Zebroid

Letter to England

2009-04-30T14:34:00.001-04:00

2008 was a “Holy Mackerel” year for us.

It is exactly a year since I was diagnosed with Transverse Myelitis a rare neurological syndrome caused by inflammation of the spinal cord. (http://www.myelitis.org/tm.htm). One day I was well, the next I was paralyzed from the 4th vertebrae below the neck, cause completely unknown. It took them 3 weeks to diagnose it. I was unable to eat and drink for a month. So I spent last April, May and June in hospital. I was struck very hard and lost total motor, sensory, bowel and bladder and there is nothing they can do for you. June 12th I was released to the tender loving care of the family. Not able to feel or move a muscle below the breast (I did have the use of my arms, and through out this I felt well!)

Harriet was in her final year at Newcastle reading English and graduated on the 8th July 2008, we had planned to all attend, that was clearly out of the question. While I was in hospital Suzanne had a horrid time, working, trying to manage my company, looking after the boys and visiting me in hospital (10 mile drive each way). She spent at least 3 hours with me every day. When I was released I could tell she was frazzled! And really needed a break. She should go back to England and the boys would just have to look after me.

Richard was 15 (now 16) and Joshua 13. Some of the things they had to help me with are right out of the realm of a teenager! We had a lift put into garage so I could get my wheelchair into the house. I would never have guessed how expensive a good manual w/c was - >6000 dollars! They had trained me to transfer in and out of the wheelchair but I needed a transfer board to help me, and when I did my first transfer in the bed Suzanne had prepared for me in my study I got it all wrong and fell! Great start, luckily Richard was able to catch me and I came to no harm.

Our home is very poorly set out for a paraplegic! All the bedrooms and bathrooms are either down or up a floor, so I was left to have a show on the deck!

Well I found I had some true friends – four of my JP Morgan buddies arranged to each spend 5 days with me while Suzanne was away! So I did have adult supervision and someone to drive to therapy! 3 flew from NY and one from London. I was so proud of the boys they were marvelous and did all the heavy lifting for three weeks. Suzanne and Harriet arrived back on the 15th July and pooph! The boys were just dust – gone almost to the second the car pulled up outside.

In August Suzanne took me to the beach… we had three weeks there and Harriet lead the program! 30 mins to build upper body strength and then an hour in the pool! And then the moment slowly began, first a toe, then a knee.

By October I could wobble and was able to once more get upstairs and have a bath! It was a major effort but super worth it.

In November the sensory side changed, clearly my nerves must have been repairing but the brain mixes all the signals and I was just in a sea of pain! This has continued since and is the major challenge, but I have felt just the last few weeks that this two is improving.

Today I went to the Quail Hollow golf tournament here in town to watch Tiger and Vijay play the pro-am. I was able to drive myself! I had a golf car to drive me around – I have come a long way and as we enter May 2009! I am sure I am going to be able to resume my life this year. I have booked a cruise in feb 2010! I plan to be at least 90% by then.

Harriet is doing a masters at Durham and comes home for good in July. I am really looking forward to having her around after 8 years in the UK. She has applied to Law school, we will see.

Richard has a job serving dinners to the old folk but I doubt he will go to college. Joshua is great and goes to High School next year.

I closed my business in june 2008 and therefore am now unemployed! All a major disaster.

As for 9-11, we live in Charlotte 650 miles south of NY so there was no reason for me to be anywhere close. My business at that time had crashed and burned in the internet bubble and as a result of a board room coup I was out of my own firm. (the company is still going and doing ok and may do well out this current mess). I had been offered a job in NY and flew up to start work – my first day was Tuesday 9-11 2001! I landed on a clear blue morning at Newark airport and caught the bus/shuttle at 8:20 am to the World Trade center where my new employer was located!. Yes you guessed it I never got there but had a birds eye view of the whole thing. I was unable to get home until Friday. The firm was on the 25th and 55 floors – one person died, the rest got out!

Bye-Bye to Obtaining a Mortgage on a Condo! The condo trap!

2009-03-18T11:39:00.008-04:00

Condo market to be murdered by Freddie and Fannie.

Has so much capital ever before been wiped out by the stroke of a pen - and yes this is our government.

I bet you would not guess it is impossible to get a mortgage on a beautiful downtown condo! How is this possible? But Freddie and Fannie have some rule that if 10% of the building is still owned by the developer and the developer has these up for rent, a mortgage lender can not pass the mortgage to the GSE! In this market that means no mortgage. This means the developer cant sell his unsold units, the situation is not correctable. This is what has happened to me – as a result my condo is unsellable.

See WSJ story http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123733304341863319.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us

Here is a letter I wrote to my congress person in the hope of finding out why we have this rule.

Dear Rep. Sue Myrick,

Inequitable Rules from Freddie and Fannie.

In 2003 I purchased a condo in The Arlington downtown Charlotte as an investment. In early 2008 I became very ill and became paralyzed and was forced to close my business (hopefully only temporally) in Matthews. Today my income is limited to Disability.

In October I asked Allen Tate to sell the condo. They valued the property at 850k. Today I have the property on the market at 650k. I have a mortgage with Bank of America for 440k. I have now begun the steps to hand the property over to them as I can no longer make the monthly payments.

The key appears to the GSE’s treatment of condo developments where the developer has a continuing interest. No lender will give a mortgage on the Arlington. There is some rule that if more than 10% is owned by the developer any mortgage is not insurable by the GSE’s. This ensures no condo is re-sellable.

So the only way I can sell my condo is to a cash buyer. I have spoken to the developer and he would love to sell the remaining properties he owns but he is caught is the same trap.

This makes no sense.

I have tried to contact Freddie, Fannie and numerous lenders. The GSE’s will provide me no information. The lenders confirm that they will not make loans.

If this is true these rules will have a very negative impact on the uptown condo market in Charlotte. I have come to terms with handing my condo over to Bank of America as I need to concentrate on my health. But it is my duty to my fellow citizens to bring this inequitable ruling by a government agency to attention of everyone.

Regards
Raymond

The Ten Rules of Good Interviewing:

2009-03-10T15:36:00.006-04:00

© Raymond May 2009
Tips for successful interviewing

OK your resume and cover letter were good enough to get you the interview! Can you get to the next step? Here are some thoughts to help you through the interview.

Rule 1. It is all about them, the hiring company, not about you.

They will only hire you if they believe that you will bring a benefit.

So work out how to convey how you can help the company! What benefit do you add! This could be a direct experience, could be local knowledge, you could be local and will not relocate later, could be many things, just do your best to identify what will hold you above the rest.

Companies are getting 100’s of resume for each job search, most are not qualified, and why are you qualified? Make it clear in your cover letter. I say “why can’t they read?” meaning why did you send a resume for this job? Most applicants are not qualified; it is all based on HOPE. If you are not qualified you will not get a response, but if you are – make sure it is clear! Why are you QUALIFIED?

If you don’t know what the company is looking for, why are you applying? (The “I was over qualified” excuse is over done!)

Rule 2. Keep it relevant at all times.

For example, how would you answer the classic icebreaker question? “Tell me about yourself?”

It is very easy to get off topic and just go wide. There are only two ways to answer this question. The first is to answer it with another question – make the interviewer do some work and actual ask what they want answered! So the question would sound like “what specially would you want to know about me?” Alternatively you could answer it with a personal marketing statement. Always have a short marketing statement prepared.

This is what it looks like, prepare a 3 part statement:Part 1 – One sentence summary of career to date.Part 2 – Accomplishment you are proud of that will capture the employer’s attention. (“while I was at ….)Part 3 – One sentence summary of what you want to do next in your career.

All employers are looking for the same three things:Skills, Experience and Stability

Make sure all your answer help the interview answer one of the three things!

Don’t ramble. Keep the length of your answers not too short and not too long, but just right. Don’t bore the interviewer!

Rule 3. Focus on personal accomplishments to highlight benefits you bring. Avoid general statements.

Prepare a list of as many accomplishments as you can come up with. Write these up in short paragraphs. You are going to get many questions in interviews that are skill, knowledge or behavioral based. For example, what’s the most difficult situation you ever faced on a job?Answer questions with examples, so you will be glad you did your homework. Remember rule 1 – it is all about them, how do you benefit them? How do your previous accomplishments and experiences benefit them?

Structure your answers using the STAR method:
Situation
Task
Action
Result

“I was in this situation, I was given this task, I took the following actions and result was…”See how all the accomplishments you prepared for your marketing statement will be very useful?But be prepared to highlight the “intangible” using accomplishments. Saying you are a “good team player, good communicator, hard worker, cultural fit, internally motivated” with no context is hollow.

Rule 4. Be prepared for a resume review. The key will be to understand your career moves. Why you made the decision you have made.

Always key on the positive – for example, I left A to go to a better opportunity at A. Never be negative – for example, I could not stand my boss is a no no.

Be ready to answer the though questions, but be truthful. Be positive at all times.

Rule 5. Listening is harder and more important.

We were given two ears and only one mouth. Make sure you are engaged and when the interviewer is speaking you make it obvious that you are listening.

Rule 6. No Me Questions.

Bring up nothing that relates to you. Like “what is the pay” or “How much vacation do I get”…. These questions leave a very negative impression.

Rule 7. Do your homework. Blessed will be those that do their homework! Know everything in the public domain about the company. Read their web page or accounts if available.

Rule 8. Understand the objective.

Sometimes it is to continue the interview process and get a follow up interview, sometimes it is the decision maker interviewing you and you are trying to land the job.

You need to make sure you keep in mind what you are trying to answer:
Do you understand the opportunity? - ask good questions
Can you do the job?
Do you want the job?

Rule 9. Always be prepared to ask good questions.

Never pass on an opportunity to ask questions, the quality of your questions will greatly help your status.

Prepare questions before hand, use these 3 categories to help you:
- Questions about the job / opportunity
- Questions about the company, however never ask something that is publicly available.
- Questions about the interviewer, how about testing them with “tell me about yourself”

Sample Questions:
- What would you expect me to achieve in the first 6 months?
- Is there anything I can tell you about my qualifications that I haven’t said yet?
- What are the principal challenges I would face in this job?
- Why do you like working here?

Rule 10. Never forget Rule 1, it’s all about them!

History of Value at Risk or V@R

2009-03-02T14:05:00.006-05:00

(c) Raymond May 2008

It was 1989, Angel Court, City of London the swaps trading floor for JP Morgan; Michael Einhoven recently replacing Connie Vostad as group head asked me into his office. With his feet on his desk and picking his nose he complained that he didn't understand all the risks that the group was running, was it not possible to have a single number that described these risks, rather than spread this, gamma that.

In the prior three years I had completed two large system developments using JP Morgan's mainframe infrastructure, the first captured all the Swap deal data and was used to operational support the business and produce accrual accounting results. The second supported mark-to-market accounting, gap analysis and position descriptions. The second system was way before its time, and found no takers, it was many years before any of these models became standard.

So I embarked on a project to describe the risks in the swaps business as a single number. Using a research document produced by Salomon Brothers that stated that all changes in the yield curve could be described in three parameters - as a parallel change in rates, a steepening and a humping. Based on this we generated our first simple number based on the square root of the squares of three simple observations - a 10 basis point parallel shift - a 25 basis points steepening and - a small 5 basis point humping in the middle.

I also began to collect in a spreadsheet all daily pricing parameters. Gradually as this data was collected, day by day options for calculating a more accurate representation increased. I asked our research group in New York if they could provide me with any help. Next thing I knew I was sharing my desk with Dr. Gustav. Together we generated a model to describe a position in terms of the two standard derivations loss based on historical rates. Very simply this stated " the amount of money that the portfolio's loss or gain due to market movements would not exceed 19 out of 20 days" - bingo we had the number! the Value at Risk (note we initially we set it at 95% confidence, the market has since moved to 99%)

I finally had this number which we dubbed Value at Risk in place at the end of 1991. I had developed a spreadsheet which all portfolio managers in the Swaps Group now used. This took a starting position from the mainframe in the morning, added all new deals and calculated the portfolio - inter-day position, daily profit and loss and final Value at Risk.

At the start of 1992 I left London to join the Trading desk in New York where my first task was to introduce my position spreadsheet to our US dollar operations. By 1994 I was the lead trader for US Dollars and one day I was summoned by the current top man Peter Hancock. Peter complained that he had a Value at risk for each currency but he had no overall Value at risk, and he needed one as soon as possible.

