How He Landed 2 Top Finance Internships Before Junior Year | The Coffee Chat Podcast: Ep. 52

0:00Okay, we are here with uh Jimmy Johnston who is a current uh rising junior at University of Illinois Urbana Champagne. Uh welcome to the program, Jimmy. Thank you for having me, Ben. Very uh excited to be here. Absolutely. So, let's just dig into a little bit about your background. So, uh you know, where did you grow up? Why did you go to U of I and uh what is your

0:23career goal after school? Yeah. So, uh, originally from Park Ridge, that's where I am right now. Back from, uh, my sophomore year, uh, at college. Went to Maine South High School. Uh, graduated from there in 2024, uh, and chose to go to U of I, uh, for a variety of reasons. Number one, it is right in my backyard. Um, so to turn down an opportunity as strong as the business school at Illinois, um, being so close to home for what many would consider to be, uh, a good, uh, good offer, good thing to choose would be difficult. Um, as well as the fact that I thought Illinois would put me in the

1:06best possible position to start my career in Chicago, uh, after I graduated. I come from a very very long uh lineage of proud Alii alums. I'm uh one of uh one of many in my family to to go to school in Champagne. Actually, my sister is headed there next year, so she's joining the uh the family

1:26tradition. Oh, congrats. But thank you. Yeah, she's uh very excited. I'm I I feel like I'm more excited to have her uh down there. No, I'm just joking. But uh yeah, but I chose to chose to go to Illinois. Uh in retrospect, it has been the best decision of um my academic career for

1:45sure. Uh it has provided me with so many opportunities. Uh in terms of what I'm looking to do after graduation uh in 2028, looking to start in Chicago in investment banking. Um that has been the road that I've tried to be on since I started college uh two years ago now. And uh something that I've really

2:05enjoyed experiencing uh thus far. Uh, awesome. Awesome. Well, I I would stay on the strength of U of I for a second. you know, I I I haven't I don't I don't have the latest ranking in front of me, but I feel like U of I like it's on the map, but like and it has some really good accolades, but I would still say it's like underrated, you know, like I think it's kind of a hidden gem uh in a lot of ways with the discipline of the different programs and the layers and how how well if you really immerse yourself in the programming there and

2:34the opportunities that uh it's it's really excellent. I agree. Well, look, you know, I'm I'm a double major in accounting. We are the number one program in the nation, which I know my uh accounting professors like to flaunt. Um as do the as this do the students. Um but in terms of the network that Illinois provides in Chicago, um knowing that I wanted to start my career there, uh there really I didn't think was a better option in terms of a strong college uh college life, right? Enjoying the aspects of a Big 10 university. the

3:11uh more more college than school, right? Enjoying that. Uh but also the academics. I thought that Geese uh the business school was one of a kind in the offerings that it provided for its students. I thought it had a lot of very competitive and very interesting extracurricular options. So, what they offered outside of the classroom, uh there's a lot of research to be done down there for for students that are interested in that. Uh, but I thought at the end of the day, the culture of the university and geese in general were uh the deciding factors and what really made me want to go there. I thought the

3:46people that went there were super interesting. I thought that they were devoted to what they were doing. They were kind Midwestern people. Uh, you know, the kind of people that I grew up around and that was just something I was looking for. That has been what I've seen every day since I've been down on campus. Um, and what I try to tell, uh, seniors and high school that are thinking about going to Illinois over over other schools, uh, I like to like to say that it is, um, everything you expect and more. And I have never ever heard anybody say that going to Illinois was a bad decision. Um, so that that's

4:22my my two cents and my uh my elevator pitch for the university. Um, well, because there's a lot of technical strength there with the different programs. So you had mentioned to me um about the organization uh prime is it prime mergers? Prime mergers and acquisitions. Yes. So well I think that's if you so tell us a little bit about that program because I think it's really uh you know illustrative of the the strength of you

4:46know some of the different offerings. Yeah absolutely. So prime M&A is what I like to call uh the JV to the investment banking academy which is that's the varsity level. So, Prime is an organization that freshmen can join immediately when they get down on campus. It's a competitive process. You have to apply uh interview uh and be accepted into into the class. But what it is at a high level is a full M&A sellside uh pitch simulation throughout the first semester um of uh of your freshman year of college. So, students

