Transition smoothly into a job

After succesfully interviewing three top executives in the banking and financial services sector for this issue, The Ticker compiled the suggestions these individuals had for students seeking to enter the job market in the future.

What advice would you give students thinking about working in transaction banking in the future?

Frank Farsi (managing director and COO, Deutsche Bank) - It is important not to be afraid to make decisions along the way. Decisions need to be made based on the information available to you. Try to be as collaborative around those decisions as you can and if you are not satisfied with the ultimate outcome focus on how to correct it moving forward. You need to be able to be flexible and know that opening this door might open up the next one and open up the next one. It's okay to have dreams and goals but don't let those dreams and goals stop you from grasping reality.

What would you recommend students do to get a competitive edge on their peers in this job market (unpaid internships, training, workshops, classes)?

Jose Rivera (senior vice resident, RMD Wealth Management Group, UBS) - They all work [suggestions] but you know what, you can't take an internship and just hang out. You need to be proactive and ask for work, ask, "‘What else can I do?' ‘Do you have any research that I can do?' And learn from the broker that you're working with." Stay in front of them, you really have to bother, not bother them but really always come in and ask, and ask for help. "Can you spend some time with me on this project or can you spend some time with me on what is a CDO, or what's a put, or what's a call. What's a bond?" They will spend time with you if you hook up with the right financial advisor. They will definitely hook up with you. It's important that you do that your freshman year in college. I know guys like to go back home and hangout and take the summer off your freshman year and then junior and senior year you say "Oh my God I have to find a job." And then you start filling the resume up with stuff finally for your junior year. You have got to do that your freshman year, or even the year after you graduate from high school. And start feeling around and remember what we're asking you, and your college is asking you, and what your parents are asking you is to pick something that you're going to do for the rest of your life right, at 18. Me, architectural drafting. I didn't do that, I did that because my brother was doing it, and family is a center of influence. The environment around you and around your house are probably going to try and direct you to one place or another but at the end of the day you're going to find it by trial and error and you're going to find it probably in your 20's, not when you're 17, or 18. But I will tell you this, what I see from my friends is most of the time, 90 percent or 80 percent of the time, whatever your dad does, whatever your mom does, that's probably the way you're going to go for the most part. Whatever that house is being feed on is probably what you're going to do. I got friends that are cops and their children are going to school to be cops. I have friends that are plumbers and their kids are going to be plumbers. Doctors and lawyers; the same thing. At the end of the day that's how it's going to influence you. I don't know how we did architectural drafting in my house but at the end of the day that's what the influence is going to be so what do you do? You research it like anything else, but you have to research it like it's a course, your toughest course that you are taking in college is how you have to research what you want to be for the rest of your life. It's like a final exam. Most people don't take that attitude towards it, go with the flow. You really have to treat it like it's your final exam. You're going to find out everything that you know about what it is that you want to do. Listen, everybody wants to be an athlete. You don't have to research that, you have got to have the muscle, the athletic ability, other than that you have to research everything that's out there if that's what you want to do. The unpaid internships are fine, the paid internships are fine. The research is fine, what else can you do? Talk to your friends, parents; a great source of information. If there's something that you think you may want to do, you talk with your friends' parents. Use your resources around you.

What advice would you give to students starting their careers in the financial services industry/banking industry?

Jai Sooklal (head of funding and liquidity risk management, N.Y. Federal Reserve Bank) - I think in terms of students starting out, (if you're starting out today) you'll be given a tremendous amount of responsibility early in your careers. It is a question of rolling up your sleeves, getting into it with enthusiasm, applying everything that you've learned in business school. It's also fair to say that business schools hopefully have taught people about how to think about problems as opposed to giving them the answer to every problem. I assure you, if you are coming out of business school thinking that you have the answers to real world problems, you don't. Hopefully they've prepared you enough so that you know how to take a problem, break it down into pieces, go off and chase down the answers to the different components, pull them all back together and come to a sensible conclusion. Then, if you apply that kind of methodology, I think, with enthusiasm and putting in the hours and doing what you have to do, doing what it takes to get things done, then you're probably on the road to success.

In the current job market where students are having a tough time landing a job, what would you say are skills or factors that would distinguish students from their peers?

Sooklal - If you bring in enthusiasm to what you want to do and you have good reasons for wanting to do it, I think, that kind of sets people apart. Curiosity, to the extent you may not have done something in a particular field, or maybe not necessarily have even worked in the financial services industry, or wherever you are intending to go. I think you want to demonstrate that you have serious curiosity and some reasonable interest. It helps to tell the story about why you are interested in what you want to do. The desire to want to succeed and some way that you can demonstrate that you're willing to work hard or do things out of the ordinary to demonstrate value and add value.