I took myself off the desk for a week and constructed a new spreadsheet which expanding the model for all currencies. The spreadsheet automatically extracted data from all the individual spreadsheets without the users even knowing and I was able to run a total picture by 4pm in New York. The results were presented daily at a risk management meeting which would be dubbed the 4:15 Meeting. The spreadsheet I developed would be called the "Ray May Spreadsheet" and would remain in place until eventually being replaced at the end of the 90's by a 40 million dollar project named "Pyramid".

JP Morgan Research Group released the Value at Risk model and the associated data to the general market as Risk Matrix in 1994 as part of a campaign to persuade Congress that derivatives where not a risk to the system following P&G and Gibson Greeting Inc large derivative losses.

A History of Mark to Market Accounting

2009-02-23T14:58:00.003-05:00

Accounting for Derivatives and
How bonuses are paid.
© Raymond May 2008

It was a Monday morning in 1995, at that time I was the head trader of US fixed income derivatives in New York for JP Morgan. I arrived at my trading desk at 60 Wall Street later than usual, just after eight having battled through my commute from New Jersey to find a post-it attached to my computer screen to "call Bill". I soon got the message that I was "done"- "oh not to worry the trade had been done at very good levels and a printout was on my desk". "Done" meant a trade had been executed and I owned the resulting position. I quickly scanned the one page and realized it was a very BIG trade, the biggest I had ever seen, at least $15 billion! This was the first time I had ever had a trade executed on my book without consulting me for pricing information. The bond market was open, futures opened in 10 minutes but were trading on the electronic platform. Shock! the futures were printing red, very red, indicating a very large downward market movement. A big market movement on an ordinary day was 10 basis points or one 10th of a percent. This Monday the screen was RED and down big, the futures were showing down more than 50 basis points, the market was not yet open, there was nothing I could do but wait. We were down $25,000,000 before we started, why was I the last person on the planet to know about this trade? As the futures opened the prices continued to fall, now down 75 basis points – I felt ill?

Come bonus time, the bank had lost 25 million but the great and good Investment Bankers that put the deal together claimed to have made 25 million. Now it was all politics and Bill was king and his word was all that counted. So the bank loses all the way round, 25 million on the deal and then pays out a bonus! I of course am blamed for losing 50 million as if it was separate and no one was interested in the truth or it ensuring it did not happen again.

This is a small example of the bonus situation in 2008. And this example occurred in 1995! it has got much worse since then. The best way to get a bonus is to arbitrage the accounting system! There are many ways to take advantage of the accounting system but the simplest is to record a profit based on some model today that will not be realized until sometime in the future.

If there was ever a case when the fixed / variable explanation for high investment banker bonuses 2008 was it, this is the true test. The argument put forward is that investment bankers receive low salaries and a majority of the remuneration is paid in the form of a bonus based on performance. In 2008 all these institutions have lost huge amounts of money and the variable piece should be "zero" but that is not what is happening. "I made money, not my fault someone else lost it" goes the cry. There is some truth to that and anyone truly adding value should be paid, but who is the judge of this value? they certainly don't have my confidence based on my experience. Very few people add much above the benefits offered by the organization (systems, network, processes, brand).

Many good analyses are available on this crisis including in January 09's Economist, which highlights how well the financial models in interest rates, foreign exchange and equities performed. And that it was the poor performance of the CDO (collateralized debt obligation) that lies at the root of this crisis. Although this is a good analysis one element of the investment bank that stands out from my own experience of 13 years in the City and Wall Street which is the true root cause is the accounting model, which revolves on the "bonus pool". Or as I like to say, "getting close to the pig trough".

I remember someone saying to me in the 80's "why invest in Merrill Lynch? if the company makes money the management takes it and if Merrill loses money you take it" it really made me think, and it has disturbed me every since. And now the whole world knows.

When an investment banker claims to have contributed a "$50mm" profit, this is very debatable, but until this year no one debated it. First the 50mm is usually "revenue" not profit and second the revenue is based on very unclear mark to market models and respective allocations.

The basic aim in the accounting model it to align the employees self interest with that of the organization. Make them make money and the rewards are shared. In a classic sales role a salesman is rewarded with commission on successful sales. This is a model well understood in all businesses, but in the financial markets when you are talking CDO or Swaps, what is the "profit"? It all depends on the accounting method. In many businesses "commission" depends on "cash-in" and not just profit. This has not been the case on Wall Street.

Lets go back to the beginning. At JPM we began executing "swaps" in the early 1980's based out of London. A swap (or interest rate derivative) is a relatively simple concept - combine a floating rate note with a fixed rate note allows only the net coupons payment over time between a fixed interest rate and the later market interest rate. This introduced the now popular LIBOR index. This allowed Treasurers to manage interest rate payments without having to call and re-issue bonds and debt. When I joined the accounting group at JP Morgan in London the few deals that had been executed were accounted for as two loans! One fixed and one variable. Each month the accounting department calculated the interest receivable and payable and the net total was the monthly earnings... nice and simple. Accept we did it all by hand, can you imagine that today! 1000 deals computed one at a time! It took all month, so we calculated the monthly earnings just in time to start again. The month earnings number did not vary much month to month, it was very stable.

There is a funny story here, each month we had to report earnings to New York on the 4th day of the month, we never had a chance – we knew the big number – e.g. 4 or 5 million, it was something close to last month, but in order to get the rest of the number we would need many more days, so we simply made them up by taking the last 6 figures from a random 10 pound note!

The average length of the deals at that time was approximately five years. Even with no computers this business generated stable positive income. This was a result of how the business was managed, simply and conservatively - by executing new deals in groups. First a transaction was executed and later one or more equal and opposite transactions where grouped together, leaving a closed group with a positive earning stream. There was no market to market at this time.

My first task was to develop a computer system to help manage this portfolio. It took six months and many long nights. It was at this time that I was approached by the banks external auditors to confirm that the portfolio did not hold a "future loss". Oh what a question? What was the present value of this portfolio? At this time we had no model, the zero curve was a thing of the future. It took 12 months to answer the question. The first model we developed we named 1 plus i, or principal plus interest.

The One plus i model:
From the observed yields on treasury bonds for all maturities and credit spreads we were able to define a current yield curve. All cashflows from all deals are calculated and complied into a single list of date and cashflow amount, the sum of all cashflows by day – as a result each day had either a positive or negative daily total. Moving to the most far out cashflow and dividing it my the appropriate current market rate (i) giving a P amount and an I amount (example - cashflow of 20mm and i =10% on12/31/2020, gives a P = 18.18mm and I = 1.82mm. The P is saved and the I amount is added/subtracted to each original amount listed on each 12/31 annual anniversary. This is performed for each date back to the present date stepping forward one day at a time. The sum of all the P's is the present value of the portfolio. I hope you followed that! Quite simple really and required no complex models. The difficulty was to generate an accurate list of all cashflows. At this stage all the deals where nothing more than paper deal confirmations.

The first run of our model took place on the 8th August 1988 (8.8.88) and we valued 66,666 cashflows! we did this on a mainframe and those two numbers were printed on the top of the green striped computer paper! very chilling. But the value was minus a few trillion and needed much further reconciliation. Between August 1988 and the final audit in January 1989 we were able to calculate the correct number with much certainty, including accounting for future hedging and operational costs. This opened the debate on mark to market accounting, which was easily won and implemented at JP Morgan in 92 based on that first 1988 model. The business head had told me before we started out that “there was over 250mm in NPV”, he was right on the mark!

Once we had developed a method for calculating the mark to market or current value we needed a model to do this daily not just annually. This was accomplished by reversing the 1+i model and creating the zero coupon curve which was first accomplished in that same year 1988, and now a market standard. We reached the zero curve in two places quite independently. In the late summer of 1988 I received a visit from Bob Barker a New York based researcher that had been given the take of developing a pricing model for a swap. He wanted to compare his model to mine. It was amazing we had reached exactly the same conclusions and our models matched exactly. I would have to assume that at the same time others around the street were reaching the same answers. I still have my first zero coupon curve workings – hand written proofs. (Bob’s spreadsheet model later became know as 3 + I and was used through the organization until the late 90’s)

The computation of the net present value of this complex portfolio allowed us to develop two further advances. The first was model position and risk management, the representation of this historically portfolio in terms of today’s market – and allow for the accurate hedging of the whole portfolio and no need to use "matched groups" and secondly the accurate reporting of daily profitability – the change in mark to market over time.

The current positions where calculated using two different methods - one was simply to add the P's that resulted from the 1 + i calculation into annual buckets and the second was to "tweak" the current market rates used as inputs one at a time, recalculating the NPV each time. By changing or tweaking just the 10 year treasury yield by one basis point and re-calculating the NPV the portfolio sensitivity to the ten year rate could be calculated and therefore the correct hedge amount. This allowed large portfolios to be accurately managed.

In the summer of 1989 I now had six month data on the mark to market and was able to monitor the performance on a monthly basis of the business - I was shocked they were making a LOSS! I decided to bring this up with management, who informed me I must be mistaken - they were making record profits! Now it was true that the portfolio was making money, but that was being generated by the historical portfolio, all new business was all being added at a loss. My information was not helpful and certainly could not be true. Sound familiar? My word against all those more knowledgeable managers. Eventually after what was years I was able to win the argument but not before many bonuses were paid along the way. But the power of mark to market accounting was demonstrated for all time.

The next question to resolve was how to allocate profitability (or rather new revenue). From 1989 the best model I developed was the "change report" this allocated the change in NPV from one day to the next to all the possible reasons. Classical interest accrual, movement in market rate, new business etc. This needed the market conditions at the time of all new deal to be captured. This was done in a spread sheet and required a "mid market rate" to be agreed, from which new revenue or bid.offer to be calculated. How should this be allocated between the "marketer" and the "trader" to ensure they were incentives to help each other. It was decided to generate a normal bid.offer margin this was subtracted first and allocate this 60% to the trader and 40% to the marketer, excess profit would be allocated 60% to the marketer.

As you can see the trader was incentivized to "shade" his mid market and the marketer to gain an attractive mid market.

Back to the 1995 trade example: The accounting revenue allocation model was set up for normal business and required a tacit agreement between the trader and the marketer. However the trade executed in 1995 was huge, so huge that the ability to hedge was very uncertain in normal times and certainly very tricky when it was public knowledge and the simple revenue allocation set out above would and could not apply, certainly not based on a prior Friday end of day closing prices when by Monday the market knew of the distress the trade was causing and any hedge could only be executed at very reduced pricing. This irresponsible was small compared to the events that occurred in 2006-2007 but indicated what was likely to happen!

The second issue is the use of revenue, uncertain revenue rather than fully costed profit and loss in setting investment bankers bonuses. It is amazing how little interest senior investment banks have on costs and processes allowing operations to run hog wild in these big organizations. Costs don’t affect how senior peoples bonuses are calculated, so why care? If you have even been in a meeting with senior investment bankers and operations managers and watch the bankers eyes glaze over. No they like everything to key of revenue only.

This is my perspective from inside JP Morgan, at that time nothing or very little was shared across the industry. Today these models are available to be purchased.

COBRA - Health Insurance and the risks

2009-02-16T16:40:00.003-05:00

The danger of COBRA! it is "one strike and out.........."

My family is in trouble with no answer. As millions lose their jobs how many more will get caught in the COBRA trap?

How to start? My wife and I have three children; one has flown the nest and is at graduate school, the two boys are teenagers. During the 17 years we have lived in the United States I have worked for three U.S. corporations and as a result health insurance has never appeared to be a problem, not that I made many visits to the doctors. But at the start 2007 of founded a small business here in Charlotte. Of all the many things that need to be taken care of, finding office space, finding and installing a telephone system, buying and installing desks and computers, hired employees - Health Insurance didn't get much of a look in. But there is COBRA! so it doesn't matter! Least so I thought.

A year later it was time for me to find my own insurance, oh boy what a run around, I spent a month and got quotes from a number of leading National Health Insurance companies. It felt as if it was a huge bait and switch operation! Not one of the quotes came close to the initial grids I have been presented. At that time my wife and I were very healthy, my wife goes to the gym nearly every day and weighs the same 110 pounds she did when she was 20 year old. Oh well, I still had six months to run on my COBRA so I would come back to it, there was no way I could award the bad behavior I had experienced. It was very frustrating, just awful.