5:26go for it. Yeah. Well, what I want to jump in and just add to like the strength there because like folks might hear like, oh, Prime Miners, that's one particular organization, one school, but like if you dig into what's underneath there and that early exposure to M&A cases, I mean, at its core, that's what it is. And so, you know, if you're think about working hard for two semesters with lots with doing multiple M&A case competitions, uh I could tell you I don't care what school you're at, that's going to give you a heck of a lot of great preparation for what's coming

5:57next. It was something that I was able to talk about during recruitment for sure. Uh I did case competitions for Trager, the grill company, uh and Winnebago, the the RV, uh manufacturer. So, they were both very interesting. I still like to kind of keep up to date with uh with both of those stocks just to kind of

6:17say are we buying or selling Winnebago? What are we doing at the time? At the time um uh we were uh we were saying that Wnebago was uh was undervalued. Now what that what that looks like these days uh I'm not too sure. I haven't been out built out ago model in a while but um but uh no at the time uh that was more of a buy side pitch. So, we were um we were recommending a purchase of another company. I believe it was Malibu Boats at the time cuz we thought expanding their um their aquamarine segment would have been uh an interesting way to go

6:51instead of the more traditional RV route. I remember thinking of that as a as our rationale and recommendation for for Trager. That was more of a sellside pitch. So, we were saying at the time they were overvalued and should be sold to uh private equity, I think, was was our uh our ad recommendation. So for first semester freshman to Yeah. [snorts] Well, you know, first semester freshman, you're just learning the terms, right? You're trying to come up with a recommend. You just learn what a recommendation is and then you have to figure out how to uh how to actually pitch to uh to a bunch of bankers. So,

7:23it's a safe recommendation. It's a safe. Exactly. A real banker is not going to not going to ever tell you that's a bad idea because, you know, they [laughter] get to do a deal. PE gets the great get a great buy. It's a win-win. Everyone's happy, right? Everyone's happy. That's good stuff. Well, cool. So, yeah, I just would really want to highlight for folks who are really thinking about how can I when

7:42should I get started? How can I prepare? Um, any opportunity you have to get into an M&A case competition, like expect to do terribly. Like, just go do it, right? Like, if you're going to I like to say if you're going to fail, fail during training. Don't fail on stage, right? So yeah, it's Yeah, it's okay to to mess up during practice, but uh once the whistle blows, you know, you want to be uh you want to be as ready as you can be. So I

8:07agree with that. Exactly. Um so you mentioned that you had a very uh IB Chicago oriented strategy and um a lot of folks hear the word strategy and they're like what is that? you know and it is about the how to accomplish a goal but it's it's also about clearly defining like what are you trying to do and like what is that goal and putting clear left and right limits and that alone can be a great strategy and I think that is illustrative you know of of your story. So tell us how did you come up, you know, how did you arrive at the goal of I I know I only want

8:40Chicago, definitely IB, definitely Chicago. Um because it is an advantage, a strategic advantage when you make that decision early on and just go heads down and just go. Yeah. So well, in terms of investment banking, um I guess it'd probably be appropriate to to start there. Yeah. I uh and I truthfully did not know what investment banking really was before I got to college. I'll tell the truth. Um, I I joke my first words weren't merge and acquire,

9:09right? I was told about uh I was told about Prime by an upperassman at the time who actually uh worked for Adventist. And um and he said, "Hey, you should really go to this info night. I think you'd be interested in it. I this just go check it out." And I went uh to the info night for Prime my probably third week of school, maybe maybe a little bit later, first month definitely. and I was hooked immediately. It was something where I just really couldn't explain why I was interested in it, but I knew that it was something that I just wanted to continue to learn about and just wanted to check

9:44out. Um, so I applied, interviewed, was lucky enough to get a spot in that class uh of Prime. Went through a full semester case competition as we mentioned, and I I just knew that this was something that I wanted to spend my career doing. Um, it was competitive. I was constantly learning, but the culture of people that I was surrounded by, that was really what kept me around. These were people who were driven, so so smart uh, and just really kind folks and [clears throat] I I just wanted to spend time with with that group of people. And I'm lucky enough to call a lot of those people

10:23friends these days. But in terms of banking, that's what that's what hooked me. So I knew setting my sights on on the investment banking academy at that point was was what I wanted to do and I I went full force in in recruitment for that. I tried as hard as I could, was lucky enough to get a spot. Um, in terms of Chicago, growing up in in the Chicago suburbs, working in Chicago was something that I just kind of knew I I wanted to do. I grew up uh going to school with my sister. my parents would take the train downtown and I thought to myself, well,

