my back and I'll scratch yours.” If you still have no idea what I'm talking about, check out the Glossary and get a refresher. You know how much work it takes to write a book? Show some respect!
There are other, more personal signoffs that can work, but only if you have, or are on the verge of having, a personal relationship with the recipient. Cheers, Your Friend, Adios Amigo, and Ciao only work if you really know the person, or maybe even if you think you do. And please, no emojis! This isn't your group chat where you message your girlfriends about how your BFF just became your BF.
A few final tips for how to introduce yourself: Always add your email and cell phone and any other method of contacting you. It shows your availability 24-7, which bodes well for being a great employee in the grit department. But never, ever, ever include social media sites like Facebook or Instagram. You never know when one of your girlfriends will decide to tag you in a G.O.A.T. pic. Also, get a Gmail account. You millennials might not even know what I'm talking about here, but nothing screams tool or luddite more than [email protected]. Those of you who do still use AOL, if you send me a check for $1,000, I can get you a Google account. I know people….
One secret tip: No one ever uses P.S. (postscript) anymore, but frankly (I've been being frank the whole time, honest), I think it's a perfect vehicle to do something off the wall or get in a last comment or word. If you're one of the few people who reads this book aside from my Mom, use a P.S. and stand out. I sometimes use it to refer to something casual that was discussed during the interview and could help build affinity:
P.S. Let's hope the Rockets recover from trading The Beard and have a better 2022, or I may have to become a Mavericks fan.
P.S. If you're looking for a good bottle of wine, be sure to try the Rioja Gran Reserva. Spanish wines are so underrated!
P.S. No one really uses P.S. anymore. I do. It shows you my respect for the past, present, and future.
One more super-secret tip: Remember attentional bias? Just checking. Well, think about ways to stand out but in a personal and meaningful way. I once got a thank-you note that was handwritten—in cursive! (I mean who the hell knows how to write in script anymore? I can barely write two sentences in block letters without it looking like I had a heart attack mid-sentence.) It means you've taken the time to gather your thoughts, write a personalized message, research my office address, place it in an envelope, lick it (OK, that's gross), spend some dough to put a stamp on it, get off your ass, and drop it in the mailbox. Now that's spam with heart, unlike the crap most of you Axiom passengers3 will cut, paste, and send out ad infinitum.
And here's my last two bits of advice about emails: Proofread carefully for missing and extra words. And spell-check! Nothing can get you knocked out of contention faster than a few well-placed typos—especially in the anal-retentive world of Wall Street. Some of my personal favorites include:
I'm very interested in working on Initial Pubic Offerings.
I enjoy writing prospectuses. After all, the penis mightier than the sword.
I have a strong attention to to detail.
You might be meeting with someone as anal as I am, so you'd better double-check and then do it one more time for me!
Key Takeaways
Assume you're SPAM, so create an email that gets their attention.
Return on time invested is critical. Keep it brief and get to the point!
Give the impression that you're the love child of a Holy Trinity: the brains of Albert Einstein, the stamina of Optimus Prime, and the persistence of Wile E. Coyote.
Beware of attentional bias: Communicate key attributes most relevant to the job and validate them with mutual acquaintances.
Recency bias dictates that endings matter. Think carefully about your closing salutation. Use a P.S. to build affinity (like your mutual misery over the Houston Rockets).
Don't screw up prerequisites for the job. Proofread; then do it again. Otherwise, you might be saying you're interested in taking your penis public.
Notes
1 1 According to a 2015 study by Microsoft, the average human being now has an attention span of eight seconds. You can imagine it's even worse now. https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/
3 3 Watch Pixar's WALL-E if you have no idea what I'm talking about. That's your future, couch potato.
CHAPTER 4 Failure as Fertilizer: The Power of Persistence
You've sent the email, what's next? Do you just leave it at that and wait? No! Have you learned nothing so far? Although landing a job might be your #1 priority, chances are that your email (which you spent so much time agonizing over) has been either quickly forgotten or has landed in the Junk box, never to be seen again. So what do you do? Persevere. Persevere. Persevere.
Herald Chen, who co-ran Technology at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and is a former Goldman Sachs banker, recalls that when he was in college, he had his heart set on landing an internship at General Motors (GM). He sent a postcard to the HR department, explaining that he was an immigrant and that his father had always bought GM cars, but when they broke down, the Chens replaced them with Toyotas. The clincher was in the next line where he wrote, “I want to work at GM to make your cars better.”
It worked. He got the job.
Here's another never-give-up story from Juan Alva, formerly of Goldman Sachs and now managing director of an alternative investment fund. Juan told me about a graduate of a midwestern university—which might as well have been University of Basket Weaving given Wall Street's preference to hire from the Ivies—who wanted to get into the investment banking division at Goldman. Now this was way before Google, so the persistent bugger called the main phone number at Goldman and continued to call every day, trying to speak with the head of the group. He got as far as the head banker's secretary, who put up a huge firewall, offering one excuse after another as to why her boss wasn't available. At some point, the pest started calling 15 minutes earlier each day, until finally he caught the head banker before his secretary had arrived. “You've been very persistent,” he was told, and in the end, he got an interview and a job. That gnat became a top dog at Goldman and retired a very rich man.
The moral? “A lot of people don't appreciate that persistence really does pay off,”