Four months later it was seven o'clock on a Monday morning and I was at my desk to get the week off to a fast start, but by eight I felt queasy and felt I would vomit so I took myself home – maybe I had food poisoning. For the remainder of the week I was unable to eat or drink and by Friday asked my wife to take me to the emergency room at our local hospital. At 2:00 AM I was finally admitted to hospital for observation. The following Wednesday I lost all my motor ability below the breast! I was fully paralyzed or at least a paraplegic. Three weeks later I was diagnosed with Transverse Myelitis a rare syndrome caused by inflammation in the spinal cord, I had been struck at the forth vertebra below the neck which left me with no movement below the breast but I had use of my arms. Wasn't much they can do for me apart from a heavy dose of steroids and to feed me intravenously?

I was released from hospital on the 12 June two weeks before my COBRA expired! After ten weeks in hospital going home was a relief and a worry. I was still a paraplegic and used a transfer board to move between the bed and my wheelchair. Gradually one toe and one kneecap at a time I slowly got some motor ability back. It is how almost a year later and I have made a wonderful partial recovery. I can walk up to 2 miles an hour but now suffer horrendous nerve pain.

Once I was able I looked at replacing my COBRA! Oh what a shock! I am now one of the great uninsured. In NC under the HIPPA rules Blue Cross Blue Shield must give me a quote, but at $3,880/ month just for me I cant afford that seeing I no longer can work. So I have no alternative but to have no insurance. After all those years paying into a system, when you need it, the system is not there for you.

So you think a recruiter can find you a job?

2009-01-30T18:58:00.006-05:00

By Zebriod (c) 2008
(planning to find a new job)

If it has not happened to you yet, it happens more and more often, the work disappears and you need to find a new job. When this happens the first thing you need is a plan, a plan to land a new job. It is always easier to land a new job when you have a job, but you don’t have the time and that is not the situation I intend to cover here.

The plan needs to be more than finding a recruiter and sitting back. You need to be in control of your search, a recruiter can only help if they have the right client. In this market a recruiter will actually have no jobs either. You are more likely to land a job yourself.

Step 1. Ground work
Get you paperwork in order:
1a. Review your resume (See my article on writing your resume)
- Your resume is a "MARKETING DOCUMENT" not a history book!!

1b. Review all your accomplishments – write them up, no one is going to hire you because you need a job, they will only hire you if you bring something they need (See my article on accomplishments)
- You will only be hired if you solve "THEIR" problems and bring benefit!

1c. Make a personal marketing statement (see creating your elevator pitch)
- You will need to pick up the phone and call people yourself! DONT USE EMAIL! plan what you will say when you get someone on the phone, don't make it up on the phone. "One sentence to summarize your career, one major accomplishment, why you are looking" - all in 20 seconds.

1d. Get copies of transcripts – many companies require these if you have post grad education.

1e. Prepare your references – this is very important, networking can land you the job you need. Call everyone you know and ask them if they would be willing to provide you a professional reference if needed – don’t be proud.

Step 2. How to stay in control.
Make sure all recruiters have your permission directly from you prior to submitting your resume to any employer. Recruiters have a natural incentive to send your resume to as many companies as possible, just in case you get hired. Normally they can claim a fee if you go to work for any of these within a year of submitting your resume.

Create a spreadsheet of possible companies. Use the internet to research companies in your location or in your sector

Number Co Name Website Co Contact Call date Recruiter Date sent Notes--->

Only self submit through the website as a last resort. Try to place a call into the company, use you marketing pitch and attempt to get someone in the company to get you in. If you submit through the website will be joining hundreds of “chef s and chauffeurs” and as a result your resume will first be read by a machine, so make sure you have as many “key words” as possible.

Step 3. Network

USE THE PHONE!!! not email! email does not work - see 1c above, practice practice......

Most mid career job changes are a result of “networking” not recruiters, it is expensive for companies to find quality staff and as a result networking has a distinct advantage over using a recruiter. It maybe difficult to call previous colleagues and admit that you are searching for a new job, but it has to be done. Call them all, make sure you are prepared to market yourself even when you think they know you. Use an indirect approach “Do you know anyone that is hiring”, “Do you have anyone over at xyz company that I can call?”.

This is difficult, but do it. Finding the next job is a full time job.

Step 4. Be prepared

The first step is to get an interview, but an interview is not the end, just the end of the beginning. Be prepared to interview well.

Try to be nice and well mannered at all times.

Vegan what is a Vegan....

2009-01-25T15:01:00.003-05:00

Vegan, what is a Vegan....

Oh my, Vegan not me! what is a Vegan?

My daughter came home from university and declared herself a Vegan! "what on earth is a Vegan?" - the answer was simple - "no animal products - nothing" - so no meat no milk no cheese no eggs no fish no nothing!

Well that was thirteen months ago, how times change. In April I was pulled down by Transverse Myelitis! An inflammation attack on the spinal chord, which resulted in me becoming paralyised - a T4 - I lost everything below my fourth vertebra below the neck! and after six weeks in hospital my doctor translated the prognosis as "we will know how well you will do by how well you do" get that! basically "nothing' "we know nothing and we will tell you nothing"

Roll the clock forward nine months, oh how the scene has changed. I have now recovered somewhat, but what can I do to help me increase my chances to improve? to make a full recovery - w4e all know the answer - diet, exercise and a state of mind! I have a strong state of mind, I can go to therapy or the Y two, three, four times a week but what about diet?

Do we ever change our diet? I like my steak, a roast chicken, a meat lovers pizza.... love it all and most of all that full breakfast on a Sunday with eggs and bacon.

But to change your diet something has to change! out with the red meat!, isn't milk full of chemicals? so out with milk and cheese - ouch sounds like a Vegan.

Since Christmas we are very much "realistic vegans" - in with the soy milk, vegan margarine, whole wheat bread, bean chilies, green salads, NO Cheese. We have maintained some fish in our diet and will occasionally eat meat.

It is way too early to say anything positive has occurred in our health, but it feels good, we are sleeping well. But if I can change my diet any one can, and it seems to make sense - everything we knows says - less sugar, less 'fat', less chemicals, less processed stuff, less volume, more natural, more fruit and vegetables - the better... we all have to do it for ourselves. Just make the call ourselves. It is HARD! never in the history of man has so much food been available, and it is just there to be had! We have to change our thinking and our own self-control. The Vegan model really helps to apply some very good boundaries. I for one will try.

Long live the 21 bean chili!

Transverse Myelitis Two

2009-01-22T19:07:00.001-05:00

January 13 2009

It's been nine months since I was admitted into hospital and five months since we came back from Hilton Head, much has changed some for the good and some for the bad.

I seemed to make such a great improvement in the three weeks we were in Hilton Head. At the end of July I had started to get some movement in my left leg (move a toe, move the knee cap) and by the time I had spent three weeks lying out in the pool I could comfortable get in and out of my wheelchair to the floor, clearly my stomach muscles were recovering. It felt as if I was on the way to making a full recovery, just time. The wonderful thing of being in the house at Hilton Head was the ability to have a shower. Everything was on the ground floor and I was able to put my shower chair in the shower and move from one wheel chair to the other and have a blissful wash. Back home I was once more constrained to the main floor where we have no shower. However the weather was nice and the boys would wheel me around the house down to the back where I could access the swimming pool and continued to swim or rather wallow and do my exercises in the water. Getting back up from the pool as we are on a steep hill was always much more challenging, really needed two to push the wheelchair uphill over the lawn.

As we moved into September I was still confined to my study on the main floor were I had a double bed and to the small cloakroom served as my bathroom. At therapy I was making major progress and was able to stand in the parallel bars. One Saturday I decided to try and get upstairs by moving backwards on my butt! and managed to clambered up the stairway on my bottom one step at a time. Once I reached the landing I crawled by pulling myself along the wooden floor into of bathroom and actually into the bath! My goodness I could have a bath! And I did. From then it became a daily excise and I also started to sleep in my own bed for the first time, it was wonderful.

Now that I was back upstairs I set a new routine upstairs at seven, toilet, bath then bed. This might seem simple but for me during that period it was a 2 hour ordeal. I had no recovery in the ordeal of bowel and bladder and still need to cath every 4-6 hours (cathing is inserting an eighteen red rubber tube to extract urine). But an ordeal that seems so much better in the privacy of my own bathroom rather than in family cloakroom. Plus the depth of relaxation of a deep bath was so pleasurable in a life devoid of pleasure.

It was mid October that I walked for the first time. It was our first bowling travel league outing with the kids. I run a monthly bowling league (or at least I did last year) where 20 kids from our weekly league compete against other bowling Lanes. This first match was away at the Park Lanes in Charlotte North Carolina where we arrived at 1230 but it was soon clear by the lack of handicapped car parking spaces and the age of the building I was not going to get in with my wheelchair. Suzanne parked the car next to the front door, the only option was to try and walk in. Sure at rehab I had walked down the parallel bars and my transfers from my wheelchair were greatly aided by the small movement that was returning to my legs. But if I managed to get into the bowling alley this would be my first real attempt at walking. I only had to climb two stairs and walk about a dozen strides to the nearest table but with Suzanne's shoulder it was accomplished. I had walked or as I like to describe it 'wobbled".

Therefore six months after being admitted to hospital I was now sleeping in my own bed, having the bath daily which now that I could stand changed to a shower and was able to move slowly around the house. It seemed as if my tribulations were over. I even stopped using my show chair over the toilet and celebrated by selling it on ebay!

I was sure it was now just a question of time, effort and all would be well. As October changed to November the pain started! not the vicious nerve pain that lasted 30 second when I had first come home but constant low grade pain - everywhere. In the legs it was like intense numbness while at the same time tight rubber bands compressed me. No pain medication seems to help. Doctors say nothing, I watched a youTube video of a guy who had suffered this pain for 20 years! the prognosis is a third recover, a third recover somewhat and a third don’t recover. I know I am in the third that recover somewhat and hope it does not stop here.

As January rolls into February I am trying to work somewhat. I can sit for a few hours but normally find comfort in a day bed. Very rarely wear anything other than underpants, as the touch of trousers is very aggressive pain. It is important to have the temperature just right as cold generates pain. It is odd when the dog lies across my legs and not to be able to feel anything, but an ache.

A Kenyan in the age of Obama.

2008-12-04T19:02:00.004-05:00

A few days ago I received an e-mail from my Kenyan cousin which joked that Obama's family in Kenya was making plans to lengthen the runway in their village on Lake Victoria so that Air Force One could land safely.

The underlying culture in Kenya is that if you make it good the family (extended) can expect to be taken along. For example if you were to become the major of Nairobi tribe members (all) would expect to be offered jobs in Nairobi. I feel Obama's extended family on the shores of lake Victoria will be disappointed.

Having grown up as a white boy in rural Kenya at the tail-end of the colonial period Kenya is in my heart, soul and body. I speak Swahili, think like a Kenyan and always believed that Kenya's was first. In the early seventies 10 years after independence from British rule the white colonials felt an uneasy sense of the future. Many left for South Africa or Australia but many more stayed. My family stayed but for me things did not work out and at the age of 17 I left for Britain to become a young soldier. 32 years later I find myself an American citizen living in Charlotte North Carolina with a half Kenyan president elect. I like all Kenyan's, am emotional with pride.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-04T18:34:00.002-05:00

Here’s wishing you and your family a merry Christmas and a safe and rewarding 2009.

I think we will all be glad to see the end of 2008. For us it was a particularly bad year, and if I had to choose a year to spend in bed, this would have been it. In April I was diagnosed (cause unknown) with Transverse Myelitis, a rare syndrome affecting the spinal cord. I spent 9 weeks in hospital. I was hit at the fourth vertebrae below the neck and was completely paralyzed. The prognosis was poor only a third recovering completely, another third getting no recovery. Here eight months later – I seem to be lucky and am making steady progress to what I hope will be a full recovery, but only time will tell. I am very thankful to my family and friends for all the wonderful support they have given me though out the year.
I did close my business in June, but hope I will be well enough to re-start it again in early 2009. Lets all hope the new year can restore our positive and confident spirits!