10:57hey, one day maybe I'll take the train down and and [snorts] that's something that I did last summer, I'm doing it this summer. I know we just chatting about that now. The allure of taking the train every day does fade a little bit. Um, but I am looking forward to uh to starting on on the first um and uh and taking the train down every day uh this summer and you know, next summer, what uh what have you. But uh but Chicago was especially attending the University of Illinois. Chicago was something that I was always focused on. It's where I wanted to end my career. So, it was more

11:30rather do I want to start my career out in New York and come back to Chicago or do I want just want to start in Chicago and stay here? And after talking with [snorts] uh talking with my my family and some friends and other people who had been through similar experiences, it just kind of made sense to to stay in Chicago and to recruit for for banks out here. And once I actually started the recruitment process, that decision became even clearer just because I knew I wanted to work at the banks with with some of the people that I was speaking with just because they were really

12:03really interested in what they were doing and they were taking time out of their ridiculously busy schedules uh to speak with me and they were really really kind. So it was it was awesome to to experience that and only solidify my decision to to stay in Chicago. Yeah. Well, from a recruiting strategy perspective, that's just, you know, it's great that you you took advantage of that resource, right? Chicago is almost a bit of a homecourt advantage, um, in a sense, right? Because you're going to, uh, U of I that has deep ties to the state and, you know, there's an Amtrak talking about the train, you got the

12:36Amtrak goes from the loop to Champagne. So, we trains are connecting all of it, which actually does mean something. It's easy. It's really easy to get from those to from place to place without having to deal with the traffic. So, I mean like it is logistics and it is trains, but it actually creates a physical human connection between these places. Makes them evil easy to go back and forth, but I would just say like strategically well done. I mean, it's like you took advantage of a of a homec court advantage. Imagine being someone who like grew up in Seattle and now I'm going to recruit IB and Nashville. Like,

13:05okay, you can do it, but like, you know, that's like a high a little higher risk. It's a little higher risk. That's okay. Don't say we're not saying no, but you know, um and so that created some success and I didn't say this before, my mistake. Um but congrats on um your offers. So you've got some really great offers. So you've got uh like the I don't know the duplex, whatever you call that. Like you've got a you got internships uh after sophomore and after junior already locked down. So huge congrats for that. So, you're going to Morning Star uh this summer uh in Chicago and then um as a credit analyst

13:43intern is what we have here, right? So, then you've got and then you've got the classic, you know, uh the excellent uh IB summer analyst gig at JPM. Uh both in Chicago. Um and so, yeah, just like take a minute, let that settle in. I hope it feels good. It was it was awesome to uh to get both of those calls. uh just because uh working at both those firms was something that I really really wanted to do. I was able to meet some awesome people throughout both recruitment processes. Um and and just hearing uh yeah, you got the gig was uh was something that was uh really nice,

14:24especially um the JPM offer because that was the the latter of both of those. And uh and so that was more okay. We got we got the summers locked down from uh from here on out. So it was uh uh great to great to hear and I'm looking forward to to starting Morning Star uh very soon

14:42going through a summer with them. Learning a lot a great learning [clears throat] experience I think. Um well credit analysis I mean this is my two my two cents. I think credit analysis is uh relatively underrated and will will really serve you well going into your next year of coursework and into the internship the following summer like analyzing cash flows and dealing with the credit. I assume you know I'm presum presuming that you know you're going to dig into that sort of thing. So like I think that's such a fundamental place to explore and better understand which will

15:13serve you really well going forward. I I hope so. Yeah. again, it it really I I I'm taking I I like to take everything as as a learning experience. And so I try to soak up as much as I possibly can. Um looking forward to doing that at Morning Star. Taking what I learned there and going into my uh my junior year and then and then the summer after that to uh to JP Morgan and uh trying to take uh take advantage of every opportunity that I have there and uh very much looking forward to that as

15:41well. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I'll say to everyone so when when Jimmy gives advice like hey he's he really achieved these things like he did a great job. Also too you had mentioned you were involved in a total for at least for the junior year internship total of 15 processes you were involved in. You had about five super day offers. So uh he's got stories from all kinds of stories uh from recruiting and and advice and um it's just uh you know it takes a lot of work and a lot of effort but um you know again congrats. So tell us so a little bit more. So, when did you I had to

