Building on my framework that treats a buy-side research aspirant like a business owner — your job search success depends on two things:

1. Product — your actual capability as an investor.
2. Distribution — how effectively you communicate, network, and get noticed.

You are responsible for building a good product — and in this case, the product is you. You are also responsible for finding your customers — the funds you want to work for — and convincing them that you are a good product, provided you truly are one.

From my experience interacting with candidates, most fail on the product. Some fail on distribution.

If your product is broken, no amount of networking can save you. But weak distribution can derail your candidacy just as easily.

The Product Problem

You Don’t Know What You’re Doing

Most people fail to break in because they don’t actually know how to analyze and pick stocks. You don’t get trained once you’re in — you get hired because you already know how.

Stock picking is far more than a finance job — it’s an intellectual curiosity job. Unfortunately, two of the three main feeder professions into professional investing — investment banking and equity research (or known as “sell-side research”) — often lack the intellectual honesty required to succeed as true investors.

Even private equity, which is often seen as the more intellectually honest path, isn’t as rigorous as many think — too often it’s a “we’re doing the deal, now make the numbers work so we can pass the investment committee” kind of environment.

You already know investment banking is a sales job. Senior bankers decide the target valuation — the price at which they want to float an IPO — and then backsolve the assumptions needed to justify that number.

Equity research, despite the name, has almost nothing to do with actual stock picking.

So when college graduates prepare for a “finance job” interview, most never go beyond memorizing accounting formulas or practicing three-statement modeling. But financial modeling and valuation are commodities. The real edge lies in the assumptions — understanding industry history, competition, strategy, capital cycles, incentives, and human behavior.

Too many candidates treat every interview like an exam instead of a craft. They chase “question banks” or “secret frameworks,” hoping there’s a cheat sheet to the buy-side interview. There isn’t.

Buy-siders have endless ways to test investment thinking. The only way to perform well in “technical” interviews is to live and breathe investing — to constantly study how businesses compete, how strategies create or destroy value, how margins and growth evolve, and how stocks move in response.

When a PM asks, “In an industry where customers are price-sensitive and two companies both ramp production, what happens to industry margins, and which company will do better?” — you can memorize the answer. But the PM can immediately change the context to a hyper-growth industry with pricing power, and you’ll draw a blank.

As Dan Sundheim recently said in an interview, this isn’t a “close your laptop and stop thinking” type of job. You have to love this game even without a paycheck — to learn, read, and think for its own sake.

You Don’t Want to Put in the Hours

Everyone’s starting point is different. Ex-bankers have a head start in modeling, while career-changers may start from scratch.

But your future PM doesn’t care about your handicap — they hire the best absolute candidate.

It might take you 200 hours or 2,000 hours to reach clarity. Keep learning until you get to that point. If you don’t know, you don’t know and won’t get the job. Do what you need to do.

I got there through brute force. I don’t remember the exact moment it clicked, but eventually — after enough books, Buffett letters, and work on different names — the fog cleared.

When I first discovered my passion for investing, I found a “must-read” list on a business school’s investment club website. I started working through those books one by one. I read every Buffett letter. I discovered invaluable free resources — CSIMA newsletters, Nick Sleep’s letters, Michael Mauboussin’s papers — and I just read, read, and read. The less clueless I got, the more I wanted to learn. Over time, I began to understand what “alpha generation” really means — and how hard it is.

The good news: knowledge compounds.

The bad news: it takes relentless work.

The other good news: if you love this game, your passion will drive you.

When I see a stock pitch that says, “My DCF shows the stock is undervalued,” it’s an auto-reject. I’ll glance at the business assumptions for five seconds — and immediately know whether you understand what you’re doing. So will every buy-sider.

If you can’t clearly articulate why a stock is cheap — what drives the mispricing — then you don’t have an actionable stock pitch. The next step isn’t researching another stock — it’s fortifying your concepts by hitting the classics like a Valuation by McKinsey.

The good news: all the knowledge you need is public. I’ve curated much of it to save you time — but you’ll likely need to revisit the same materials multiple times to internalize all the ideas.

Paid resources can teach foundations, but not mastery. Mastery requires application.

Once you take a buy-side caliber course, you still need to analyze real stocks:

• Pick a subsector — say, semiconductors or cruise lines.
• Study the industry and companies’ past and present, what consensus expects, what you expect, and why.
• Over time, benchmark your outcomes against your prior views. Evaluate what you missed and recalibrate.

If you keep doing these things, clarity comes.

And if you think it’s too much work — that’s fine. Just don’t pursue a career in investing.

The Distribution Problem

I always believed product was 95% of the buy-side job search game. But after hundreds of mock interviews, stock pitches, and resume reviews, I realized I was wrong.

Knowing your stuff isn’t enough. You also have to convince the hiring manager (the PM in most cases) that you know your stuff.

It’s tragic — sometimes the best talent doesn’t get the job because inferior talent sells better. That brings us to distribution.

You Didn’t Do Your Homework

It’s astonishing to me how many candidates walk into interviews without knowing how the fund invests. That’s career suicide.

You say you want to be in research, yet you didn’t research your potential employer.

Before any conversation, study the PM’s background, read the fund’s 13-F filings and form ADV (part 1 and 2), watch the PM’s public appearances. Doing this won’t guarantee an edge — but skipping it guarantees elimination.

That’s exactly why I built the Fund Primer and Deep Dives — it condenses hundreds of hours of background digging into one organized reference.