Regards Raymond May

Democracy in the selection of Board of Directors

2008-11-25T14:41:00.004-05:00

By R Raymond May
1526 Reverdy Oaks drive, Matthews NC 28105 (tel) 704.847.0008

I was asked at a neighborhood get together in November 2008 for my opinion on what was the root cause of this fine mess we find ourselves in at the end of 2008. Interesting, everyone knows it was all caused by the collapse in house prices and the sub-prime mortgages debacle! or was it?

No I said, those were only the first symptoms; the root cause was the wholesale institutional culture of corporate theft that has taken hold. The most clear cut sign is the incredible levels of CEO pay, golden parachutes and most of all pay levels on Wall Street. 17 billion dollars for the 2007 Goldman Sachs bonus pool! Almost equal to the company’s current market capitalization.

One group of the stakeholder club – “management” holds all the cards. The others - Capital, employees, community take what management gives them. There are lots of “good” managements but there are no checks and balances and it is hard to see the good from the “bad” until it is too late.

The only check and balance on management is the Board of Directors. But how is the board put into place and who checks the board? Certainly not the shareholders, but no, it is the same shameless management.

In response to the corporate scandals in 2001-2002, the major U.S. exchanges came up with new director and committee independence requirements, which are intended to enhance board oversight. We use this regulation event to shed light on the effect of board structure on CEO compensation. We find a significant decrease in CEO compensation upon compliance with these requirements. The significant decrease in compensation is due to a decrease in the option-based portion of the compensation. The results suggest that board structure is a significant determinant of the size and structure of CEO compensation.1
None of these changes has addressed the key issue – how do we select and remove a board of directors? Other than having a yes vote to management’s selections for us.

Corporations are so big, and the amount of cash available is just too temping. I remember thinking out loud as a young trader on Wall Street "why are we paid so much?" My boss the future CFO of JP Morgan replied "it is because we are so close to all the money".

During my time on Wall Street I observed two types of people. Type 1 had the corporation, group or businesses interests in mind foremost. Type 2 only had their own interests at heart. Types 2 were definitely the majority and you hoped you did not have to work for one of them. The business seemed cyclical in terms of which type was dominant.

Clearly this mess was caused by the gradual prominence of type 2s. What is the purpose of owning stock in a company where all returns go to management? Why own a company where the number of shares increases at the same speed as profits just to be given to management?

As the US government agrees to bailout Citibank all the talk on the TV shows is on the removal of the Board! but even if we wanted to how would that happen? And how would a new board be selected?

We need real democracy in the selection of Board of Directors!

1. Chhaochharia, Vidhi and Grinstein, Yaniv,CEO Compensation and Board Structure(October 2006). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=901642

Black Friday - the collapse of Citibank

2008-11-21T13:51:00.003-05:00

November 21 2008

Seems to be another black Friday, Citibank shares trade below $4.00, Bank of America is on the verge of becoming a single digits stock, the once mighty JP Morgan has seen its stock tumble 50% in the last month.

Why is this happening?

One clear reason can be laid firmly at the door of Treasury Secretary Paulson. Lack of Confidence.

I have this picture in my mind of Fort surrounded by bad guys and on the verge of having to give up its defense, all hope rests in the arrival of a relieving force. But a smoke signal is seen in the distance from the relief force saying that they are going home! the Fort will just have to wait for another force to arrive in a few months. This is effectively what Paulson said this week in front of Congress. The TARP [troubled asset relief program] would no longer be used by the current administration to buy bank assets. Whoosh! Shock!

From the moment Paulson said this, commercial mortgage assets, credit card loans assets, auto loans assets on bank balance sheets have seen spreads widen, and once more raising the specter of bank failures.

History will judge Paulson once we have a better view of these events with the advantage of perspective. However Paulson is already trying to write his own version of history, his press conference earlier this week attempted to set out a defense of events surrounding the demise of Lehman as being caused by "insufficient authority" vested in Treasury and the Federal Reserve. This is a tacit admission that the demise of Lehman was a turning point in the crisis and a mistake, one in which ensured this would be a major crisis and one that would be difficult to arrest. For my two cents – history will not judge him kindly.

I for one believe Lehman could have been saved in some form. Lehman's demise taken together with the effective confiscation from equity holders that resulted from the Conservatorship of Freddie, Fannie and AIG has resulted in the equity markets collapsing - there are no buyers of equities. Why would you buy equity when you are unclear what you are buying and risk confiscation by the government?

As the equity market collapsed, holders of equities are forced to liquidate generating even more downward pressure. The final collapse has caused hedge funds that held equities as glorified mutual funds to report large losses and start a stampede of withdrawals from all hedge funds.

So what started as a housing crisis is no longer a housing crisis and those that say in order to fix this crisis the housing market must be shored up are no longer correct. The issues now lie in commercial loans, commercial mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, hedge funds, manufacturers or just about everybody. It is very difficult to see how confidence in balance sheets, businesses and our economy can be restored.

Management of Citi were right in saying that the share price should have no affect on the ability of the bank to operate normally. Oh how we wish this was true! Unfortunately Citi needs to continue to roll over its short-term finances! Who will lend Citi the money? As the share price falls, the price of funding increases, at some point the bank is no longer viable. We have seen this play out many times. But we are at a place now that the only buyer of Citi is the government and we all know the price of that is! So selling Citi shares at $4 seems very rational. Back to Paulson - he's been very inconsistent, very unfair and is provided no leadership - expect a bad weekend!

One last point - the administration has allowed huge financial corporations to be created! We are back to where we were in 1928! before the Glass-Steagall Act that resticted bank holding companies own other financial firms. Is this really a good idea?

Crossing the bridge!

2008-11-21T13:15:00.002-05:00

November 21 2008

The doorbell just rang. It was the Chesapeake man coming to collect my wheelchair. Who would have thought that a manual wheel chair would cost $6000. Leaving hospital in June I had ordered a wheelchair but cancelled the order as it became clear that I would walk again. So instead of my own wheelchair I have relied on a loaner which came due today.
I did not know he would be coming to collect my chair today. Should I let him have it? It is very useful for anything stressful or long, like voting day or taking the dog for a walk - yes I take my wheelchair!

I let him have my chair!

Therefore I have no crutch any more and have to walk everywhere - what better signal is there.

Derivatives, the starting of Blackbird

2008-11-13T15:11:00.002-05:00

November 13 2008
By R Raymond May (c) 2008
1526 Reverdy Oaks drive, Matthews NC 28105 (tel) 704.847.0008

In 1986 I joined JP Morgan London as a freshly qualified accountant to be a junior staff member on a policy and procedures working team. Just six weeks into my career at JP Morgan I was sidetracked by the controller to help with the operations of the small business that was suffering growing pains - derivatives or in our jargon – Swaps. At that time only 5 business personnel and a single clerk, each trade tracked on a separte spreadsheet. I spent the next six years developing technologies covering operations, accountancy, risk management, valuation and more for what become a huge business. I can confidently claim to have first designed and developed systems that used mark-to-market accounting, value at risk and complex yield curve construction.

In 1992 I moved with my family to New York to take up a junior role on the trading desk. My first responsibility was to implement the risk management technologies I had developed in London. Secondly I took these models and arbitraged the long-term foreign exchange forward markets. In 1994 I took over responsibility for all U.S. dollar derivatives at JP Morgan.

At the end of 1996 I considered the methodology for trading in the swaps market to be inefficient and opaque. There must be a better way! Just that year a new trading platform had been introduced to trade foreign exchange. With my technology background and deep understanding of the swaps market I felt uniquely qualified to develop an electronic exchange for this huge growing derivatives market. In early 1997 I resigned from JP Morgan and set up camp in Charlotte North Carolina to commence the development of a new and complex marketplace, which we subsequently called Blackbird.

Over the next three years we raised $40,000,000 and developed the complex technology to allowed traders to trade between each other all forms of OTC derivatives. It was a major accomplishment.

The first serious challenge we faced came from the established Chicago exchanges in the form of regulation. Were we an exchange? And the challenge was launched by the CFTC. This was a complex question and one in which we could not afford to lose if we planned to have any clients. If we were to be regulated so to would all the Wall Street banks. With the help of the same banks and the top lawyers in the land we defended ourselves before six Congress committees. The final outcome was legal certainty on the regulation of derivatives. OTC derivatives would not be regulated providing that they were bilateral financial contracts and not fungible.

Our next challenge was to attract the banks to use our platform to trade OTC derivatives. This was a brick wall. This was a very profitable business, the larger banks generating more than a billion dollars a year, and the respective large bonuses. Under no circumstance would they countenance the risk that we've would spoil the party. The 10 largest created a consortium "Swapswire" each contributing $10,000,000 to develop their own version of a trading system and blocking our launch.

Since its launch in 2000 Blackbird has been unable to break down this brick wall.

A real domino story- aren’t there any adults in charge?

2008-10-23T13:49:00.001-04:00

The Banking Crisis!
By Raymond May © 2008
Matthews NC

Depression, crash, unemployment, worst in a lifetime, bailout - what are they talking about and how did we get here?

It's not many times since 1997 when I left my trading desk at JP Morgan in New York where I was head trader for U.S. dollar derivatives to start a new life in Charlotte North Carolina that I have given much thought to the goings on of Wall Street.

I missed the sub-prime crisis completely, it passed me by, no one offered me more money than my house was worth maybe I just never asked. It was not until my wife came home from having her nails painted at the "nail girl" that I knew something was wrong. She always came back with thrilling stories of the goings on of the nail girl’s children in a dysfunctional way. Her daughter 19 and recently married having lost her job as a cleaner was now pregnant and her new husband having lost his job as a cement truck driver where now months in arrears on the mortgage. Pardon me! Who would give them a mortgage I thought! I guess we all know the answer now.

What is sub-prime? As part of the “New Deal” in the 1930’s the US Government set up Fannie Mae to operate in the U.S. secondary mortgage market. Rather than making home loans directly with consumers, to work with mortgage bankers, brokers, and other primary mortgage market players to help ensure funds where available to lend to home buyers at affordable rates. Fannie Mae has been a key player in the mortgage market ever since and their so-called conforming mortgages are referred to as A-paper or prime. In the 1990’s a new market developed outside the GSE structure with disastrous consequences – the Alt-A or alternative-A paper. These mortgages were offered for an additional fee to individuals who for whatever reason could not qualify for a conforming GSE mortgage. It could be a small businessman with insufficient documentation, a new resident with no credit history etc but was clearly considered a good risk. It was only a small step to the “liars mortgage” – or no docs and sub-prime – mortgages made to people who did not qualify at any level. It was the additional fee or higher rate of these mortgages that attracted the Investment Banks and the CDO bonanza that was to follow.

Subprime mortgages from across the country were being sold by mortgage originators to Wall Street houses who in turn packaged these mortgages into what are now referred to as CDO's [collateralized debt obligations]. These CDO's in turn were sold on to investors with respective credit ratings provided by the rating agents. These CDO's provided wall street with profits and bonuses from a vast sausage machine backed by ever-increasing prices in the housing market and vast demand from investors looking for higher yields. Wall Street demand pushed originators to push the envelope in creating more new mortgages.

CDOs where pools of mortgages packaged so that each buyer was ordered according to who would take a default loss first, second, third etc. The slice that took the last loss, the most safe was called the “super senior”. This was sold first, but when AIG and other buyers were full up the issuing Investment Bank was obliged to buy the super senior themselves in order to sell the rest. As a result Citibank, UBS and Merrill Lynch ended up with huge portfolios of super senior CDOs. To show how bad this has got, Merrill Lynch stated when announcing third quarter results on October 16, 2008 “Net write-downs of $5.7 billion resulting from the previously announced sale of U.S. super senior ABS CDOs “ Merrill Lynch also announced that it had sold in all 30bn of super senior CDOs, it is safe to assume they did not receive much in return for this Triple A paper.

