Duh. Of course you don’t, because you have never done it. Students don’t know what they want to do because they don’t have experience doing things. This sounds obvious, but we continue to miss this point. The reason that this is so difficult to understand is that the first job is one of the largest commitments we make in life without knowing what we are getting into. Think about it. At no other time to we make such an important decision without knowing the consequences of the decision.

Imagine getting married and not knowing what your husband will be like day to day. You know he is a nice guy after meeting with him for a day, you have done online research about him, and your friends say that he is a great person to hangout with. How stupid does this sound? You want to know what you are getting into before you do it. Let me go further. Imagine getting married like this and not even understanding what “marriage” entails.

At no other point in life do you make such an impactful decision based on so little data. Finding a good first job is almost entirely based on luck.

So what do you do if you don’t know what you want to do? The simple answer: do things. Think you want to be a financial advisor? Go to your local UBS and ask a broker if you can follow him around for a week and learn what he does. If you hate it, at least you can cross it off the list. I worked as an accounting intern at a small company after my sophomore year. I worked with an auditing team. I typed accounts receivables into an excel spreadsheet and totaled the number. It stunk. I went back to school and dropped my accounting major like a bad habit. Again, do things. There is no other way around it.

So why don’t more students do things? Is it because they are lazy and stupid? No, it is because the system is not setup to handle them doing things. Think about the UBS example I just gave, how creepy would it be if you actually did that? Doing things is tough. Faculty doesn’t push it. Companies don’t pay for it. No organization organizes it. Nobody really cares except the super smart students, super smart companies, and super smart schools. Princeton has great programs like this and Google has dozens of engaging contest, internships, and work programs.

Do things.

Ere.net is a leading recruitment/hr blog. A great guy named John reached out to me and I answered some questions for him. After the article was published I wrote him an overjoyed thank you email and I think I might have scared him! I am so excited about this because it lends credibility to the concept we are creating.

Check out the article here.

Sue Shellenbarger from the WSJ wrote an interesting article on internships in today’s paper. Highlighted is a company that actually charges students to put them to work. It is called the University of Dreams. Is it fair that a company actually makes students/parents pay to place them in an internship? Of course not, this is dumb and disadvantages every student who can’t shell out a couple grand to work. The question a company must ask is – am I getting the most talented students? If a company can answer, yes, then the University of Dreams will succeed.

Finding an internship is the Wild Wild West. Finding a great one is like striking gold. But, let’s not forget that internships done right can be an incredible bargain and a long term strategy for attracting talent.

Do you really think the great companies with the coolest internships would allow University of Dreams to buy their students a spot? But, the mediocre places with dumb internships will see the University of Dreams as a way to save money/time and I am sure they will use them.

Great students, the type that change businesses, don’t pay for internship placement. And great companies, the type that understand the value of young people, don’t let others dictate the candidates.

Side note: I don’t claim to be a great namer of companies(heck, I called mine GrouperEye) but University of Dreams? Really?

I had a great preliminary phone interview with Venture Marketing located in Alexandria, VA. I was thrilled that they asked me back for an entire day interview where I would “be able to observe client meetings and the day to day business of the office.” What a great opportunity and a well designed interview process.

The night before my 8am all day interviewed, I drove up to dc and stayed at a Holiday Inn. I was both nervous and excited. Little did I know what the next day would bring.

I arrived to the office dressed in my only suit at 7:55. I sat in a small rectangular room and the receptionist asked me to fill out a quick form. As I filled out this form, more young people my age began to arrive, 14 in total. A young guy with slick, gelled back hair then read my name on a clip board and asked me to follow him into the hallway. I went into a cramped office where the guy read my name from the clipboard before saying, “Ted, my name is Jim and this is Brad (hand shakes all around). You will be with Brad all day and we will see you in the later back here.” So I went with Brad.

We walked to the metro and then I then proceeded to help him as we sold copy paper and ink cartridges door to door all day. I was stunned as we would go floor to floor, door to door, in an office building and use the same pitch “We can save you 20% on all office supplies, including ink cartridges and paper.” We sold $40 worth of paper to three different helpless companies. One lady yelled at us and ran us out of her office. To say that the experience was uncomfortable was an understatement.

