Dave Liu - The Way of the Wall Street Warrior

One final tip: Bribes work. The origin of to bribe is from the Old French, bribeor (beggar) and before that, the Romanic word, brimber (to beg). You should never be above groveling for a job; it greases the wheels of business, and in many cultures is even expected. So consider bribes as begging in polite company. But don't be gauche. Stick with the lowest level of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. 3 Food is always welcome, and generally donuts and coffee will suffice. No cash, nothing too expensive, and definitely not sex.

This works because of reciprocity bias, or the impulse to do what Jesus said: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”—but in a positive way. Wall Street is built on this. You do my deals, and I'll do yours. If you invest in my fund, I'll invest in yours. What started out as one caveman asking the other to scratch his hairy back, quickly devolved into co-investing in each other's funds to perpetuate a Ponzi scheme. Imagine, Wall Street might not have existed if a caveman had invented the back scratcher.

Hiring right is all about finding a great cultural fit. This is one of those insidious terms that no one can explain, but its absence is always grounds for not hiring someone. A simple way to think about it is as the sister of affinity bias, and one way to project this is through your media consumption, especially your movies. Now, everyone knows Hollywood doesn't know crap about Wall Street, so be sure to come across as the most astute cinephile this side of Orson Welles who can wax poetic about how off-the-mark these movies are when socializing with your interviewers, future boss, or anyone at the office who will listen. To help prioritize your time, I've listed them below in order of viewing priority:

The Godfather (1972). What does the Mafia have to do with Wall Street? Everything! Every senior person you meet will liken himself to Don Corleone, even the women. Watch and learn. Oh, and if you're ever referred to as “Fredo,” watch your back!

The Godfather: Part II(1974). Watch this to see what happens when you betray your firm. It doesn't end well. It also explains why your boss is such a jerk. They didn't start like that. Society made them that way.

Margin Call (2011). All-time true-story fiction showing how Lehman Brothers really came within a gnat's hair of ending morning Starbucks macchiatos for everyone on both coasts.

The Big Short (2015). Ever wonder how the Great Recession led to you moving to a trailer park? This is “Securitization for Dummies.”

Trading Places (1983). Confidence-booster that provides scientific evidence that any schmuck can make it on Wall Street.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). Mostly fictional account of the glamorous life of fourth-tier stockbrokers who you'll never meet at a real investment bank. Oh, except the dwarf-tossing. That's authentic.

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). This is about real estate salesmen, but they coined one of the mantras of all salespeople all over the world: ABC—Always Be Closing. Don't think defining your job as sales is too lowbrow. It's all about the sale! And don't think you deserve anything if you aren't generating sales. Remember Alec Baldwin's warning: “Coffee's for Closers!”

Wall Street (1987). 100 percent complete and utter crap; a classic example of a Wall Street movie written by a Hollywood outsider who created characters that are bastard composites of multiple jobs. Little to no redeeming qualities except for creating the one-liner every wannabe investment banker cites to simultaneously prove how knowledgeable and douchey he is: “Greed Is Good.”

Treat the interview like a performance; rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Do pre-mortems to double-check yourself.

Be aware of your initial impression as it will set the stage for everything.

Be the pitch that satisfies what your prospective employer really wants and recognize that you're a walking example of the Greater Fool Theory.

Pass the Cleveland Airport Test.

Treat interviewing like dating.

Exaggerate with half-truths, but never lie; otherwise, you might fail the Clammy-Hand Test.

Reciprocity bias means bribes work.

Know your target industry's media to project cultural fit.

1 1Return on investment is relevant because companies determine compensation by paying you the least amount possible to keep you from quitting.

2 2For the vast majority of you who don't read anymore, he was a journalist at the New Yorker and made a very serious faux pas on Zoom.

3 3Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a theory of motivation which states that five categories of human needs dictate an individual's behavior: physiological (food and clothing) needs, safety (job security) needs, love and belonging (friendship) needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: Connect. Connect. Connect. It's all about connections: who you know, what you have in common with the interviewer, and how you can help make crates of cash for the company. That's your mission. Got it? Now prepare for your personal bake-off like your life depends on it.

Before you get a formal interview, try for a pre-meet. An informal opportunity allows you to continue gathering intelligence and learn about your audience. Although this may not seem like a lot of time, fifteen minutes can feel like fifteen hours if you're a bore.

The first-round interview is the most straightforward, but riskiest, stage. Typically, it's done with a single interviewer, so if someone peed in your interviewer's Cheerios, you're screwed. On the flipside, if their favorite NFL team won the night before, or if they closed a deal they've been working on for months, chances are they'll be in a great mood! Regardless, don't forget to strut like a peacock and stand out.

Your first interview will likely occur at your school. As an alumnus working at Jefferies, I was part of the Wharton team of about a half-dozen interrogators. We'd travel to Philadelphia and interview approximately 300 hopefuls on campus. After a few days of interviewing, we'd eliminate most of them immediately.

Imagine yourself in the place of your interviewer: in a windowless room listening to a succession of naive undergraduates or MBA bores drone on about how challenged they were in some meaningless school project. You, too, would be watching the clock waiting for cocktail hour. Keep telling yourself to be memorable, because your competition is breathing down your neck. Since you're being interrogated to sniff out any BS on your resume, recite unique behavioral factoids that show why you'd be perfect for the job. Remember, you are the pitch. Tell stories that illustrate how you'll crank out whatever is needed—budgets, business plans, financial models, laundry lists—until your laptop explodes. Feel free to embellish to the ethical speed limit. It'll show you have the potential to be a senior executive one day.

If we interviewed 300 applicants at Wharton, we'd probably invite 50 or so to headquarters for another cattle call. This one is much more intense, filled with one-on-one speed dating–style sessions, commingled with idle chitchat lunches with multiple executives and candidates.