In this interview, Anthony Cheung speaks with a senior finance professional (Speaker B) who helps run assessment and insight days at firms like Schroders. The conversation centers on the single quality that most separates successful candidates from the rest: genuine intellectual curiosity about finance and the specific industry they wish to join. Speaker B explains that recruiters look for evidence of curiosity beyond generic statements, asking candidates what they do outside of coursework to deepen their knowledge. Practical ways to demonstrate this include running a personal (even paper) investment portfolio, selecting unique stock picks that differ from the usual market favorites, and being able to articulate a thoughtful investment case. The interview also warns against the “machine‑gun” approach of applying to every graduate scheme and stresses the importance of focusing on roles that truly interest the candidate, as enjoyment and genuine attraction to the work are crucial for long‑term success. The discussion concludes with a prompt about what workplace skills the director has had to develop beyond technical knowledge, hinting at navigating bureaucracy in large organisations.
So with the involvement that you have now with some of the careers team at, say, Schroders, yeah, is there common things that you see that are good qualities in candidates and those that are not good?
Yeah, definitely. So, um, so I do, I do sort of help out on the assessment days and the insight days and things like that, and, um The one, I think the standout quality that does really separate a candidate is intellectual curiosity. And I know we've, you know, me and you have spoken about this before. Everyone knows that, you know, the finance sector, all the different industries offer a lot of grad programs and there's a lot of variation within that. And a lot of recruiters know that a lot of students will just sort of, you know, machine gun— take a machine gun approach and just try and hit every company in every sector and, you know, throw as many applications out there as possible and hope, you know, just play the numbers game, which definitely has a merit. I wouldn't apply for everything out there, just think there's far too many. There's probably 100 grad schemes in the city, maybe more, that are a decent size. I think that's impossible to, you know, you have to have you have to discriminate a little bit between them so that your applications are high quality. But I think having intellectual curiosity, like genuine intellectual curiosity about an industry and showing that and demonstrating that is absolutely key. And the demonstration bit being so important because the amount of students that I meet, you know, we do sort of speed interviews and things like that here. The amount of, you know, I will always ask, what are you doing outside of your course? Because some will do finance, so naturally they'll be doing stuff related to the industry anyway, but what are you doing outside of your course course in your spare time to further your knowledge or get some skills that would be relevant to your career? Now, everyone that tells me, "I love investing. I love equities. Always have done." If they struggle to answer that question, then it's just not that compelling. They're not making that much of a compelling case. To the interviewer that it is genuine. It's like saying, if you ask me, Anthony Cheung, what football club do you support? And I say, I love United, always have done. Oh, did you watch the game at the weekend? And I don't even know who they played. And I've never been to Old Trafford. And I don't even know who their star players are. You're not going to believe me that I'm genuinely interested in Man United. So having intellectual curiosity, then demonstrating it, is super key. I mean, to my point that I mentioned earlier about picking subjects and things that, if you follow what you love, I don't think that's a problem. If you're applying, you know, for jobs because you feel, you know, you just should go into finance because you did a finance-related degree or your mates are applying for finance, that just seems like the right thing to do, I would encourage, you know, students to, you know, really try and find a bit of finance that they think genuinely appeals and where they can enjoy the most, that they can have the most fun. Because it's a tough assessment process to get the internships and tough jobs. It's then tough when you start working in these companies. If you don't, I think, genuinely enjoy it and genuinely attracted to at least some parts of the role, I just don't think you'll last the course. So you're working for a long time. So I think it's to not do something that you at least— not everyone can walk around loving their job. That is a sort of dream situation, but that's sort of not the reality. But I think you can enjoy a decent amount of it to make it worthwhile. And enjoy your career. So to make— and then make sure you demonstrate that well with examples to assessors is really important. And that can be, you know, the go-to one that a lot of people— oh, well, I do, um, the Finance Society at university, and that's fine. You've got to understand the amount of people, you know, if there's 150 people in your, your university's Finance Society, times that by 30 universities plus international, you know, the US universities and everything like that, you know, most people are probably going to have that as their go-to evidence for intellectual curiosity. So I work in equities. If someone says they love equities and they love investing, I would hope a good quality candidate will be running a portfolio or investing themselves. It doesn't have to be with real money. I didn't have any money at university to invest, but you can run a paper portfolio, simulations, et cetera, et cetera. You're probably going to be asked on a stock pick. You're going to want to have at least probably 2 or 3 up your sleeve. Now, you don't need to be quoting, you know, the 2014 cash flow statement, but you've got to have a view. I'd encourage that view to be different than the market's view. If I always ask, especially if it's equities, you know, and someone says they do, you know, they have a portfolio, they invest in stocks, I always ask them, you know, tell me about one stock. Now, I'm not an investor, I work on investment desk. I'm not an investor. I'm not going to ask someone about the valuation multiple, what adjustments they're making to the balance sheet, et cetera, et cetera. I just want to know, has this person thought reasonably sensibly through the investment case of a business? And then the other thing I'd say is pick a stock that's not Tesla, Apple, or Facebook, because the amount of times I hear those, or people give a stock recommendation, it's one of those. You're just not differentiating yourself. Also, you know, most PMs and most fund managers will know the investment case for those stocks better than any student. So, you know, if you pick something, pick something that's just really interesting to you. If you like sport, why not pick, you know, Man United, or why not pick Adidas, or, you know, just something at least a little bit different, a little bit more niche. And you can, you know, you can talk about that probably in a far better way than, than a company that everyone covers in the city. So, um, yeah, sorry, long, long answer to a short question. Number one, intellectual curiosity. Evidence it as much as you can.