 We took a break around 1pm and ate lunch at Jerry’s Subs. Brad then brought out a sheet of paper that explained to me how I could run my own office and make a million dollars within two years.

I got back to the office around 5pm and was again told to wait in the rectangle bullpen. I was sitting close to the door so I could hear down the hall. They would bring the other people like me into a room and if the individual decided to work there, they would send them into the back room and have them ring a bell as they celebrated. I reminded me of fraternity initiation, except worse.

In the span of 6 days, I had gone from an all expensed paid interview at Google in San Francisco to paying $3.45 for a subway card to sell copy paper door to door.

You know what, I know this may sound stupid, but I really had to think about this question, “Would I develop and learn more at Venture Marketing or Google?”

I ate a ham and cheese sandwich at a career service luncheon as a top HR executive from Marriott (super intelligent guy) told the group, “There have been numerous studies published and researchers agree with the fact that interviews have a 2% correlation with a job applicant’s success at their job.” So, for all intents and purposes, the smartest people in the human resource industry believe that interviews are essentially worthless.

Google made me staple a piece of paper on the top of my entry level job application. On this sheet of paper they had two fill in the blanks:

SAT Score: _______
GPA: ________

Sure, they interviewed me as well, but they base most of their decision on statistics. Google is cutting edge and they know that these universal measures of intelligence are statistically the most significant in relation to job success.

Placing too much importance on the interview is dumb. Let’s think of it in terms of professional baseball. What if teams interviewed players and based decisions on the interview instead of the players past performance. Sure, there are a lot of differences in hiring for an entry level job than hiring a shortstop, but the same principles apply.

People like interviews because of the way it makes them feel. People asking the questions feel like they are discovering new talent and shaping the company. It is a position of power and shows that the company values the individual’s opinion of a given candidate.

People getting interviewed love interviews if they are good at interviews. For example, I am one of those people. I am very good at interviews and I love them because I am good at them. For a long time I thought interviews were so important, but how much of this was because I was good at it?

ibanker

 I had a black belt and brown shoes, but I didn’t care, I was going to ace the interview. I strolled into the interview room a nervous wreck but showing unrivaled passion for a job I knew nothing about. All my super smart friends were interviewing with investment banks and the faculty loved the idea of their students going to work on Wall Street. Why wouldn’t I interview for the SunTrust Investment Banking Analyst Position? So the interview began.

After the pleasantries, it was time to get down to business. “So Ted, tell us how the balance sheet, cash flow statement, and income statement are linked together.” So, I vomited out my pre-rehearsed bland statement and the interview continued for about twenty minutes. Now it was my turn to ask the all important questions to the interviewers. So I went with, “What is an example of an interesting project your team is currently working on?” So the two executives began to talk to me about a new bond structure they created, “Well, Rich looked at the debt markets and decided that now blah, blah, blah.” “Oh stop in Charlie, you’re giving me too much credit. You did some great work analyzing those structured securities blah, blah, blah.” I thought they were going to makeout right then and there because of these bond structures.

I walked away from the interview in my pressed suit when I ran into Stephanie by the career service office staircase. Stephanie was a babe I had been trying to date and she laughed at me in my suit. She then said something that made me think, “Ted, why are you dressed in a suit? That is not you and you know it.” Good point.

The smartest people I know went to work in finance. Why? And, better question, why did I interview for this job when I didn’t like anything about finance?

Sure, students who love finance should go into finance. It is dumb to argue against that. The observation I am trying to articulate is that an overwhelming majority of the most intelligent students interviewed for finance positions. Why?

Is it because you make a lot of money? Maybe. Is it because faculty celebrates Wall Street? Maybe. Is it because it gives you good experience? Maybe. Is it because it sounds cool at dinner parties?Maybe.

Clearly it is not the fact that the job is fun. I only know one of my investment banking friends who loves the work. So what is it that drives people to finance?

Maybe it’s because that is what other smart students do – regardless of whether or not they have matching belt and shoe colors. Working for a big company that others want to work for is way to keep score.