Response 10

Graduating Year: 2006
Major: Finance & Accounting

What company did you intern with?
Fidelity Investments

Where were you located?
Boston, MA (245 Summer St.)

What was your position?
Equity Research Associate

What were your basic responsibilities?
I am responsible for primary coverage on approximately 20 public companies. Simply put, my job is to decide which of the stocks are buys and which are sells. This entails building financial models to project future earnings of the companies. Generally, I must decide how the industry works and if the industry dynamics – suppliers, competitors, customers – are improving or deteriorating. This is a top–down approach that needs to be accompanied by a bottoms–up approach. The bottoms–up approach involves studying historic financial statements, talking to competitors, customers, suppliers, and company management (both on the phone and in person, by visiting headquarters or going to investment conferences). Once I've decided that the company is a buy or sell, it is my responsibility to make sure that I've communicated this information to the portfolio managers, and that my ideas make their way into the mutual funds.

How many hours did you work per week?
60–70 hours

Describe a typical day of work.
This is cliché, but there is no typical day. Some days are spent building models, reading through historic financials, attending or hosting in–house company meetings, calling the company or industry contacts, speaking to portfolio managers. Other days are spent on the road, visiting companies or going to investment conferences. Generally, most days involve a mix of these, and other things.

Have there been any significant changes in the industry or for your specific company since you started working?
There haven't been any significant changes in the mutual fund industry since I began. In the larger financial services industry, there have been a number of specific events – such as the credit crunch – which have driven some hedge funds out of business, and have caused as yet unknown damage to banks. At Fidelity, there have been a number of changes, especially before I began. None of these changes affect how I do my job specifically.

What did you like most about your job? What experiences stand out?
The best part about my job is the responsibility. I am responsible for billions of dollars of equity ownership in the companies I cover. I speak to CEOs all the time, and because Fidelity is the largest mutual fund company in the world, I have amazing access, to company management or industry contacts. I am lucky enough to be able to travel whenever and wherever. I make my own schedule. I am learning a ton, not only about the industries I am covering, but about business in general. I am applying all of the subjects I learned at BC, but have learned much more in a year and a half of work than I learned in 4 years at BC.

What did you like least about your job?
The most difficult part is the stress. When you are responsible for billions of dollars of ownership, it is really hard to be wrong. And that's the worst part. It's hard to be wrong. In my business, you are good if you get stocks right 60% of the time; the markets are mostly efficient, and we are always working with significantly less information than is needed to be "absolutely sure."

What did you think of the company as a whole?
Fidelity is a wonderful company. It treats its people well. Perhaps the best part is that Fidelity is a private company.

Can you offer any tips for interviewing with this particular company?
This is probably generally true of most jobs, but the most important thing is knowing why you are choosing to be in that industry and why with that company. People want to know that you have thought it out and that you have a passion for it.

Did you participate in an internship as an undergraduate? If so, where? How did that impact you professionally?
I was an intern during my junior year at Deloitte doing audit work, and then during my summer between junior and senior year at UBS Investment Bank in the Financial Institutions Group. More than anything, these jobs showed me what was important to me in a first job out of college. I still don't know what I want to be or what I want to do, but having those internships provided me with great experience, because they helped develop this thought process. After working in both places, I knew that I didn't want either job, and sometimes knowing that is just as important as knowing exactly what you do want.

Considering your experience, can you make any further recommendations to current students?
The best thing you can do to differentiate yourself to your employer beyond getting good grades, is to get involved. Do things you are interested in, and take leadership roles. Perhaps do a major within A&S. High GPAs are pretty much a dime–a–dozen, but interesting people that get involved are not. Do as many different activities as you can, spend time talking to as many people as you can in the industries that you are interested in, and interview at a lot of places. The more you interview, the better you get at it.