As is now known the sub-prime and CDOs experience turned into a disaster for all involved, but why were so many people taken in? Wasn’t the outcome obvious? Lets pass the obvious villains, company management and boards and look at two other groups who should have been the canaries in the mine; the rating agencies (S&P, Moody & Fitch) and the Internal Risk Management Departments at the big Wall Street houses, how did these groups miss the obvious?
Why do we have rating agencies, and their sisters - monoline insurance (Ambac Financial Group Inc and MBIA) and the GSEs (government sponsored enterprise - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac)? In the age of the Internet it seems that we can do our own research but that's not always been the case and these three groups came into existence to be responsible to do the necessary groundwork on corporate bonds, municipal bonds and mortgages respectively so that investors could have confidence in what they were investing in. They were there so we could trust in the system! And capital would reach those places where it would otherwise never reach. Each of the players got greedy and expanded their participation in their respective markets, creating conflicts and eventually failing the system.
Back to the rating agencies, these institutions extended their business from rating corporate bonds to providing ratings on CDOs. The conflict of interest between Wall Street houses sponsoring the CDO issues and the issuer (the same wall street firm) resulted in the rating agencies clearly doing insufficient work. They had to rate these bonds as required by the Investment Bank if they wanted to continue to get the rating business.
As for Internal Risk Management Departments at the Wall Street Firms, they clearly must have been persuaded by business managers that the penalty for failing to pay and fulfill ones mortgage obligations was such that foreclosure would not be an issue. Basically the effect on an individuals' credit score and future restrictions on availability to credit for seven years would be sufficient deterrent to ensure compliance and negative equity would not result in foreclosure. However on further reflection it is completely rational for a borrower to return the keys on a house where the borrower has negative equity. It is hard to believe that Wall Street firms believed house prices would always go up. A second possibility is these groups were making so much money, had their own complexity that the risk management responsibilities were given to the CDO management. It was rumored the CEO of Merrill Lynch would spend significant time with the securization group, demanding more market share.

(as an aside - The monoline insurers whose role is central in a well functioning municipal bond market should never have been allowed to expand their business into insuring CDO's. When the CDO's began to fail these organizations had insufficient capital to protect municipal investors.)

As for the GSE's, how the mighty have fallen. Starting in the early nineties Freddie Mac (the smaller of the two GSE’s, founded in early 70’s to provide competition to a newly privatized Fannie Mae) and Fannie Mae began to expand rapidly take advantage of their pseudo government status to raise capital cheaply in the bond markets. On September 7 2008 when these institutions were placed in Conservatorship by the US Treasury they together had outstanding debt in excess of $1.7 trillion and had capital of only 60 billion (half of which was represented by tax credits! don’t think they will be paying tax for a while) representing a capital ratio of less than 3% much lower than the 8% held by banks. This debt was invested in mortgages (although not subprime mortgages). Their collapse was a result of the knock on effect of the subprime affecting uncertainty in Mortgage Securities generally and foreclosure spilling over into the prime mortgage market. With the need to continually replace their borrowing with new borrowings, the small capital base, increasing skepticism of lenders ensured that these institutions would fail. Ironic that an institution created in the 1930s to help lead the country out of the depression should itself help threaten us with a second great depression. These two huge corporations highlighted so much of what was bad leading up this crisis including excessive lobbing by corporations, excessive CEO compensation and lack of oversight. As Jim Cramer of Mad Money screams on his TV show “government by and for the corporation”. Freddie and Fannie spent $160mm on lobbying in the last ten years. It is no surprise that no new oversight made it into law.
As the crisis grew falling prices in the house market led to more foreclosures, a crashing CDO marketplace lead to uncertainty in the valuation bank balance sheets and the confiscation of the failing GSEs left investor's in a position of real uncertainty. What institutions could be trusted?

Worst was to come.

So what is a credit default swap (CDS for short)? Here is a simple example: the U.S. government issues a five year bond (a transferable loan) to yield 4% [commonly referred to as the five year treasury] whereas Ford Motor Company would need to issue the same five year bond to yield 9%, the differential of 5% is referred to as the credit spread. The introduction of the credit default swap in the late nineties allowed for the credit spread to trade independently of the bond as a credit default swap. In a CDS one party would pay 5% each year for five years in return for receiving 100% if Ford Motor Company defaulted on the bond.

Back to the current crisis, house prices continue to fall, the monoline insurance companies tottered on bankruptcy, banks continued to take right offs against their mortgage portfolios and foreclosure rates climbed. It is still very much a housing relating crisis at this point. For banks and especially Investment Banks the liquidity (the ability to sell at the current market price quickly) is assumed in order to support a leverage of greater than 12-1. The stability in asset prices over the last 15 years had led many Investment Banks to ran leverage positions of 30 or 40 to one. Even at this stage in the crisis it may have been possible for the system to survive providing there was no run on any bank.

For investment bank with no depositors, assets are funded through market instruments like commercial paper, repurchase agreements and traditional bonds.

The CDS price (normally quoted in basis points (.01 of a %)) on any company is the market statement of the likelihood of that company defaulting. The lower the spread the less likelihood of default. It is also the premium over the equivalent government rate that the company must pay in order to borrow funds. Hedge funds saw an opportunity here by buying a CDS (pay the spread to the seller in return for getting 100% if the target defaulted ) and adding pressure on the cost of funds. The seller of the CDS to the hedge fund would need to in turn sell the targets stock or bonds short in order to hedge their position, creating uncertainty and widening of CDS spreads, increasing the borrowing cost of the target and increase likelihood of default. Nasty game, but this is why the weakest investment bank was in big trouble. Pack always picks on the weakest!

The next chapter in the falling dominos occurred in March 2008, it was a Friday and the CDS spread for Bear Sterns widened to 14%, unprecedented wide levels, Bear was suddenly cut off from the credit markets, unable to replace short term funding. It would need to sell assets, but liquidity was not there. Over the weekend the Federal Reserve sponsored the acquisition of Bear Sterns by JP Morgan. One event in 2007 signaled the coming crisis. Two Bear Stern hedge funds required large capital injections by Bear after Merrill Lynch sold $825mn of the hedge funds CDOs assets held as collateral and raised only 100mm a measly 12 cents for each dollar.

In saving the system from a Bear Stern failure, shareholders were paid $10 per share, something at least greater than zero, bondholders saw their securities jump to 100% as their borrower was replaced by the mighty J P Morgan. JP Morgan received a guarantee on Bear Stern Assets from the Federal Reserve, putting the US taxpayer at risk with little likelihood of a return. The only loser here seemed to be the taxpayer! JP Morgan completed the acquisition on 30th of May 2008.

The next domino in the crisis was principal itself. The moral hazard implied by saving Bear Sterns. Largely occurring within the republican administration and its supporters. Capitalism was best served by allowing the natural process to take it course and government should not get involved in selecting winners or losers. This argument directly led to the central incident of the crisis that was yet to occur and that ensured the crisis would be global, deep, scary and put the world Financial System at risk. Over the last 20 years the capital markets have grown more complex and the inter-dependence of all the large players has grown to a level not fully understood. Trillions of dollars of OTC (over-the-counter) derivatives have been written between all players. One large player disappearing overnight would leave a huge level of uncertainty in the market. Would it bring the whole system down? No one knew.

I was woken on Sunday, the 15th of September by a friend who thought I should know that Lehman Brothers was filing chapter 11 and Bank of America was buying Merrill Lynch at $29.00 a share. I was incredulous this was impossible they could not possibly let Lehman file! surely they knew what they were doing, how many trillions of derivative contracts did Lehman hold? This would be an almighty mess. If they wanted to make an example Washington Mutual would have been better simpler choice, but of course they are politicians and Washington Mutual would affect the man on the street at least superficially whereas Lehman was those bad guys from Wall Street. Clearly the CEO of Merrill Lynch was the only one who knew what he was doing, if Lehman disappeared he was next, by arranging a buyout all this would be avoided.

This one action to let Lehman fail which in hindsight after the moral hazard debate that had preceded was inevitable, on top of everything that had come before, completely sent the financial markets into a tailspin. Only weeks before Lehman had announced a quarterly profit and net assets of $26bn and now the bonds were trading 10¢. What had happened? Where had $150bn dollars gone? How was this possible? From this point on a credit markets froze! No institution could trust any other institution; nothing was what it seemed no balance sheet could be relied upon. Just the speed Lehman had vanished was enough to spook everyone.

The dominos continued to fall. The first impact of Lehman’s bankruptcy was seen went markets opened on Monday 16th September. On Friday the 13th two days before Lehman filed for bankruptcy the credit rating agencies downgraded AIGs debt. AIG being the 18th largest corporation in the world and its largest insurance company saw credit default swaps as a natural extension of the insurance business, it was simply the process of insuring a bond in case of default and how many default had there been? Not many. From the start of this crisis credit spreads had began to widen and AIG began to take paper losses on their large portfolio of Credit Default Swaps (CDS), unfortunately all spread were widen! That was not meant to happen, all companies were not to be in trouble at the same time. But the rating downgrade from triple A triggered an event that was also not meant to happen. AIG would need to post Collateral to the owners of these CDS contracts based on their current market value in case AIG was no longer triple A. on Friday AIG disclosed to the market that it would need $40bn cash to post as collateral. This was a liquidity crisis and not a statement that AIG was in financial trouble. When the market opened on Monday following Lehman’s demise AIGs collateral requirement had grown to $85 billion. Basically credit spreads had more than doubled as a result the Lehman bankruptcy. At this point AIG had no alternative but to declare bankruptcy if Federal government would not provide a loan. Who else was going to come up with $85bn! The terms extracted by the Treasury once again looked like confiscation and put a shocked market into more shock.

[Lehman Brothers, a classic investment bank, had 700 billion of assets funded by 21 billion of capital (or 33:11), 125 billion in bonds and 550 billion of traditional market finance. Washington Mutual the largest credit union in the United States had 310 billion in assets. AIG had assets of over one trillion dollars and shareholders equity of $104bn2.]

The world didn't have long to wait for the next chapter. This was a straight run on the bank, after months of speculation a collapsing share price and rumors, depositors began to withdraw funds has increased pace from Washington Mutual. On the 25th of September 2008 after losing $16 billion in deposits in the week following the Lehman bankruptcy, the FDIC seized WaMu and assets, depositors and branches handed over to JP Morgan for less than $2bn. Leaving investors and bondholders of WaMu with nothing. But the politicians were gratified that no depositor was hurt and the FDIC paid out no funds in the process. This time the tax payer and JP Morgan won. But this just insured the dominos would continue to fall. Only in April 2008 WaMu had raised $7bn of new capital and was not a sub-prime lender.

Washington Mutual may have passed into history with no further incident had not JP Morgan not fully disclosed the valuation it attributed to the assets it had purchased from Washington Mutual. Washington Mutual held in large portfolio of option ARM mortgages, which J P Morgan discounted by 23%. Enter our next victim, Wachovia was known to hold a portfolio of over 120 billion of option ARM mortgages and would need to write off 28 billion to conform to the JP Morgan pricing. Wachovia CDS exploded to over 14%. I received a phone call from my stepfather asking me if he should withdrawal his funds from Wachovia, the stealth run had begun, $15bn being withdrawn in the first week. Wachovia needed help and fast and was eventually purchased by Wells Fargo.

Who was next? Basically the system was broken. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Royal Bank of Scotland, Nat City, SunTrust you name it they were all in trouble. When General Electric was unable to raise short-term funds and their CDS widened to 4% everybody was in trouble, not just banks. The crisis now introduced the equity market as the next domino. Share prices of financial companies had fallen throughout the crisis but now everyone was affected and the whole stock market began to unravel.

International banks began to fail; international stock markets began to unravel.

Paulson, US Treasury secretary introduced his “troubled asset relief program” or TARP on the 19th September 2008. On Monday September 29th the House of Representatives votes to not pass the measure, starting a major crash in the stock market. Congress re-thinks and passes the bill on a second attempt on Friday 3rd October only to look out dated over the week-end when the UK government announces that they planned to invest $85bn directly into their banks.

The TARP gave the US Treasury authority to buy up to $700bn in distressed assets from financial institutions at some price fixed by auction between the distress levels and some value based on fair likely return on expected cash flows. Basically this was seen as a bailout of the bad actors at a cost to taxpayers but something had to be done. And this was the only proposal on the table until the UK acted. It is three weeks since the TARP was passed into law and still no auction has occurred. The TARP will end up being unworkable has the same author that allowed Lehman to fail.

The UK government less restricted by political dogma went to the heart of the issue of shoring up bank balance sheets without having to work out a valuation for the distressed assets. The UK extracted their pound of flesh without the look of confiscation. Some management had to step down, salaries would be restricted, dividends would be restricted, and returns on preferred would be a high 12% but shareholders would not be thrown out completely.