Yeah. And then like my final question then is that beyond applications, so now that you're at the level of experience that you're at in like director position, what thing would you say has been something that you've had to learn in the workplace, that you've had to work hard at to then help that process? And doesn't necessarily— well, it could be technical knowledge, but for most people, I guess it's not always that because you've got to manage the bureaucracy of working in a large organization and so on. So how's that journey been?
Okay, so I have 3 points. I promise I won't talk as long as I did for the last answer. So the, the first one I'll make around the technical ability I'm not naturally technical at all. My role, I'd say, has a reasonable amount of technical knowledge that's needed. I need to speak well about equities to clients. I need to have a view on these things. I need to understand investments and the investment process well enough, both with the team I work on, but also peers and competitors. But ultimately, you will learn the technical side, whether you are technical or not. I know that the technical side of finance puts a lot of people off. There are elements of finance that are very, very technical. I imagine things like trading, some quant fund management stuff is very, very tech, actuarial, the actuarial sector attracts very technical people. But there's this bit of a myth around finance that everyone can do the Black-Scholes equation in the City in their head, whatever. It's a complete myth that I think everyone loves to keep up because people make them sound cleverer than they are. If you're not technically minded, please do not be put off by a career in finance. There are— I just, A, think you'll learn it, and B, the bar for how technical you need to be is a lot lower than anyone will probably publicly admit in finance. So that's just one thing that I've learned all of that and learned most of that. I did my CFA and whatever, but it's not that. When I speak to students, it really puts them off a lot of stuff in finance. Like, it's, um, yeah, I find it quite disheartening because, um, the, the, the industry needs to do a better job on, on, on that, you know, marketing itself to, to people that think about the world differently. In terms of my experience and the two things I'd say I've learned, uh, one was definitely humility. So when I started, especially when I started at Traders, you know, I was 26, I'd just been an international hockey player for a few years, I played in Holland, and you know, I was then a graduate. I was, you know, I wouldn't say I was doing the photocopying and getting the teas, not quite that bad, but it definitely took a while to just, you know, I think I probably thought I was going to be doing a lot more exciting things in my first year or two than I actually was. So sort of just being humble and just being quiet and listening was really, really important for me. Now, you know, I know a lot of other people have different experiences going into their grad scheme, so probably isn't as much of a sort of skill that they have to learn, but linked to the second one, and this is something I see across interns, graduates, not here, but most places, is just patience. I was definitely a bit impatient. At times when I think over the last few years, you know, just wanted to progress super, super quickly, you know, was hungry to progress, to get given more work, to get given more responsibility. That all does come, and I think most places are very good at nurturing and developing talent over time, but you just do also have to be patient. And, you know, it's great to have hungry graduates and people like that that do want to take more on and things like that, but the firm will give you enough work to do. You will be pushed in terms of your learning, not just on the job but most likely exams and any other assessments and things that the companies have. Yeah, I would just encourage everyone to, as you know, as my parents and colleagues encouraged me to be, just, you know, it will all come just in good time. And there's an advantage to being young and naive and inexperienced On a grad scheme, you have free license, pretty much, maybe not all companies, but the ones that I know, to email pretty much anyone in the firm to just have coffee. That is an amazing thing to go and do. If I emailed someone from our real estate division or our fixed income division, said, oh, you know, someone quite senior, said, oh, can I just have coffee and learn about your role? They're going to think that I'm going to want a job there, because why does someone that's at director level want to go and do that? Unless there's something business related, which there might be, and that's you know, completely fine. But as a graduate, you get a hall pass to go and do that, so definitely go and do that. And then just be patient and just, yeah, just don't be too— don't be in too much of a rush.
