Monday's follow-up to the latest series of interviews never materialized. Apparently, the guy had double-booked. After almost a week of phone tag, we rescheduled for a week from next Wednesday. I get the feeling there's no sense of urgency here, hmm? Well, perhaps for the best. At least I know where I stand. And, while things remain quiet at the primary workplace, I am still reminded that I am not in any way forced to make a move at this time. I guess the past few weeks will just be added to that big bin of unsuccessful ventures we tend to label "experience."

Lazy

So, I've recently been on a few interviews with a small (read: so microscopic it's not even on the map) hedge fund. The position I'm looking at is basically a kind of Jack-of-all-trades type of thing - part trader, part analyst, part portfolio manager, part arbitrageur. We've already discussed that my background is pretty much exclusively trading, and that I'd need to take some classes (probably the CFA) to get up to speed on the analysis side.

Despite that, the previous interview, as well as the upcoming one, basically involve me acting as an analyst and presenting a report on a particular M&A scenario. Now, I don't really mind doing this, as it's a very interesting learning exercise. But, I do get annoyed when, after reiterating that this is the first time I've put something like this together, I'm told that I'm a lazy analyst. Look, six months ago, if you'd said "free cash flow" to me, my eyes would glaze over and my mind would rapidly relocate itself to the nearest drinking establishment. The fact that I can now navigate a balance sheet and build a model is due 100% to initiative on my part. I can do this because I've made the effort to ask how to do it and, when the answers were not forthcoming from my own firm's research department, I just went off and figured it out myself.

I have no doubt that the report I wrote for my most recent interview was not as good a very good one. (In fact, I am now well aware of several critical mistakes, which have now been corrected.) But, I don't know why anyone would have expected me to put something together that was as good as a professional analyst could do. And here's the kicker - my conclusions were pretty much dead-on when compared with those of real analysts. And the questions that I was asked that I didn't know the answer to? Well, neither did the analyst at a major I-bank who I spoke to afterwards, who'd been working on that specific deal for some time.

It's very frustrating that I'm spending so much of my time on this project and getting so much negative feedback. After spending about half an hour storming around my apartment, debating whether to just say "the hell with it" and cancelling the next interview, I realized that I've actually learned a great deal about analysis and research. I sat back down and started churning out some corrections and additions. There's really no harm in giving this one last shot, but that's all. It's not like I'm in a position where I need this job - sure it'll be great for the resume and get me onto the right side of the telephone, as well as be a fantastic learning experience. But, I can probably get as good a job, if not better, at another time. No sense in giving myself stress over something I don't need.