The US morphed the TARP into authority to invest directly into 9 banks, but instead of extracting a pound of flesh they offered a deal that was to good to refuse. So much for not selecting winners! The stock market begins crashing anew leading to a run on Hedge Funds as money was pulled out leading to more selling.

Now the scene switches to Congress to find blame and what we need to put in place for the future.

But this is not yet over. All assets have depreciated, equities from 14000 to 8000 a 42% fall, Oil from 145 to 65 a 55% fall, gold from 950 to 700 a 26% fall, the only safe harbor in this storm has been $ and Yen government bonds.

The Hedge Fund industry is in trouble, the industry that emerges from this crisis will be very different to the one that entered it. There has been almost no barrier to entry, no regulation and high profit margins. All of this will change for those that survive.

We are seeing “super” banks emerge, one stop shops with credit cards, deposits, mortgages, business loans, investment banks, equity brokers all under one roof. This looks very like pre Glass-Steagall, which created the FDIC and prohibited a bank holding company from owning other financial companies. This ban was repealed on November 12, 1999. Is this in the best interest of our nation? How will these giants be regulated? How do we insure the FDIC is not liable to investment banking losses?

The economy is the next domino, negative growth, just how negative? How many cars are going to me made and sold in the USA in the next 12 months? How many people are going to lose their jobs? I think we will be very lucky if unemployment stabilizes below 9%.

To summarize or conclude on what went wrong. In a low regulation world great faith is placed in management of banks own self interest being aligned with the public good. This failed.

The rating agencies, monoline insurance companies and mortgage GSEs must be regulated and not allowed to expand their businesses for profit.

Internal Risk management groups must be independent of management.

OTC derivatives need to be centrally cleared.

CDS should regulated. In the Lehman example $400bn of CDS where settled against 125bn of Lehman’s bonds outstanding. Basically Lehman should never been allowed to fail.

Back to my own experience. I left J P Morgan in 1997 with a business plan to create an electronic platform to allow banks to trade OTC derivatives and therefore replacing the existing secretive opaque system. As a small start up we experienced many challenges namely technology, funding, regulation and market acceptance. We solved the technology and funding and after 2 years of hard work in Washington and legal uncertainty and testifying six times in Congress the regulation issue was solved – the market would stay unregulated, the platform would not be regulated by the CFTC provided we did not clear trades and access was kept to professionals. Through out the regulation uncertainty the large Wall Street banks were very helpful to us, the banks had a huge self interest to ensure the market remained un-regulated.

Finally we had a working technology, funding and certainty on the US regulation situation, we were now ready to launch the platform. Boom! We hit a brick wall that same self interest which had prompted the major banks to help us through the regulation maze re-appear to thwart us. The market was so profitable they wanted it to stay opaque. 10 banks ganged up, threw $100mm into the hat and told the marketplace not to use our platform as they would create a cheaper better platform. We struggled to get anyone interested, we were locked out (can I say anti-trust or coercion?). It is ten years later and there still is no electronic platform operating in the derivatives world.

{Here are the milestones:
The subprime mortgage market grows to include no docs 100% mortgages. The hottest housing markets see price declines and the start of foreclosures. The CDO market for secondary mortgages begins to unravel. UBS, Citibank and Merrill Lynch announced vast loss provisions. SIV vehicles put Commercial Paper market at risk. The monoline insurance companies begin to collapse. Baer sterns collapses and is rescued by the fed and JP Morgan. Outcry on “moral hazard”. Treasury seizes Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Lehman collapses and is allowed to go into bankruptcy. Credit spreads explode wider. Treasury seizes AIG. FDIC seizes Washington Mutual and awards assets, branches and deposits to JP Morgan. After stealth run on deposits Wachovia is forced into the hands of Citibank (Later acquired by Wells Fargo). No institution can trust any other organization, Inter-bank activity ceases. Congress eventually passes the TARP bill (allowing Treasury to purchase mortgage assets from banks). The British government rescues three British Banks by injecting capital therefore becoming shareholders. The stock market crashes. The U.S. Treasury follows the UK lead by taking direct stakes in nine banks.}

Notes:

1. Lehman 2007 annual report
2. AIG 2007 annual report

Transverse Myelitis

2008-08-20T11:25:00.002-04:00

Oh my gosh have things changed for me in a flash. Monday morning back in April I got to my desk as normal at 7am after dropping Richard off at school (they do start school early here!). Preparing for the day at my desk, I started to feel as if I about to vomit. I decided to go home, thinking it was food poisoning. The next day I felt no better and again on Wednesday, now it was time to go see a doctor, the doctor told me there was nothing to worry about and gave me a shot to stop the vomiting. Nothing had changed by Friday and I asked Suzanne to take be back to the doctor. Again he said nothing to worry about and gave me a second stronger shot and couple of pints of plasma as I was very dehydrated by this time. I came home and after a few hours felt even worse. I was so surprised at how much one can throw up having not drunk or eaten for 5 days. This time I asked to be taken to the hospital. At this stage the only thing wrong was I could not drink or eat and I would vomit every hour or so! At 2 am on Saturday morning they finally admitted me to hospital.
In hospital they ran the gambit of tests, and told Suzanne I would be released by Wednesday, there was nothing to worry about. I still could not eat or drink, but I was getting weak. I was also put on intravenous feeding - some turkey soup looking stuff in a bag and strong looking milk which the fed me through my veins. It was the Wednesday that I attempted to sit up that I discovered I could not move at all, I was paralyzed. At this point they moved me to intensive care and ran a bunch more tests. At this point our local hospital, not having the correct specialists decided to move me to the main hospital in Charlotte (we actually live 11 miles south in a suburb of Matthews).
In the main hospital I was seen by every specialist under the sun and was eventually diagnosed with Transverse Myelitis (TM ), after 2 MRIs and a number of CAT scans. TM is a rare syndrome which effects approx 1400 people a year in the US and is characterized by inflammation of the spinal cord. It results in the loss of motor, sensory, bladder/bowel functions. For me it hit very hard, I lost all movement below the T4 (forth vertebrae below the neck), so I lost my stomach muscles and all movement in my legs, I was unable to even sit up, lost all feeling below the breast and lost bowel and bladder function. My arms are good and very helpful, but by the time I tried to used them they were very weak, and fairly useless.
Research at John Hopkins concludes that 1/3 of patients have a full recovery, 1/3 partial and a 1/3 with little to none. There is no known cure and as my doctor said to me “we will know how well you are doing by how well you are doing”. Mind you in hospital no one would tell us any of this, we were totally in the dark.
Suzanne had to go to great lengths to look after the kids, keep my office going, work and visit me everyday. As I recovered I could see how much the worry was wearing her down. Eventually I was able to return to solids and after a 4 week treatment of very strong steroids was able to eat solids again.
Hospital was generally very unpleasant and I was delighted when I was finally informed that I would be transferred to a rehab hospital, one of the best on the east coast. The hospital had a 144 bed for Spinal cord and brain injury rehab center. So after 5 weeks I was placed in a new bigger brighter room and under nurses and doctors who seemed to care. It was like sunlight in the morning.
At rehab they worked me hard. Each new exercise or step seemed impossible, from first getting into or out of a wheel chair to getting my socks on. 5 hours each day, gradually I got stronger and learnt how to dress myself. On the last morning I had to pass a test and dress and wash myself with no help. I did it, but it took 90 minutes. After 4 weeks in the rehab hospital I began to emotionally to break down, there was nothing more to it, I had to get out, I was sure I was going to die it was so bad. On the 12th of June they released me to go home.
Going home was full of anxiety, I would not have any nurses to look after me, I would not have the air bed with nice handles to help me sit up, I would not have help with my bowel program or nurse to help move me at night.
Our home is so ill suited for a para! We have 6 bedroom and 4 bath rooms, none of which I can reach to! They are either upstairs or down below. Suzanne converted my study into a bedroom and the boys had to carry me into the house in the wheelchair up the 5 steps from the street.
Once Suzanne finally got me into my own bed that Thursday (12 June) my left leg MOVED! Small but a real movement. I really wanted a bottle of champagne!
The prognosis from John Hopkins say the biggest improvement, if it is going to happen will occur in month 3 through 6. It is 4 months, and two months since leaving hospital since I was struck with this and the last month has been one of continual improvement. We have just returned from 3 weeks at the beach. I made such great head way my therapists could hardly believe it when I returned to therapy. I only had a short day 12- 5, principally staying in bed, but I managed to swim for least an hour each day and in the pool I was able to build on the movements in my stomach and legs. The improvement was so good that my therapists tried me in a walker. I was able to stand, my arms doing most of the work, BUT.. I see where this is going.
The sensory aspects have caused me the most problems recently. I still have not feeling but I have a numbness all over which is my brain interpreting messages as pain. It is difficult to get comfortable in any position and I can’t stay in the same place long. Bed is the best place! If I could get over the nerve pain I would be fine, I can do everything from my wheelchair now.

Resolving the lack of mentors at law firms

2008-02-22T11:09:00.002-05:00

by Zebroid (c) 2008

Associates at leading law firms often ask the ever so important question, “How do I find a mentor?!” A plea for advice.

"I am getting good experience but I get NO mentoring. I get given work I have no experience doing. With a little mentoring I would be able to do it better. No one reviews my work it goes directly to the client. I am very stressed"

Although there are several different approaches to solving this problem, I’ve collected a few ideas of ways to deal with the issue.

Answer 1
Find who at your firm is in charge of ‘Professional development’. Arrange a meeting, if they are in a different office, arrange a time to speak on the phone. If this does not work Go speak to the practice chair/leader.

Open with:

“I really want to grow and learn. I want to be as effective and productive as I can be”

Remember it is all about “them” what you can do for “them”, never about you and how frustrated you are.

Prepare some examples of where a mentor would have made you more effective and reduced the institutional risk.

Identify individuals that would be good mentors prior, as you maybe asked

Then sit back and “listen”.

Answer 2
I think that despite the popularity of the topic, real mentorships are just tough to come by. Select carefully, but identify an individual within your business that is accessible to you and who has demonstrated success in their career. Observe their personal style for a while and ask yourself if this is a style you would like to emulate. Finally, approach the individual and explain that you are seeking guidance from some kind of informal mentorship and are interested in exploring with them how you might take advantage of their experience and knowledge from time to time. Ask them if they have an experience with mentoring and how such a relationship might or might not work for them.

Answer 3
I’m not sure there is a universally acceptable solution to this. So many factors come into play.
1. Experienced lawyers become frustrated by spending time to teach new lawyers, where the probability of those new lawyers moving on to other jobs is high.
2. Few firms actually set their rewards systems to encourage any conduct not seen as a direct revenue generator.
3. Time and billing pressures on lawyers make any serious teaching effort seem counterproductive, particularly given point numbers 1 & 2.
4. The level of attention that a new lawyer might desire as “mentoring” can sometimes be seen by an experienced lawyer as a demand for needless hand-holding or coddling. The best route that I’ve found so far is to encourage experienced lawyers to pick out one newer person to work with and “mentor.” Letting the experienced lawyer select the person seems to reduce the effects of point 4. Having the new person directly assist the experienced lawyer on a consistent basis, seems to reduce point 3.

So you think a recruiter can find you a job?

2008-02-14T08:54:00.001-05:00

By Zebriod (c) 2008
(planning to find a new job)

If it has not happened to you yet, it happens more and more often, the work disappears and you need to find a new job. When this happens the first thing you need is a plan, a plan to land a new job. It is always easier to land a new job when you have a job, but you don’t have the time and that is not the situation I intend to cover here.

The plan needs to be more than finding a recruiter and sitting back. You need to be in control of your search, a recruiter can only help if they have the right client.

Step 1. Ground work
Get you paperwork in order:
1a. Review your resume (See my article on writing your resume)
1b. Review all your accomplishments – write them up, no one is going to hire you because you need a job, they will only hire you if you bring something they need (See my article on accomplishments)
1c. Make a personal marketing statement (see creating your elevator pitch)
1d. Get copies of transcripts – many companies require these if you have post grad education.
1e. Prepare your references – this is very important, networking can land you the job you need. Call everyone you know and ask them if they would be willing to provide you a professional reference if needed – don’t be proud.

