Dave Liu - The Way of the Wall Street Warrior

Here are a few more quick tips about your appearance:

Be someone who the interviewer could visualize being part of the team.

Dress like your interviewers, but not better. No senior bankers want to see you with the Business Class version of their Economy outfit.

Bring an extra set of casual clothes (e.g., Banana Republic, J. Crew) for after-party or socializing activities. Nothing will make you look more like a tool than wearing a business suit to the hottest clubs.

Always wear dark colors just in case you spill crap on yourself. Otherwise a nice coffee stain in the groin area of your light grey suit will be the highlight of the interview—not you.

Wash your hands after using the bathroom.

Bring a handkerchief in case your hands get clammy.

On many occasions, I've used that last bullet point to my advantage. I call it the Clammy-Hand Test. As an interviewer, I'm known for asking tough questions. When shaking hands at the end of an interrogation, I've noticed a definite correlation between the sweatiness of the interviewee's palms and their propensity to lie, or at least stretch the truth. The test has never failed me, so be sure to wipe your hands clean before you shake your interviewer's hand. Nothing leaves a nastier impression than the transfer of sweat goo from your paw to my unsullied digits.

Now that you've gotten your self-esteem and wardrobe down pat, it's time to get ready for The Show . Interviewing is just another form of dating. In the era before courtship went online, the skills honed at your local watering hole would have been invaluable in today's interview process. You would have found it second nature to stand out from the crowd and accentuate your most appealing features, diving fearlessly into the fray. Seamlessly slipping from idle chitchat into a deep soulful conversation that maximizes your appeal, you would have intuited the subtext behind every question or gesture. You also would have gotten good practice rebounding from your multitude of rejections.

Alas, in this swipe-happy generation, many of these skills have gone down the same drain as single-tasking, civil behavior, and doing things IRL (In Real Life, for you dinosaurs). Until you figure out how to swipe right for a job, you'll have to work on your magnetic personality.

As we all know, life is rarely black and white; it is most often different shades of gray. Exaggeration is no different, so become an artiste . Think about how that menial summer job you had can be turned into a tour de force. Worked as a janitor? No! You were a Sanitation Engineer. Parked cars? Nope. Automotive Custodian. Got coffee? Hydration Manager. So master the power of exaggeration without lying. Half-truths are OK—politicians do it all the time—but outright lies will inevitably come back to bite you. And never, ever break the law. I don't have any tips for surviving jail.

Here are a few exaggeration-without-lying examples that may inspire you:

Exaggerating without lying is OK, but be forewarned. I know a firm that employs intuitives on their staff to smoke out the liars and cheats. These human beings are naturally gifted at reading people. So make sure whatever you say is the truth, and if it's a half-truth, make sure you can live with it. Otherwise, be prepared to get ejected out as an imposter.

COVID-19 changed the way we interact with people, but you can't let your guard down. (Just ask Jeffrey Toobin. 2 ) Rick Heitzmann was recently conducting a Zoom interview for a senior-level job at his company. The dude was crowded in the corner of his bedroom (which, of course, is fine… . I don't want to judge!), when suddenly the door opened in the background and his wife walked in and started making his bed! Rick was appalled: “Didn't she realize her husband was interviewing for a job? I mean for God's sake, there should be some minimum level of professionalism.” Needless to say, the candidate, who was also disheveled and seemingly unshowered, did not receive an offer.

My own meetings during COVID-19 are online and it never ceases to amaze me how people nonchalantly deteriorate over time. At first, people are dressed as though they're going to church in their Sunday best, but soon the scene devolves into something from the movie The Hangover . Please have a little decorum and try to pretend you're still in the office. Remember, you're the same person who always laughed at old guys who forgot to zip up their pants after going to the bathroom. If you don't course-correct soon, one day you'll wake up and be that guy doing online meetings naked and not even know it.

It never hurts to go out of your way and make your mother proud with a dose of “Please” and “Thank You.” Remember, it's all about making a connection with the person who's interviewing you and making yourself look good in the eyes of your inquisitor. So at the end of any interview, immediately send a thank-you email, and not a generic one. As Harry Nelis, former Goldman Sachs banker and now partner at the venture capital firm Accel, recommends, “Try to remember something specific from the interview so your email distinguishes you from all the others.”

Please read over your thank-you note carefully before sending it. Some email programs allow you to build in a delay, which I would highly recommend for those of you who tend to write like you speak—with reckless abandon. Otherwise, you might get some of these classics I've received:

“Thank you so much for meeting me today. I really enjoyed speaking with you and learning more about your firm. [CUSTOMIZE INTRO AS NEEDED].” Nothing like getting a generic email to make you feel special.

“Mr. David Liu, I really enjoyed speaking with you about career opportunities at your firm for Latina women. You are clearly a beacon for us.” And here I thought I was only a role model for Asian American men.

“Mr. Dave Loo.” My personal favorite, especially from British candidates who showed immense self-control. I know I wouldn't be able to keep it together if Johnny Shitter interviewed me.

“Please excuse typos. Sent from my iPhone.” You do realize that a typo is grounds for termination on Wall Street?

In general, I'm a big fan of pre-mortems, especially when it comes to interviewing. They're a tool I've used in which I imagine a best-laid plan failing and then work backward to figure out how it could have gone wrong. After I've prepared all I can, I replay in my mind all the ways I could screw up the interview and try to cover my mistakes with that last “thank-you” email before the interviewer either calls me back or sends me into the dumpster fire of dissed candidates. A good practice is to draft the email beforehand. Make sure to add something specific from your meeting which forces you to prepare to discuss something that has commonality with your interviewer; then be ready to press Send after the interview is over.