16:14presume you uh did a lot of in-person visits to Chicago. Is that a good assumption? Like, how often did you get up get up there or was it only once or twice? I was only in Chicago for office visits once. So, I went um on what are called the trucks uh for the investment banking academy uh office visits over uh three three or four days uh in

16:35Chicago and then the same in New York. So, uh I had only seen all these the offices that I you know was recruiting with um [clears throat] once and um was very reliant on people who had had similar internships at the different banks uh who were students at Illinois as well as the folks that I was able to talk to uh

16:58during coffee chats or networking calls. So, um was only able to uh to really kind of get a inerson impression once. Um but, uh great experience and and tried to take uh take advantage of that. Especially, I'll just say this. Um you know, going around there are 20 26 people I think in my IBA class and just walking around the streets of Chicago with them uh as well as New York for for a couple days. That in itself uh was just so much fun. So, a lot of laughs, a lot of good memories. Uh, you know, you're a bunch of 20-year-olds running around Chicago. Now, of course, we were

17:35uh, you know, supervised and we weren't, uh, you know, obviously we were representing the, uh, the Investment Bank Academy and and geese uh, in Illinois, so we had a, you know, obviously on best behavior. You're still allowed to have we, but yeah, but it was a good time and uh, and smiling the uh, the entire time.

17:53So, lots of laugh. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Uh so so um I guess yeah so what are some of the key things you know you you had mentioned that u an audience uh archetype you have in your mind is is that business interested student that IB interested student who is rising from freshman to sophomore year right now like if you could rewind time put yourself back there like or what's that advice you want them to hear like what are the first couple things that pop into your mind so I I would say I would say a piece this couple For students that are just coming into college, I would say

18:33enjoy college for for what it's what it has to offer, wherever you might be going. Um, you don't necessarily need to jump right into the deep end immediately. Um, you do have to at some point. Uh but if you are not sure about banking or you want to try other things your first semester or even your first year um that is totally something that's in the cards. I was able to uh work with a consulting organization on campus while I was doing Prime just to see if I liked it. I did like it. Um I enjoyed it. I enjoyed working with the different people that uh that I was grouped with. But I just

19:13thought that uh investment banking was something that was more geared towards me, a little bit more my speed. Um so that's why that's why I chose to go with it. Well, that's well that's some good subtle advice though. You know, it's like yeah, you're interested in it, but don't go way super deep dive to the deep part of the pool with technical stuff. Stay up, branch out a little bit, test drive a couple different things. And it sounds like you're able to get some M&A

19:38exposure, but testing out consulting. I'm sure you talked to people about other paths as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. Look, um I I thought um I thought about law for for a little bit. I thought coming into college that was something that I wanted to do. That was no longer the case. Um I thought um if I if I hadn't gone into business, I thought education uh was definitely something that I wanted to do. I had a little bit of experience doing something like that in high school. Really enjoyed it. So keep your options open, right? Yeah, anything should be in the cards if you want it to

20:11be. Uh so for for students that are coming in thinking I don't really know what I want to do. I just want to take advantage of everything. Do that. For the people who say I think I really want to do banking and that is what I'm going to focus on. That's fine. But I would caveat that you should really take advantage of every opportunity that your university has to offer just to confirm

20:33that your sus uh your suspicion is true. So, uh, I that's that's what I did. Was able to look at a couple different pathways, enjoyed all of them, great experiences, learned a lot, but ended up going with banking. Yep. Absolutely. Well, it's good. It's what we call an informed decision. Exactly. Exactly. So, if you have a

20:53hypothesis, do some research. Right. You weren't coming in blind. Well, that's good. That's how No, that's how you produce. Okay. So, get that early exposure. Um and then sounds so then at some point though you had to make that cuto off you know make that final decision right so that really comes in the summer going into your sophomore year so that is uh for for most places that's where you really are going to start digging into the technical uh guides the breaking into wall street guides you know the the kind of uh infamous uh textbooks that that the students pour over during the summer and you really have to make a