Step 2. How to stay in control
Make sure all recruiters have your permission directly from you prior to submitting your resume to any employer. Recruiters have a natural incentive to send your resume to as many companies as possible, just in case you get hired. Normally they can claim a fee if you go to work for any of these within a year of submitting your resume.

Create a spreadsheet of possible companies. Use the internet to research companies in your location or in your sector

Number Co Name Website Co Contact Recruiter Date sent Notes--->

Only self submit through the website as a last resort. Try to place a call into the company, use you marketing pitch and attempt to get someone in the company to get you in. If you submit through the website will be joining hundreds of “chef s and chauffeurs” and as a result your resume will first be read by a machine, so make sure you have as many “key words” as possible.

Step 3. Network

Most mid career job changes are a result of “networking” not recruiters, it is expensive for companies to find quality staff and as a result networking has a distinct advantage over using a recruiter. It maybe difficult to call previous colleagues and admit that you are searching for a new job, but it has to be done. Call them all, make sure you are prepared to market yourself even when you think they know you. Use an indirect approach “Do you know anyone that is hiring”, “Do you have anyone over at xyz company that I can call?”.

This is difficult, but do it. Finding the next job is a full time job.

Step 4. Be prepared

The first step is to get an interview, but an interview is not the end, just the end of the beginning. Be prepared to interview well.

Try to be nice and well mannered at all times.

What Makes For a Good Resume?

2008-02-05T09:11:00.000-05:00

by Zebriod (c) 2007

1. Don't use tables; I scream every time I see an overly complicated tabled resume! Resume are distributed via email and rarely printed any more. The resume must look good on a screen, tables make it too busy, work at a simple clean look.

2. The purpose of a resume is to get you the interview! Actual the object is just to get them interested enough to “read” it.

A resume is not the best historical document of your life! No one reads, so why do you expect anyone to read your resume? The best you can hope for is someone to scan it; you better make every word count.

3. Avoid long paragraphs. Let’s call it the three line rule. If you have to use more than three lines to describe any role you should go back to the drawing board. Re-read it asking “who would be interested”

Example: (taken from an actual resume, you don't have to read it! - it makes the point)

Primary responsibility for advising OTC and Listed Equity Trading Desks, Equity Sales, International Trading, Equity Option Trading, and securities exchange floor trading operations, with coverage responsibilities for Transaction Services, Research, and Retail Equity. Developed legal structure for 10b5-1 trading program, and negotiated transactions thereunder; also negotiated prime brokerage, service, and various other agreements. Development and implementation of firm-wide policies and communications in connection with extended-hours trading, decimalization, best execution, payment for order flow, electronic trading, etc., as well as preparation and implementation of supervisory procedures for desk and floor operations. Antitrust attorney in charge of supervising Compliance officers engaged in Department of Justice stipulated taping. Provided transactional and trading support to equity and fixed income businesses in London office, both from New York and in London.

Did you get any of that? I did not follow it at all, how about the following re-write?

· Advising OTC, Listed and Option Equity Sales and Trading Desks, and exchange floor trading operations of all legal matters.
· Establishing 10b5-1 trading program and prime brokerage services.
· Communicating firm-wide policies in connection with extended-hours trading, decimalization, best execution electronic trading, and payment for order flow.

4. Make every word count. It is a good goal to get your resume on to one page, (and that is the case when you have had a 25 year career or are only just starting out.) Allocate more space to the most relevant and more recent stuff; don't be put off by creating a specially tailored version of your resume for each job opportunity.

A resume has three main components: (Features; Education; Accomplishments)

(i) Features - these are dates, companies and titles;
JP Morgan Chase, Dec 2002 - Present Vice President, Global Trading Foreign Exchange
(ii) Education - This can be placed at the start or at the end depending on how stellar it is. If you have a P.hD why not highlight it.
(iii) Accomplishment at each position; Avoid long paragraphs, attempt to use action words to describe your accomplishments using bullets, it is all about what you can do for the next company!
4. Don't Clog it up. I hate the poor pitch a lot of people add under "Objectives" or "Skill" and clog up the resume - don't do it.... Do you think anyone believes you when the resume says "good communicator" "good team player" etc... this is just hot air. If you feel the urge to do this spend the time drafing a good cover letter.

Example:

First Surname
1500 May Blvd. Arlington VA 22201 ♦ (900) 367-8614 ♦ email@law.uni.edu

Education
University School of Law, Atlanta, GA
Juris Doctor Degree, May 2002. Highest Grade in Dispute Resolution
Moot Court, Intellectual Property. Emory Award Scholarship
London School of Economics, London, England
Masters in Economics, June 1999
Graduated With Distinction. London Friends Scholarship
Amherst,
Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science and Economics, May 1998
Graduated Summa Cum Laude. Margaret C. Peabody Fellowship. W. C. Rockefeller Grant

Bar Memberships
Admitted to the New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C. Bar Associations, eligible to waive into Massachusetts
________
Experience
Law firn, L.L.P., Washington D.C. August 2003 - Present
Associate
· Research and writing in government procurement, international contracts, corporate structuring, export and intellectual property law
· Litigated before the Government Accountability Office and Court of Federal Claims regarding organizational conflicts of interest and corporate compliance issues
· Reviewed contracts for joint venture between two film studios and litigated against claims of dilution and misappropriation of commercial likeness
· Drafted negotiated license rights for software package to be sold to the Department of Defense
· Negotiated assignment of rights of multi-media software from Swedish based entertainment company to major U.S. entertainment consulting group
· Advised international clients on Buy American Act, Trade Agreement Act, Berry Amendment
· Litigated claims of trademark infringement and deceptive trade practice for website based company regarding video streaming of news and entertainment clips
· Defended music company product line and packaging from trade dress infringement claims

US Corporate Inc., New York, NY and Newark, NJ January 2003 – August 2003
Assistant General Counsel
· Worked exclusively with client regarding licensing, trademark/domain litigation
· Drafted shareholder agreements, employment / consulting contracts, non-disclosure agreements, licensing and sub-licensing contracts for data rights, manuals and software tutorials
· Filed company trademark and assisted with patent provisionals
· Drafted proposals for STTR, SBIR and DARPA regarding portable medical devices funding

Law firm, P.C., New York, NY and West Orange, NJ May 2002 – January 2003
Associate
· Drafted performance and payment bond documents for surety entities
· Litigated state and city contractual claims on behalf of construction companies working in NY

Publications: Contributor, ……………………..

Language Skills: Spanish; German (conversational); learning Russian

ABC of good interviewing

2008-02-05T08:45:00.000-05:00

ABC’s of Good Interviewing.

The purpose of a resume is to get the interview; the purpose of the interview is to receive any offer.

A. Your perspective.
An interview should be hard work and you must be prepared. However let’s understand first what you are trying to accomplish. When you have completed the interview you should be able to answer the following three questions:
Do you understand the opportunity
Can you do the job, and
Do you want the job?
We can flip these and easy understand what the interviewer is trying to accomplish!

B. The basics.
Never forget the basics. That is know where you have to be, be there 15 minutes early, be well presented, that is have clean shoes, be well prepared, know all you can about the interviewers and company. And above all be respectful. Wear a suit even if the company has a casual dress code.

People hire people they like, people like people with energy. So have good posture, eye contact, listening skills! and use words such as contribute, enhance, and improve in your responses.

C. Be prepared for the Ice-breakers.
Over 80% of interviews start off with an icebreaker like “tell me about yourself”. These are dangerous and you need to be on guard. Interviews are rarely interested in you to the extent that they are will to sit a listen to where you grew up and irrelevant stories – so we have to keep it relevant at all times. So how do you answer it? You need to do some homework.

Prepare your own marketing statement the night before. Everyone needs this at all times, it is sometimes referred to as your elevator speech or pitch. Imagine you get caught in the elevator with the boss between floors; you would not want to miss the opportunity…

This is what it looks like, prepare a 3 part statement:
Part 1 – One sentence summary of career to date.
Part 2 – Accomplishment you are proud of that will capture the employer’s attention.
Part 3 – One sentence summary of what you want to do next in your career.

Example “I’ve had 16 years of experience in the industry while serving as a {job title} with company ABC for the last five years. While at ABC, I led the successful {accomplishment} which resulted in us achieving {bottom line impact…saving money, saving time, awards/recognition}. For my next career move, I desire to move to a company with more prestige where I can continue to add value for the long term.”

Tips. We always need to do our homework and this statement is a good demonstration. Part 1 needs to be relevant and most people have to work at making this short, easy to ramble on here – the interviewer is not interested.

Part 2 is very telling, prepare as many accomplishments from your career as possible, select the best for your marketing statement and use the remainder through out the interview to answer other question. For example if you get a skill question “what do you know about ..?” You can have a specific accomplishment that highlights your knowledge.

Part 3 allows you to answer “why am I here and why you should hire me?” right up front. Don’t miss the chance.

**An Extra Tip: If given the opportunity to ask a question at the very beginning of the interview – Ask, “What exactly are you looking for in a (title of position)?” Listen Carefully! You should target the rest of your interview answers so that they cover what the hiring manager’s response was to that question.

D. How to answer behavioral questions.

You are going to get many questions in interviews that are skill, knowledge or behavioral based. For example, what’s the most difficult situation you ever faced on a job?

Answer questions with examples, so you will be glad you did your homework. Remember rule 1 – it is all about them, how do you joining them benefit them? How do your previous accomplishments and experiences benefit them?
One way you want to think of this answer using the SOAR or STAR principles.

Situation Situation
Obstacle Task
Action Action
Result Result

“I was in this situation, I was given this task, I took the following actions and result was…”

See how all the accomplishments you prepared for your marketing statement will be very useful?

Each discipline will have their own skill requirement so be prepared, we can’t cover that here but all employers are looking for the same three things:

Skills, Experience and Stability

But be prepared to highlight the “intangible” using accomplishments. Saying you are a “good team player, good communicator, hard worker, cultural fit, internally motivated” with no context is hollow.
E. Be ready to ask good questions.

When finally the interviewer will ask “have you any questions for me?” The wrong answer is “No”. Interviewers like to talk about themselves and they get as much out of you questions as the answer to their questions.

Prepare questions in these 3 categories:
Questions about the job / opportunity
Questions about the company, however never ask something that is publicly available.
Questions about the interviewer, how about testing them with “tell me about yourself”

Sample Questions:
-What would you expect me to achieve in the first 6 months?
-Is there anything I can tell you about my qualifications that I haven’t said yet?
-What are the principal challenges I would face in this job?

Marketing Statement

2008-01-31T13:26:00.001-05:00

By Zebriod (c) 2008

We all need one, or two. We have all heard of the elevator speech, where you are caught the elevator between floors with the boss, you have 11 seconds of his time, you need to get your message across – clearly and fast. Likewise if an interviewer starts with an icebreaker question like “tell me about yourself’, you don’t want to miss the opportunity to put yourself in the best possible light.

Be sure you don’t ramble on about irrelevancies or get off topic! Instead, make your answer into a 3 part pre-planned marketing statement.

Part 1 – One short sentence as summary of career history to date.

Part 2 – A stand out accomplishment you are proud of that will capture the employer’s attention.

Part 3 – One sentence summary of what you want to do next in your career. This is a forward looking statement, positive (never bash a previous situation) and clearly answers the question why are you here now?

“I’ve had 16 years of experience in the industry while serving as a {job title} with company ABC for the last five years. While at ABC, I led the successful {accomplishment} which resulted in us achieving {bottom line impact…saving money, saving time, awards/recognition}. For my next career move, I desire to move to a company with more prestige where I can continue to add value for the long term.”

**An Extra Tip:If given the opportunity to ask a question at the very beginning of the interview – Ask, “What exactly are you looking for in a (title of position)?” Listen Carefully! You should target the rest of your interview answers so that they cover what the hiring manager’s response was to that question.

So you think a recruiter can find you a job?

2008-01-31T13:10:00.000-05:00

(planning to find a new job)
Zebriod (c) 2008

If it has not happened to you yet, it happens more and more often, the work disappears and you need to find a new job. When this happens the first thing you need is a plan, a plan to land a new job. It is always easier to land a new job when you have a job, but you don’t have the time and that is not the situation I intend to cover here.

Any the plan needs to be more than finding a recruiter and sitting back. You need to be in control, not the recruiter.

