CAREER QUESTIONS FROM A “THOUGHTFUL INSTAGRAM FOLLOWER”

January 20, 2021

I received three good career questions from someone I will refer to as a “Thoughtful Instagram Follower.” In the hopes it may benefit others, I am sharing it:

RICH HANDLER

CEO, Jefferies Financial Group
1.212.284.2555
[email protected]
@handlerrich Twitter | Instagram
Pronouns: he, him, his

From: Richard Handler
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2021 9:30 PM
To: A Thoughtful Instagram Follower
Subject: Career Questions

Answers below. Good questions.

Rich,

Thank you again for your receptivity in answering my questions. I don’t have much of a track record DM’ing CEOs on Instagram, but I have to imagine the Fortune 1000 response rate is low. Your willingness to engage and all the other advice you’ve dispensed on the internet is a testament to a value system we could use more of these days.

I’ll endeavor to keep this concise. When I first wrote to you, I had recently learned that the direction of my firm implied it was time to accelerate my next steps. For the first time in my career, my path forward looked unstructured and uncertain. The very next day I heard from an investment organization close to my ideal employer, substantially accelerating a long interview progress toward what hopefully looks like a successful completion. What an industry. Thankfully I’ve been able to eliminate my questions about job hunting and focus more on factors I think will be helpful to consider at the start of any worthwhile career juncture.

I’m currently 29, just slightly older than when you started with Jefferies. Like you, I find myself at an important juncture in my career after ~7 years in the financial industry. I feel I have a solid skill set in analysis, research and investing. But I know to be successful in this industry you can’t be an analyst forever. For most of my career, the numbers and the research have reigned supreme. How do you suggest mid-level employees retain the importance and respect for the numbers at the center of our business while also finding ways to provide their organization and the people around them with value above and beyond just analysis?

It’s about understanding the business model of your company and figuring out how to get yourself into a key position to actually add value and make a difference to the actual outcome of events. This means that while you always need to have a solid foundation in the numbers, analytics and general biz practices, there comes a time when those are secondary if you want to advance. It’s all about building relationships and trust with decision makers internally, but even more importantly externally. If you can get smart people who have the ability to affect the movement of capital or the strategic direction of their companies to trust what you say, you will advance. If you remain highly technical and able to support others who have built trust with such people, you will do fine, but the trajectory will be limited. Build trust through competence, personality and perseverance.

My career has largely been one of specialization. I started with general financial skills in banking, learned transactional and valuation skills in PE, and learned how to prosecute a research case in the public markets under scenarios with incomplete information. I’m about to enter a role that is significantly more general: more asset classes, investing styles, public and private, etc. I need to take these broad skills I’ve learned and apply them across an intimidatingly wide set of opportunities. I see a lot to be learned from the successful path you followed within Jefferies: how did you grow from a specialized bond trader into the CEO of a securities firm and then the CEO of an investment conglomerate? What techniques do you find best for adapting an existing skill set to solve new, novel problems as your role shifts?

Get comfortable operating outside of your comfort zone. Every successful person does so and the sooner the better. Don’t overthink or overstress—it does you no good. You will make mistakes and that is ok. Just don’t make the same mistakes twice. Common sense is more important than understanding the intricacies of every single asset class, industry, product or company. Nobody can be an expert in everything. That’s what asking questions are for. Identify all the smart people around you and make their lives easier by your hard work. They in turn will allow you to learn from and leverage them. That is called teamwork and partnership. It will take you far.

I’m continuing to grow in my career and as an individual and have started to draw personal value from things outside of work. I want to get involved in some organizations that give back beyond simply one-off volunteering and donating. At the same time, I remain aware of the lifestyle demands of a dedicated financial career. What are some of the ways you’ve seen mid-level employees consistently help out non-profit and socially focused organizations, possibly by donating not just money but the same skills they use in their financial careers?

It’s great giving money but nothing is better than giving time. We all have extra time if we stop wasting as much as we do. I’ve never had a problem making time for giving back at any stage of my career, and every successful person I know can say the same thing. It balances you. Makes you happier and a better person. You wind up getting incredibly unpredictable side-benefits (like meeting amazing people) that will change your life. It gives you a much better perspective on who you are, your career, your priorities, your gratitude, and your attitude. Find a cause you are personally passionate about, not what someone else says is good or important to them. Start off with a small and manageable amount of time but force yourself to commit to that amount religiously. If the cause is one you care about, you will be sucked in for more time and somehow work will not suffer. If you are not getting sucked in, odds are you picked the wrong cause and you should find another one and fully immerse yourself again. The one that will change your life (and others’) will stick.

Thank you again for your input. I’m looking forward to hearing back and continuing to follow your other online writings.

Best,

A Thoughtful Instagram Follower
(I changed the name for anonymity)