21:28decision if this is right for you uh that I would say I probably made the decision a little bit earlier. I I knew after a semester of Prime that this is what I wanted to do. So, I was able to take my second semester freshman year and just go through another case competition, really try to um embrace myself with uh with the information that I was getting from the different lessons within Prime as well as the case competition. and then over the summer starting to really understand the technical concepts uh as well as uh you know working to become a trainer for Adventist and and getting my

22:02certifications for that as well. So uh that's I I know for for some people the sophomore or the summer going into sophomore year that's kind of the go- no go point. Um, and uh I know looking at it uh when when we're recording, I think there are some uh some rising sophomores that will be making that decision very soon. So to them, I I say uh you know, go with your gut. It's you know, you will your gut will make the right decision. And if you choose to go down the banking route, well then full steam ahead and and do everything you possibly can to put yourself in the best possible

22:38situation come recruitment. Yeah. Well, it's like definitely I mean you say go with your gut. I totally agree with that. Um, but it's like it's it's more important to make a decision and go hard at it than to be perfectly right about the decision. I agree. You know, you know, you could some sometimes you make a decision based on what you have learned and what you have heard. Um, but you just uh you need to experience some things to to really know if uh if

23:08something is right for you. Exactly. Exactly. Well, because the secret is if you pick something and you're wrong, but you go hard at it, you'll figure it out in like two weeks. [laughter] And then if you don't, if you don't, six months will go by, you like, damn, I still hate this. What am I doing right now? [laughter]

23:25But, uh, no, that's that's a good point. Yeah. Good. Well, so good advice. So, tell me, so you mentioned Adventist and you mentioned some of the other technical prep pieces, like I guess, yeah, what are some of those impactful technical prep things you did? you know, uh certainly happy to talk about Advent this more, but yeah, how would you

23:41answer that question? So, like like everybody, um I I turn to those those breaking into Wall Street guides with um uh I mean, they're they're daunting. You know, those are 140 p 120 30 page guides that you that are dense with a lot of material that you don't understand with vocab words that you've never heard before and yet you were expected to comprehend and digest everything that

24:11you read. Um, so my my study technique and and whether it was was strong or not is well that's that's up for interpretation. I'm a I'm a notetaker, so [clears throat] I read through the guides, printed them all out. I'm a little bit old school in that. I like to have physical copy. Um took notes on on all the information that I read. And then also utilized a little bit of uh AI to to try to come up with um different explanations for things if I just didn't understand them at face value. M so you know for example let's just say I didn't uh uh accounts payable

24:51let's say I didn't understand accounts payable and uh really just what the heck is accounts payable exactly right for for a fifth grader enter and then have it explain it to me and I'm like okay that's what that's you know that's what makes sense or you know then it's like now I'm ready for seventh grade there we go exactly exactly now now when I get to you know dividend recap or um something like that or some sort of you know uh yeah what is a whole coke some you know different topics I just had what are we talking about seriously right and and how to you know

25:23then I think it goes it explains how to model those and you're trying to build out a model for uh for a company with net operating losses and I'm like I I'm I'm lost let's you know go back to basics try to understand it and then come back so that's that's what I did um tried to get through all the information once go back to parts that I really needed a little bit more uh more time with a little bit more explanation and then um I will say this and this was definitely part of my recruitment process that I would recommend for everybody uh is is to not do it alone. So I was uh

25:58I am very grateful to have had a lot of people that I could uh work with. Uh I would call uh have I got one guy in my mind right now. I would call him up and uh we would do mock interviews during the summer and just talk about uh the different concepts if we didn't understand it. Um so technical as well as behavioral people don't understand that sometimes uh you could have the best technical knowledge in the room but that only gets you so far. You need to have your story down. You need to have an explanation for why you're really pursuing investment banking. um

26:32different parts of your life that you can explain where you learned lessons and how you've been able to use those lessons and uh and become better because of them. Things like that. Um as well as I will say there were a couple questions that I got during recruitment uh more kind of think on your feet answers. So sometimes working with somebody else to to come up with answers to things like that that uh that was a fun fun sort of uh part of recruitment that I that I

27:01really enjoyed. Unique answers that like how many ping pong balls can you fit in the 747? Is that Yeah, exactly. Something like that. I will say one of my one of my favorite favorite questions that I got in in recruitment was I was asked what are the what are 10 ways you can use a pencil not including writing. Um, and and I had to come you you got to come up with 10 answers right there. You don't have

