The chads are back in town… we mean Grads!
A very warm welcome to everyone and sincere apologies for the delay in getting this newsletter to your inbox!
p.s. Vamos Rafa, what an amazing win over Nole today at Roland Garros
This edition of the newsletter is actually quite important as we finally add our section on Corporate Finance and hope to teach you a thing (or two) about the world of corp. fin.
Shameless plug part 3 - pls subscribe xoxo
Journey to (the centre of the earth) - Facebook Edition:
After covering Coinbase last week, we thought to ourselves why not continue the trend of covering companies whose stock price has been smashed YTD. After much deliberation, we turned to our portfolios and saw Facebook (not calling it Meta) as a ‘prime’ target.
See below for info on Meta:
Based on my quick (5 min) LinkedIn search, there are over 115 MQ, UOW and WSU alumni working across Meta and the 8 different companies that come under their umbrella i.e. WhatsApp, Instagram, oculus etc.
This compares to 280 ex USYD and UNSW alumni working at Meta (and their umbrella companies) !!
That’s a huge difference and to be honest it’s not very surprising. Companies such as FB, Google and other tech behemoths pride themselves on their ability to bank the brightest talent, which typically does come from these premier universities.
But, this is not always the case - and it is our mission to explain to you how you can avoid ending up like the average non Go8 applicant and instead land an interview (or better yet a job) at these places!
Given the fairly large sample size, it’s tough to charter a common framework on how to land a role at FB but it typically follows the below pattern:
Highlight your ability to become a champion for a social issue - use this to your advantage and make sure to place it at the forefront of your application. Some non Go8 FB talent championed pressing social issues and created charities, organised rallies and increased awareness for issues that mattered to them. Our Tip: Find something that matters to you and become a champion for it, this is a great way to not only increase your employability chances but also make a real social impact!
At university, make sure to partake in a range of public speaking forums, perhaps you could go join toastmasters or you could elect to MC an event for your society. The goal is to build your brand!
Work during your time at uni - find something more than an average retail gig, try to focus on that social issue you resonate with and make it your ‘job’.
Participate in extracurricular events and join university societies, the more the merrier! The purpose over here is to show the recruiters that you are social and personable.
Try to graduate from uni with a Distinction average (it’s not the end of the world if you don’t)
Spend 2-3 yrs working post-uni - this role is quite crucial, could be something pertinent to your studies or could be something related to your social issue passion. For example, as a marketing student spending 3 years working as a marketing associate is probably preferable to working as an IT systems consultant.
Land a gig at FB in the division you applied for!
Concept of the Week:
This probably feels like a primer on macroeconomics 101 but the concept we are going to be chronicling this week deals with monetary policy, fiscal policy and the instruments governments have in ‘controlling’ the economy.
You’d be surprised at how many candidates mess this up in an interview, if you are applying for a job in corp fin, consulting or anything financial services related you really should know your abc’s of government policy.
Monetary Policy - deals with controlling the amount of money circulating in the economy. Levers used by Central bankers to control the money supply include interest rates, QE and the works.
Fiscal Policy - deals with government expenditure and taxation as a means of controlling and stimulating the economy.
Next week we will talk about Enterprise Value and the balance sheet.
Market Move of the Week:
Last week saw some much-needed respite in the markets with some return to the GREEN for equities. But despite all the furore surrounding the rally, there has been a lot of talk recently on the layoffs being initiated by many tech companies in response to middling economic data and weakening consumer fundamentals.
Giants such as Netflix, Robinhood, Paypal, Klarna and Peloton have announced mass layoffs - in the case of the latter roughly 20% of their workforce is impacted!
Such a monumental shift is worrying as these companies were vying for top talent as recently as a few weeks ago but given recent economic movements, it appears as if their recruitment plans are now on hold and they are moving to cash conservation mode.
After nearly a decade of accommodative monetary policy, which lowers the cost of debt - many companies are entering their first cycle of real difficulty and it is not unsurprising that they have looked at their workforce as a way of skimming the fat and conserving some cash.
We highly recommend checking out this link below for more info on the US tech companies that have announced layoffs:
Jobs of the week:
Early uni years:
Australian Super - Investments Internship Program 2023Penultimate year:
Amazon - AWS Next Gen InternGraduates / early experienced professionals:
AirTree - Associate
Recruitment tip of the Week - Interview Edition:
Do not memorise answers to interview questions, you come across are rehearsed and the interviewer can always tell when someone is reading off a script.
While you should still prepare, there’s a subtle difference between coming across rehearsed and prepared and getting past that difference is key to unlocking your ability to land gigs.
If you want help with interview preparation feel free to reply to this email or comment your email below and we will be happy to get in touch with you and flesh out a strategy!
Corporate Finance 101:
Drum roll pls - after much delay, we are excited to bring to you this new segment. In this segment, we will take a topic and look to flesh it out over a few weeks.
The topic for the next 4 newsletters will be Corporate Finance - something that feels quite pertinent given our backgrounds in corp. fin.
In terms of the layout, we will go over 1 to 2 concepts and put through 2 MC questions at the end for you to respond to. At the end of every module, we will reveal the answers and potentially do a giveaway for the highest scorers!
So for this week, we will talk very briefly about the 3 financial statements and how they link.
The 3 Financial Statements:
Income Statement, Balance sheet and CF statement are the 3 financial statements - this is something that is taught to every undergrad business student in the first few weeks of their degree.
The Income statement shows the income and expenditure over a given period (typically yearly or on an interim basis semi-annual / quarterly). The Balance sheet is a statement of an entity’s financial position at a given point in time. The CF statement is a statement of flows typically broken down into operating activities, investing activities and financing activities.
Linkage:
‘‘Explain how the 3 Financial Statements link ?”
This is perhaps one of the most common interview questions undergrads applying to IB get asked. There are different ways to approach it, but by far the easiest is in terms of Net Income. See our sample response below:
“Net income from the bottom line of the income statement flows through to the balance sheet as it is used in computing retained earnings and it is the first line in finding operating CF in the CF statement”.
Quiz of the week
We’ll keep it easy this time, T / F responses only to the below 2 questions. Click to vote for your answer below (only choose 1 answer)!
Net Income is always a positive item on the balance sheet?
👍 True
👎 False
Publicly traded US companies report their financial statements on a quarterly basis?
👍 True
👎 False
That’s all for this week folks, see you later alligator :)