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CHAPTER 2 Don't Fight the Tape: Diligence Your Way to an Interview

      In preparation for interviews, ask your close friends and colleagues what they thought of you at first contact. What were their brutally honest first impressions? Maybe your friend from kindergarten remembers you running around without pants. Or another remembers how you were sullen and listened to Billie Eilish on repeat. Regardless, ask only for the bad, or the things you need to improve. You probably already know what's great about yourself, but we're often oblivious to what makes us less than perfect.

      Why is it so important to understand people's first impressions of you? It's not just that you want to put your best foot forward (and lock your worst foot in a safe room). People tend to hire those who are like themselves. It's all part of the field of cognitive bias, a discipline that uses psychology to explain why people make decisions, usually irrational ones. This field includes affinity bias—a concept that explains why employers tend to hire people who look like them and have similar beliefs and backgrounds.

      On Wall Street, there is a phrase, “Don't fight the tape.” It means not to trade against the market. If stocks are rising, don't sell. Obviously, this can be shite investment advice, but it's a useful maxim when you're first trying to get in the door on a job or a deal. So go with the flow, study the heck out of the companies, and try to determine their organizational biases. You may surprise yourself with what you can do to appeal to their affinity biases.

Diligence to Death

Let's start off with the obvious. Before trying to learn something about the people who will be interviewing you, it's essential to know the ins and outs of the companies where they work. Go deep in your due diligence. Learn everything you can about the company's history—its hierarchy, its distinct departments, and what each department does. Which one most interests you, what role would you like to play, and what makes you a perfect fit? Nothing makes you look like a complete fraud more than not really understanding the job you hope to land. Be prepared to answer these questions even if they're not asked. You'll want to be prepared with a deft pivot anyway, away from a question for which you don't have a brilliant answer.

      Memorizing facts won't be enough. Look for any media, especially spin, about the firm. What do they claim about equal opportunity? Do they really just worship the dollar? Any disgruntled employees writing tell-all exposés? Any movie a thinly disguised parody of your employer of choice? Any alumni rotting behind bars?

      On Wall Street, it's a given to work insane hours with bosses yelling down your neck for you to be at your desk the next morning at 6 a.m. to prepare for the unexpected. Your boss will be rolling in at 10 a.m., so that will give you plenty of time to prepare a 100-page report. Are you really ready for that? Do you think your interviewer will tell you, “Our company is awesome,” while blinking “RUN!” in Morse code? In short, know what you're getting into (or out of, in case you don't get the job or if you're offered a much better one and can tell them to bugger off).

Be a Troll

      At this point, just being knowledgeable about the staff lineup will help you wordsmith your cover letter. Find out who will be interviewing you and try to ferret out everything you can about the person. Troll them on the company's website, LinkedIn, Facebook, and anywhere you can get a sense of who these people are. What are their interests? Are they Dodgers fans, or do they prefer polo? Maybe you have mutual acquaintances. If so, don't hesitate to name-drop shamelessly.

      Most important, try to determine the biases your interviewer might have that could prevent you from being hired. Conversely, think about possible biases that will help bolster your case to get you on the fast track. Biases cloud human judgment, so crack the code and use them to your advantage. I've been stereotyped all my life: Asian American males are super-good at math, have Confucian hierarchies etched into their psyches, and work crazy hard because, other than their mothers, women don't find them attractive so they don't waste time dating. So if somehow I slip it in during our interview that I'm a workhorse math wiz (even if I'm not), I'm 1000 percent dedicated to my career, and I'm a total Yes Man, then I won't have to do much selling. I'll simply be confirming a bias that probably already exists with my interviewer and she will see me as being worth my weight in gold.

Chris McGowan, former managing director at Madison Dearborn, former banker at Morgan Stanley, and now adjunct professor at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, tells his MBA students to take advantage of affinity networks in their job searches—to scour the web and social media sites to determine who went to the same undergraduate and graduate schools as they did. A common elementary school is even better to strike up nostalgic, bond-inducing conversation. “You had Ms. Chang in third grade, too? Remember those funny hats she wore?” Of course, just grin and bear it when they respond, “Oh, yeah, and I also remember you shat in your pants!”

      “Don't stop with the obvious,” Chris tells his students. “If you're making a career switch, see who took a similar path as you did. If you're into unicycling, find the other unicyclists.”

      Students need to understand how the game is played. On Wall Street, for example, some firms hire by organizing into school-based teams. If you're not from one of the top schools, you'll need to try harder, but at Morgan Stanley, for example, they had teams of employees made up of those with degrees from the top schools, so they had a Wharton team, a Harvard team, a Columbia team, etc. They're made up of alumni, responsible for reviewing the resumes and setting up interviews from their alma mater. It's just part of employers’ leveraging affinity. They're also able to suss out the BS pronto, since they know which classes were gut classes and which were the real ones. They'll know which are better indicators of job performance. For instance, at Wharton, a C in Fixed Income Securities carries more weight than an A in Responsibility in Business.

      Key

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