27:25choice. Weapon. So, okay. It's funny you mentioned that cuz I didn't say that and that was uh that was like, "Oh, yeah. I heard I heard someone someone said weapon once and I was like wasn't even thinking about that." I said I was thinking about I mean you you try to think as creative as me personally, I try to get as creative as I could. So, I was thinking as as a microphone, you could jam out to to tunes right before an interview with a you know, if you need a little pump up

27:54music. There we go. Right. Absolutely. There we go. Exactly. Right. So, uh yeah, things things of that nature. And uh um so again, to to kind of bring it back, that was how I uh chose to go through preparing for recruitment. Um I know other people had had different uh different strategies. for me that was what worked um and uh and what made it

28:19as enjoyable as possible. Yeah. No, fantastic. Well, that's a really really great point. So, if anyone's out there in the middle of this process, looking at a daunting process, like the first thing you got to do is find Well, I'm an army guy, so we would call go find your battle buddies. You know, who are you going to go into

28:36battle with? Who are you going to go? And you're going to lean on each other and support each other. And who's that group? You know, is it people from a club? Is it part of the club? whatever it is, like trying to do something like this alone or even like partly alone like and not really taking advantage of the people around you. Uh and if you don't have folks around you, you got to go find them. Like go meet them. Like that's why some of these events and stuff are so important getting, you know, checking out some of the different competitions and like you you're going to end up

29:04meeting people, spending time with people, find someone that you gel with and then, you know, that'll that'll really help. So yeah. Well, so well done taking advantage of that. Um, so yeah. So tell me a little bit more. So you are um now correct me if I'm wrong. Are you a are you a student trainer with Adventist?

29:23I'm a lead trainer with Adventist. Lead trainer. Wow. That's even higher than student trainer. That's as high as it gets. They they gave me they gave me that extra title. So there you go. Wow. You're like a That's like a general in the Adventist. I'm teasing. I'm teasing. [laughter] Um but uh Cool. Cool. We'll say we'll say a little bit more about that like what's what is the what did you have to do to prepare yourself and how did that support your technical preparation and ultimately the qualitative kind of recruiting and getting in front of

29:50people. Yeah. So in terms of becoming a student trainer at you know you become a student trainer um for for those who who might not know what you have to do and what those those boot camp leaders do is they submit uh a full three-statement model and valuation module in under an hour. So they uh complete the Adventist Air uh uh model and and um perfectly without mistakes in under an hour and submit it and then go through a training process for how to lead the boot camps and should you be deemed worthy at that point uh and uh you know pass through those training sessions then you are uh invited to join

30:33the Adventist team and uh and start leading those boot camps. So, so well say I want you to say say a little more about the prep because like the standard Adventist exam is 90 minutes to do the core three-statement model which is eight tabs, right? And that's it. So 90 minutes and that's a tough standard to meet. Like you really got to practice to work to meet

30:53that. But you've gone to the next level where it's the full eight tab three fully circular three statement financial model plus valuation tabs which is you know DCF LBO whole thing. Yeah. DCF, OBO, whack, deal comps, trading comps, and then the football field, like the whole thing, correct? So, it was um in 60 minutes. That's crazy. In 60 minutes, you have an hour to do it. So, I mean, I I won't I won't, you know, sugarcoat it. That that wasn't

31:22easy. That wasn't an easy thing to do. That took a lot of preparation. Um, I would come home after my internship, uh, and open up my laptop and get my timer app on my phone, hit go and see how fast I can get the income statement, and then you do the cash flow state and

31:40then you do the balance sheet. So, it was in it was a difficult thing to do. Um, I remember I would have, you know, a sheet of all my best times on it and I would have, okay, if I get the income statement in six minutes, then I could spend another sec, you know, 35 seconds on PP&E, things of that nature, right? And it's like a PP&E that you got

31:58to get that done under a minute, right? And so you gota you got to go really really fast. Um because when you get to the LBO, you want to have as much possible time, right? With that being said, um you have to do it perfectly. So uh there were a couple times where I would get through it in in under um in under 60 minutes and I would look back at the model afterwards and there were one or two minor formatting errors. Guess what we're doing tomorrow

32:25night? we're redoing it. Um, so that's that's that's what it took. Um, what I will say though is that built uh a level of uh understanding conceptually for me on how uh the mechanics of a model really work, what drives evaluation um and and how to apply that to different companies. For the investment banking academy recruitment process, there is another case competition. you have 14 days and 14 nights to uh come up with a a recommendation for a company, a full uh pitch and uh and to present it to to the IBA uh executive board as well as um different professors. Uh, and so the experience that I had over the summer

