You're about to graduate with a finance, accounting, economics or business degree. How do you parlay that achievement into a great job? According to the Peking University HSBC Business School (PHBS) 2017 Employment Report, more than half of the graduates initiated their careers in the investment banking sector and securities. However, many campus students know little about the true story of leading financial firms and how to apply for them.
A lecture
Working Experience & Suggestions in Foreign Investment Bank was given by David William Hall to share with students his true working experience at Goldman Sachs. David Hall, who had rich experience in financial industry, used to work in Pioneer Fund, the world’s biggest public funds and Goldman Sachs, world’s top financial institution. After years of work in the U.S., he made a surprising career shift leaving Goldman Sachs to pursue a full-time MBA degree at PHBS.
the audience look forward to Hall‘s working experience share
As the lecture started, Hall shared his career path with audience, which including one and a half years’ working experience in the Pioneer Fund, job hunting and career development in Goldman Sachs. He suggested them to find out their own advantages, and then get a full understanding about their target companies. “The more information you got, the better interview it would be”, said Hall, adding that it was important to use internet or social network to know someone who works in the target company to get more information.
Hall shares his career path with audience
When asked about challenges and pressure during the work, Hall said that pressure could arouse potential. It was essential for us to learn self-control and bring our superiority into full play. Some other top concerned questions, such as the recruitment qualifications and requirements, and interview skills were also addressed by Hall.
It was followed by a round-table conference. In response to the question about his reason of leaving Goldman Sachs, Hall said changing ourselves and adapting to the new environment really mattered. China’s rapid growth offered good business opportunities to financial development; likewise, financial practitioners got better development and opportunities. As for Fintech, he believed that finance developed within technological advances. One should keep studying to catch up with the development of the times.
round-table conference
In Q&A session, Hall gave his own opinions concerning specific questions raised by the audience, ranging from application requirements for foreign investment banks, female’s career development and career planning. He maintained that GPA, past career experiences and certificates were all applying qualifications for foreign investment banks, but the most important part should be personal characteristics, which could be your own features that obviously different from others.
the audience raise some top-concerned questions to Hall
As for female’s career development in financial sector, Hall said that in Goldman Sachs, they just considered your performance other than your gender. It was common to have female senior executives in Goldman Sachs and female employees there were very self-determined with strong ambitions.
group photo of this lecture
By Sophie Wu
Edited by Annie Jin