And if you want to go a step further — learning how to turn that information into real relationships — my Networking Course walks you through interpreting intel from fund filings, crafting first messages, converting them into informational interviews, and retaining connections.

Why Doing Your Homework Matters

1. You stand out. When a PM hears, “I noticed you recently added Mexican budget airlines; I’ve done work on Volaris — here’s my thesis,” you separate yourself from 95% of candidates.
2. It signals resourcefulness. You know how to dig.
3. It finds alignment. You’re interviewing each other — do you believe in their process?
4. It helps you relate. Teams are small; cultural fit matters.

A Quick (Painful) Lesson

When I interviewed with a deep value hedge fund for a school-year MBA internship, I pitched a deep-value cyclical I thought they owned.

“You guys own it too,” I told Joe, the head of IR.

Joe replied, “If you’d read our latest 13F, you’d know we sold it last quarter.”

I got lucky — he liked my passion. Otherwise, that miss could’ve cost me the seat. Don’t make the same mistake. Joe was nice; your interviewer might not be.

You Can’t Sell

Every buy-side opening attracts hundreds—sometimes thousands—of applicants. To land the job, you first have to earn the interview. And that means standing out—on paper.

Unfortunately, most resumes read like job descriptions: “Built models, wrote notes, talked to CFOs.” None of that tells me you influenced investment decisions. The buy-side is about decision-making, not activity.

Cold emails suffer the same issue: lack of clarity about why you’re reaching out, what you want, and what you offer.

Speak concisely. Rehearse until your answers are punchy but natural.

As a non-native speaker, I’m acutely aware of my own shortcomings — and I’ve noticed two large international MBA cohorts often face opposite communication challenges:

• One group talks too fast and too much.
• The other speaks too little and hedges every opinion.

On the buy-side, making a call is the job. If you hedge endlessly, why would a PM act on your idea? If you ramble, they still can’t act — they can’t tell your thesis. Either way, no alpha. International students: be aware of your communication gaps and work on them.

Storytelling and Fit

Storytelling isn’t fluff — it’s framing. Your interviewer must believe you’re committed to this high-stress, high-reward profession.

Tie your story together:

• Where you came from — IB, PE, ER, or elsewhere.
• What transferable skills you built.
• Why public investing (and why not private investing).
• Why this firm.

One unconvincing answer can kill your candidacy.

And remember: buy-side teams are small. Personality fit matters. No one wants arrogance or condescension. I’ve met ex-bankers and sell-side research associates who are just a bit too proud of their bank’s brand. PMs don’t care that you worked at a bulge-bracket or under an II-ranked analyst. The only question is: Can you make me money?

I will say this out loud: the sell-side is second-class citizen to the buy-side. Bring the underdog mindset into every buy-side interview.

Affinity Matters

You never know what shared background will connect.

One of my Job Board clients landed a buy-side offer because both he and the PM were petroleum engineers turned investors. That common thread sealed the deal.

His competitor? An associate at an elite PE firm with three years of hedge fund experience. David can beat Goliath! You’d love to see it.

Find those affinity points wherever you can, by doing your homework.

You Have No Distribution Strategy

Some candidates tell me, “I’ve been applying to buy-side jobs. There just aren’t that many postings.”

Stop. You’re doing it wrong. Most funds don’t post openings.

Understand how hiring actually works:

• Referrals fill most roles.
• Informational interviews create pipelines before seats open.
• Even posted jobs are often pre-filled internally.

You need a sourcing strategy — one no one will build for you.

It’s your job to create deal flow — in this case, career flow — just like a PM sources ideas.

Figure out your investment philosophy first. Then find funds that align with it. Identify people who share something with you — alma mater, geography, prior firm, or sector — and reach out. You need to build relationships non-stop, so when opportunities arise, even elsewhere, your name comes up. That’s how you build warm paths into the right seats.

And yes, use curated job boards that aggregate public openings — but that’s table stakes.

Don’t Aim Too Narrow

You can’t say, “I only want a $2–5B long/short single-manager in NYC focused on quality compounders.”

There might be five of those firms in the country, hiring one analyst every three years. Good luck to you.

Be flexible — across AUM, brand, founder lineage, strategy, and location. Get your foot in the door, prove you can produce, and only then earn leverage to upgrade.
Unless you’re the Blackstone analyst straight out of an Ivy League pipeline, your power comes from performance, not pedigree.

Also remember: there’s no perfect alignment. PMs have biases. Every seat opens because someone left for a better one — by definition, it’s imperfect. That’s fine. Earn a seat at the table, learn, and prove you can generate alpha.

During MBA I visited the HQ of a bank’s asset management arm, I asked an alumnus how he got his Oil & Gas research analyst seat. He said:

“The guy who used to cover it joined another long-only fund covering TMT. That was the only open seat at the time, so I took it — and ten years later, here I am.”

That’s how most people get in — and you should be grateful to land it. A sector-coverage seat at a large long-only is a phenomenal start.

Final Thoughts

Breaking into the buy-side isn’t about secret interview guides or shortcuts. It’s about developing a real product — your skill set — and mastering its distribution — your communication and sourcing.

Do the work. Read relentlessly. Understand industries. Research the funds you meet. Network with intent. Communicate clearly.

Because on the buy-side, you are expected to be ready to go.

Hope this helps. I’m working on a piece on effective communication — stay tuned. Thanks for reading. I will talk to you next time.