33:13training to become an Adventist trainer, uh, and building out that model, that really, really helped me during my IVA recruitment process because I was able to build out a sophisticated model for, um, United Natural Foods. That was the company that we had um, come up with a valuation for them. I will say we were the only team that came up with uh, a valuation for them where they were properly valued. So, I remember everyone saying this company is ridiculously undervalued. Uh, we need to wait uh a period of time. They're going to, you know, this is their stock's going to go soaring. And I remember seeing it at the

33:50end, we were the only one who called them overvalued. We said, "This stock is going to come crashing down. Sell now." Um, and a week later, and a week later, the stock went and deep in the red. So I will say I credit my experience with Adventist to coming up with that valuation completely. Uh it was the training that I did to not only get my certifications uh but become a student trainer that really allowed me to to understand modeling um and uh and go through that process with uh a certain level of confidence that um I was going to be able to come up with evaluation that was

34:26that was proper. What's the difference between like modeling because we're told to go do modeling and modeling like well actually following the science because you understand the science first before you start getting all into the art part, you know? Exact. Well, exactly. And then you have to come up with a is it an art or a science, right? And how do we how do we really uh understand this company? So, it was kind of it was kind of crazy. We had a 10 uh I think it was a 10K come out in the middle of the case competition. So that and and they beat earnings and the stock went way up on

34:56like day four of the case competition. So that totally played with uh played with the momentum that we had um and where we were still trying to uh to take the company. But it was a great experience and uh should that happen in in real life then you know I'll have uh at least a case competition under my belt where where something like that

35:16happened. Yeah. Well, so for you, I mean, take sounds like um taking some some core like foundational financial modeling training early on before you got into those case compet competitions not just benefited you in the competition, but also like helped you really internalize some of these concepts, not just memorizing names on a p numbers

35:39on a page. Right. Exactly. when you when you can actually see numbers changing when you're building out uh you know different assumptions that's what really uh I think makes a difference in in learning and uh internalizing what's what's actually happening. Yeah. Yeah. See those numbers flow through the model and you get a feel for those interconnections and you know Awesome. Awesome. What uh what

36:04else like what else is on your mind? What do you think were some of the decisive things or what what are the things that you found that you either that you that you didn't do well early on that you had to fix, you know, during this process and get better at? That's a great question. Um I I would say this. Um early on I wasn't nearly as organized as I needed to be. I, you know, by the end of it, it was strict note-taking on the different networking calls that I was having and coming up with um my my thoughts on on recruitment and and the

36:43different banks that I was I was speaking with and really understanding, hey, is this somewhere where I want to to go and work? Is this what I want to be doing for for a summer? And, you know, hopefully after that, um, you know, maybe a career. But uh I would say at the start wasn't wasn't as organized. So that was a good learning curve cuz you know you have to be in they say you have to be perfect. Are you going to be perfect? No, of course not. I made a a billion mistakes that I wish and you know I wish I could go back and undo

37:19them but at the same time I understand that making mistakes is a really good way on how to learn especially if you don't make the same mistake twice right you don't want to relearn different lessons I would say there's only two types of people uh everyone makes mistakes there's two types of people some realize the mistakes they make and some do not realize the mistakes they make There were there were a couple there were definitely a couple mistakes when I realized them and you know your heart sinks and like I I'll I'll say this you know sometimes you you send an email that was specifically structured for uh

37:55you know for one person to to get and you're sending out a bunch of emails at the same time and you didn't spend that extra 30 seconds reading the email over and you had a typo on there and it's like oh man you know that just that kills and that was you know that happened. I I have it in my head the the moment where I, you know, was reading over the email after I had sent it and you you catch that typo. It's like, oh

38:19man. And you hope they don't realize it. Um and uh but all you can do is is learn. Pretend like it never happened. [laughter] Exactly. Right. And and just and just hope that you can go forward. Um but the best thing you really can do at that point is is just, you know, remember what happened. remember to take that extra 30 seconds to uh review the email before you send it out and um and not make the mistake again. Because at the end of the day, if you do that and you're sending an email to a client, well, I would think that would be a little bit harsher than than just a

