if you want to know about a company’s ability to afford an acquisition, then the balance sheet is where you’re going to look.

This is a good (and correct) answer. The use of examples is clear and straightforward.

Interviewee: These skills are going to be useful in consulting. I will need to know my way around financial statements, as I mentioned, to do competitive analysis, understand company performance, and identify key areas of focus (for example, R&D).

Interviewer: OK. What about your second class?

Interviewee: This one may appear a little less relevant on the surface, but I think that the seminar I took last spring that focused on U.S. health care policy taught me lessons that I can bring into consulting. The goal of the class was to end the semester with one unified point of view on what our policy should be. There were 15 people in the class, and we brainstormed 15 different topics that we hoped would cover the health care landscape. Each person was asked to write a paper on one of the topics. I wrote about the programs in other developed nations and tried to identify the lessons that the U.S. could learn from these. Everyone presented his or her work to the group and then we spent several weeks discussing what our integrated recommendations should be. The process appears to me very similar to consulting—we had a problem that we needed to solve, we broke it down into manageable pieces, went off and did some work, came back and discussed the work, and then emerged with some suggestions. I liked this process a lot because of the teamwork involved and the ability to work together to identify solutions to a tough problem.

Fantastic—if you’re fortunate enough to have had a class like this. But if you haven’t, make sure that you discuss experiences where you’ve been part of a successful team. In consulting, your ability to work as part of a team is almost as important as your raw analytical skills.

Interviewer: Sounds like a great class. I’d love to hear about your recommendations at some point down the line. What about another class?

Interviewee: Well, there are two other classes that I think had some direct relevance to consulting. I took a class called “Introduction to Quantitative Analysis,” which focused on basic research and analytical methods—regressions, decision trees, some econometrics, etc. I did fairly well in the class, and feel that I can at least speak somewhat intelligently about these topics now.

The candidate does a nice job here of being modest. He knows that he did well, but allows the interviewer to check his transcript should she be so inclined.

Interviewee: The final class—which I loved—was on the history of the retail business in America. There are a lot of lessons that could probably be applied in other industries, but what I liked most about it were some of the anecdotes, such as what the shopping mall did to the social behavior of families, how jeans became so popular, etc. I’ve heard that consultants spend a lot of time at team dinners or waiting for flights, so maybe I could fill up some of the time with these stories.

This is a potentially risky answer it may be interpreted as too jocular. But it works in this context because the interviewee did such a nice job of relating his accounting, seminar, and quantitative analysis classes to consulting life. And, if it’s part of your personality to be a little lighthearted, you may want to see how the interviewer responds; remember, you are going to be spending a lot of time with these people, so you need to like them!

Source: WetFeet