Last October we interviewed someone from finance industry, a director and portfolio manager/senior analyst at a capital management company. I'm quite an outsider when it comes to finance. Still I learned a lot from her. Here are two of them.
(1) What qualities are you looking for when hiring people?
--After passing the initial technical screening, the final crucial considerations are to see if the applicant has the passion for the job. We don't want to hire someone who jump around. Another one is teamwork or cultural fit.
(2) Can you describe your normal workday?
--There's no normal day for me. I spend almost two-third of time outside office. If I'm working on a new company, I will most likely go to the company and talk with the company's management, with its customers, also with its competitors. I will spend a lot of time inspecting the company physically.
I like to travel and learn from field observations, especially in areas that I am not familiar with. For example, to understand how Indian consumers consume, I have to go to India to see for myself. This is my style as an asset manager. You can't get firsthand knowledge by sitting in the office.
A Chinese saying perfectly describes her style: "读万卷书不如行万里路" (dú wàn juǎn shū bùrú xíng wàn lǐ lù). The literal meaning is "Reading 10,000 books is not as beneficial as traveling 10,000 miles."
The saying emphasizes the importance of seeing for yourself and of real-life explorations through travel. We acquire knowledge from books, but more importantly from our own observations, exploration and analysis.