38:54networking call that you're you're trying to set up. Uh especially when and that's an important Well, okay. Well, let me play devil's advocate because I think I can hear someone thinking, well, you're just networking. You know, that's not the same as having a job and talking to a client and screwing that up. Like what would you say to the person who says

39:10that? How you playing? That's what I would say. Yeah, exactly. If you if you're messing up an email to to someone that you're trying to network with, well, number one, do you really care that to work there that you didn't take that extra 30 seconds to to go through the email? That's what I would think. Um, and and I'm the one that that

39:28did it. So, I I recognize that mistake. Um, and if you eventually are sending emails to clients, well, the practice that you've done, you're making errors in practice. Now, it's fine to make errors in practice, but you can't make them when you're actually doing the job. So, you know, if someone says, "Well, it doesn't really matter." I I think everything should be held at the same on

39:51the same grading scale. Yeah. Um, and it should be a standard. Well, well, no, thank you for saying that. I totally agree and I kind of set I wanted to set you up to go there but yeah, you know, you have to recognize that this is a recruiting process and it starts long before interview starts and you know it is a selection process and they're looking for folks who they're confident can perform when they're on the desk like to right and so it's one of the things that that's hard to picture when you're especially early career mid-career or late career it doesn't really actually matter but it's

40:22hard to picture the person on the other side of the table and the person on the other side of the table has stayed stayed up nights triple-checking someone else's work because they screwed up and made mistakes and now they have to triple check it and they're missing the flute recital because of it or something. I'm being extreme, but like you know and when you're living in that right now and someone sends you an email and there's a mistake, you're like

40:46delete later. [laughter] Yeah. and and you know I I was like I I was lucky to not have to really learn um the hardest way um in in terms of that. Uh but it it was a lesson that I've internalized and uh now now I take that that extra second to to reread my my emails before I hit send. So good lesson

41:12learned. Good stuff. Cool. Well well look, Jimmy, I really appreciate your time. We've covered a lot of good stuff. any uh any last words of wisdom? Any anything else that's coming to mind that you want to make sure that you get out, especially thinking about, you know, those rising sophomores? I would say I saw a couple things. Number one, whoever you think you can reach out to for advice, reach out to them. They they did the exact same thing. So, there's no uh you don't gain anything by going through this alone. That's not something you brag about. There's no trophy. So do it with um go through the process, go

41:50through the recruitment process with others um and and have that as uh as a as a way of learning as well. That's one. Number two, uh keep your head down and and don't let all the fluff from others uh recruitment kind of distract you from the goal that uh that you're trying to obtain. I remember uh getting my offer at Morning Star and and texting texting, hey, I got the got the offer at Morning Star and he came back to me. He said, "Hey, that's amazing. That's awesome. It's going to be a great experience. Celebrate tonight, but when you wake up in the morning, you got to

42:28remember that there's something else that you're chasing, right?" Yeah. Focus on the goal that's ahead. Focus on the goal that's ahead. It's It goes by so fast. When I look back on it, it in the time like it felt like it was taking eons. Uh, but when I look back on it, it really wasn't that long. So, give it your all every single day. Um, and and when you get that when you get that call to to let you know, you know, the job's over and you got the gig, then then you could you can relax and lower your shoulders a little bit. But work very

42:58hard, enjoy it, have fun. You're still a college student at the end of the day, so make sure to to enjoy everything that college has to offer. remember to laugh uh and um and just uh remember that uh that there are other people who are going through it with you and uh and just to give it your all. Yep. Awesome. Well, great great words of wisdom. Uh I'll I'll leave everyone with the last thing. I'm kind of wrapping up a couple of the messages you said. I really appreciate the the sort of teamwork, go together type of message and they say, "If you want to go fast,

43:31go alone. If you want to go far, go together." Have you heard that one? Yes, that's perfect. That's a perfect and and it's it's a marathon, not a sprint. So, no, you have to you have to go far. And and the the dirty secret is you haven't even started the 40-year marathon, which is after graduation. [laughter] So, but it is it is 100%. It is. That's the ultra marathon. That's later. So, uh cool. All right, Jimmy. Well, hey, well, great to great to connect, great to chat. Thanks so much for your time and and your your advice uh to everyone out there and um yeah, wishing you the

44:09best. Yeah, thank you Ben. Thank you for having me. This is great. Absolutely. Take care.