Step 1. Ground work
Get you paperwork in order:
1a. Review your resume (See my article on writing your resume)
1b. Review all your accomplishments – write them up, no one is going to hire you because you need a job, they will only hire you if you bring something they need (See my article on accomplishments)
1c. Make a personal marketing statement (see creating your elevator pitch)
1d. Get copies of transcripts – many companies require these if you have post grad education.
1e. Prepare your references – this is very important, networking can land you the job you need. Call everyone you know and ask them if they would be willing to provide you a professional reference if needed – don’t be proud.

Step 2. How to stay in control
Make sure all recruiter have your permission directly from you prior to submitting your resume to any employer. Recruiters have a natural incentive to send your resume to as many companies as possible, just in case you get hired. Normally they can claim a fee if you go to work for any of these within a year of submitting your resume.

Create a spreadsheet of possible companies. Use the internet to research companies in your location or in your sector

Number Co Name Website Co Contact Recruiter Date sent Notes--->

Only self submit through the website as a last resort. Try to place a call into the company, use you marketing pitch and attempt to get someone in the company to get you in. If you submit through the website will be joining hundred of “chef and chauffeurs” and as a result your resume will first be read by a machine, so make sure you have as many “key words” as possible.

Step 3. Network

Most mid career job changes are a result of “networking” not recruiters, it is expensive for companies to find quality staff and as a result networking has a distinct advantage over using a recruiter. It maybe difficult to call previous colleagues and admit that you are searching for a new job, but it has to be done. Call them all, make sure you are prepared to market yourself even when you think they know you. Use an indirect approach “Do you know anyone that is hiring”, “Do you have anyone over at xyz company that I can call?”.

This is difficult but do it.

Step 4. Be prepared

The first step is to get an interview, but an interview is not the end, just the end of the beginning. Be prepared to interview well.
Try to be nice and well mannered at all t

Behavior Questions

2008-01-31T13:09:00.001-05:00

By Zebriod (c) 2008

I’m not one for listening to party debates, but last night I listened to the Republican debate at the Regan Library. Largely to see how they answered questions, did they have any tips for successful interviewing?

My top observation was the ability of Ron Paul to listen and not get frustrated, just marvelous.

The debate centered on Romney and McCain. As an independent, that is not going to vote for any of these guys, with little or no baggage toward these guys, Romney was the winner on this day by a wide margin when judging the quality of his debating skills. Why? He used examples of “his” past to predict his performance in the future, verifiable accomplishments as examples of why the country should hire him.

When asked if the country was better off today than eight years ago. when the current President started, he clearly pointed out that was not a question he should answer. He had nothing to do with this performance, but instead reviewed his role as governor of Massachusetts, the Salt Lake games, his business career and how he left each better than he found them. McCain on the other hand focused on general, unsupported statements like “I will be the …” “I am the most qualified…”. One approach left me impressed the other unconvinced.

My take away was the importance of being a good listener and using accomplishments to answer questions about future performance.

Introducing the STAR or SOAR principle: STAR stands for (S)ituation, (T)ask, (A)ction and (R)esult, and would be used as follows. I was in this situation, I was given these tasks, I took these actions and the result was. So, going back to Romney, he said when he became Governor we had a 3 billion dollar budget shortfall, not wanting to raise taxes, he found many areas where Massachusetts had not raised fees for 20 years, such as food signs on interstates. In this way, he closed the budget gap by running government more sensibly, like a business.

(For SOAR the (O) is for obstacle)

Use this concept to answer any behavior questions, for example of which are ‘how would you react to…’, ‘give a situation how would you act/react…’

In order to be well prepared, you must sit down and create a list of accomplishments. Write these up, add to them, reword them and practice them. From this list you can now go many places. First , create your own personal marketing statement, a Features And Benefits worksheet and answer behavioral questions.

Accomplishments need to answer the following question “what did you achieve that helped MAKE MONEY, SAVE MONEY, or CHANGE A PROCESS to impact the BOTTOM LINE?”

Don’t forget employers are only looking for “Skills, Experience and stability”

Questions to Ask Your Interviewer

2007-12-31T10:06:00.001-05:00

By Zebriod (c) 2007

Always go to any interview with prepared questions to ask. Always ask questions; the quality of your questions is as important as how you answer questions!

-What do you consider ideal background and experience for this position? If you get an opportunity early ask this question, it sets you up to correctly answer all following questions.

Prepare questions in these 3 categories:

Questions about the job / opportunity
Questions about the company
Questions about the interviewer

Sample Questions:
-What would you expect me to achieve in the first 6 months?
-Is there anything I can tell you about my qualifications that I haven’t said yet?
-What are the principal challenges I would face in this job?
-What results would you like me to produce?
-Based on what I’ve told you, don’t you think I could deliver all you need in this position? (Closing Question)
-What goals do you have for the territory in the next 12 months? What do you think it will take to get the territory to those numbers?
- Is this a new/existing/revised job? If it's new/revised, why was it created?
-What are the principal challenges facing your staff right now?
- Where does this position fit within the company's structure?
-Can you give me more detail about the position's responsibilities?
- With whom does a person in this position interact?
- Is there an opportunity for growth and advancement? If so, what other career opportunities might be open to me here?

-What future plans does the company have?
-What are the challenges the company is facing?
-What's the culture like? What are the values?
-How would you describe the atmosphere of this department?

-How long have you been with the company?
- What has your career path been?
-Are there any concerns you have about me filling the position? (Closing Question)
-Can I count on your recommendation for the next step? (Closing Question)
-For initial interviews: Where do we go from here? Can we set that up right now? (Closing Question)
-For final interviews: Where do we go from here? When can I start? (Closing Question)

What Makes For a Good Resume?

2007-12-31T09:31:00.001-05:00

by Zebriod (c) December 2007

1. Don't use tables; I scream every time I see an overly complicated tabled resume! Resume are distributed via email and we rarely see a printed resume any more. The resume must look good on a screen first. Secondly tables over complicate the resume and make it too busy.
2. The purpose of a resume is to get you the interview! Not to be the best historical document of your life! No one reads any more, the best you can hope for is someone to scan read it; you better make every word count. Once you get in-front of the hiring manager we will worry about getting to the next step.
3. Make every word count. It is a good goal to get it on one page, (and that is the case when you have had a 25 year career or are only just starting out.) Allocate more space to the most relevant and more recent stuff; don't be put off by creating a specially tailored version of your resume for each job opportunity. A resume has three main components:
(i) Features - these are dates, companies and titles;
JP Morgan Chase, Dec 2002 - Present Vice President, Global Trading Foreign Exchange
(ii) Education - This can be placed at the start or at the end depending on how stellar it is. If you have a P.hD why not highlight it.
(iii) Accomplishment at each position; Avoid long paragraphs, attempt to use action words to describe your accomplishments using bullets, it is all about what you can do for the next company!
4. Don't Clog it up. I hate the poor pitch a lot of people add under "Objectives" or "Skill" and clog up the resume - don't do it.... Do you think anyone believes you when the resume says "good communicator" "good team player" etc... this is just hot air. If you feel the urge to do this spend the time drafing a good cover letter.

Example: (formatting is lost)

First Surname
1500 May Blvd. Arlington VA 22201 ♦ (900) 367-8614 ♦ email@law.uni.edu

Education
University School of Law, Atlanta, GA
Juris Doctor Degree, May 2002. Highest Grade in Dispute Resolution
Moot Court, Intellectual Property. Emory Award Scholarship
London School of Economics, London, England
Masters in Economics, June 1999
Graduated With Distinction. London Friends Scholarship
Amherst,
Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science and Economics, May 1998
Graduated Summa Cum Laude. Margaret C. Peabody Fellowship. W. C. Rockefeller Grant

Bar Memberships
Admitted to the New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C. Bar Associations, eligible to waive into Massachusetts
________
Experience
Law firn, L.L.P., Washington D.C. August 2003 - Present
Associate
· Research and writing in government procurement, international contracts, corporate structuring, export and intellectual property law
· Litigated before the Government Accountability Office and Court of Federal Claims regarding organizational conflicts of interest and corporate compliance issues
· Reviewed contracts for joint venture between two film studios and litigated against claims of dilution and misappropriation of commercial likeness
· Drafted negotiated license rights for software package to be sold to the Department of Defense
· Negotiated assignment of rights of multi-media software from Swedish based entertainment company to major U.S. entertainment consulting group
· Advised international clients on Buy American Act, Trade Agreement Act, Berry Amendment
· Litigated claims of trademark infringement and deceptive trade practice for website based company regarding video streaming of news and entertainment clips
· Defended music company product line and packaging from trade dress infringement claims

US Corporate Inc., New York, NY and Newark, NJ January 2003 – August 2003
Assistant General Counsel
· Worked exclusively with client regarding licensing, trademark/domain litigation
· Drafted shareholder agreements, employment / consulting contracts, non-disclosure agreements, licensing and sub-licensing contracts for data rights, manuals and software tutorials
· Filed company trademark and assisted with patent provisionals
· Drafted proposals for STTR, SBIR and DARPA regarding portable medical devices funding

Law firm, P.C., New York, NY and West Orange, NJ May 2002 – January 2003
Associate
· Drafted performance and payment bond documents for surety entities
· Litigated state and city contractual claims on behalf of construction companies working in NY

Publications: Contributor, ……………………..

Language Skills: Spanish; German (conversational); learning Russian

Preparing for that meeting with your Boss!

2007-12-28T11:56:00.001-05:00

By Zebriod (c) 2007

Imagine your Boss quits and you want his job!

So the big Boss has a few decisions to make, find an outside replacement, promote someone or do the job themselves. But you think you are the best candidate and you want the opportunity, so how best to go about it?

Well first don’t think you’ll get the job by sitting back and doing nothing! Also don’t think you’ll get it by demanding it. It is true the squeaky wheel gets the oil, but not normally in this situation, and if it works you have started off on the wrong foot.

Step 1: So ask for a meeting and prepare for the meeting.

Step 2: The preparation.
The chances are that the Boss will know a little about you but not enough to consider you as qualified or desirable. Therefore consider rule 1:

Rule 1: It is all about them not about you!
You have to set out how you can help them and why your skills, experiences and stability are right for the job. But how do you do this? It is easy to say “I’m a company man” or “I’m a team player” but will this be credible?

Rule 2:
Avoid statements, wrap skills and experiences in specific personnel accomplishments that demonstrate how and why you benefit them. This requires you to sit down and write up each of your accomplishments and extract the benefit the accomplishment demonstrates. It is hard work but it pays off every time.

Rule 3: Don’t forget Rule 1. No me me me….. it is all about them.

Step 3: The meeting. The chances he will need to know why you have asked for the meeting so he too can prepare, in which case you should tell him, carefully. Once in the meeting here are some things to remember:
- Display good listening skills with good eye contact, good posture and energy. Never over speak the boss.
- Use a question to answer a question. This helps avoid being too opinionated which can be dangerous. We don’t want to be a yes man, but we don’t want to make a mistake either.
- Remember rule 1! You should be exhausted after a meeting like this, lots of brain power is needed.

The nine rules of good interviewing:

2007-12-28T11:53:00.001-05:00

By Zebriod (c) 2007

Rule 1. It is all about them. How can you benefit them

Rule 1b. No Me Questions.

Rule 2. Do your homework. Blessed will be those that do their homework!

Rule 3. Listening is harder and more important.
We were given two ears and only one mouth.

Rule 4. Keep the length of your answers not to short not too long, just right. Don’t bore the interviewer!

Rule 5. Avoid general statements, use accomplishments to highlight benefits you bring.

Rule 6. Be positive at all times.

Rule 7. Always be prepared to ask questions.

Rule 8. Keep it relevant at all times.

Rule 9. Never forget Rule 1

ABC’s of good Interviewing.

2007-12-28T11:51:00.001-05:00

By Zebriod (c) 2007

A. Your perspective.
An interview is hard work and you must be prepared. However let’s understand what you are trying to accomplish. You want to answer the following three questions:
Do you understand the opportunity
Can you do the job, and
Do you want the job?
We can flip these and easy understand what the interviewer is trying to accomplish!

B. The basics.
Never forget the basics. That is know where you have to be, be there 15 minutes early, be prepared (know all you can about the interviewers and company), be smart, and have clean shoes. And above all be respectful.

People hire people they like, people like people with energy. So have good posture, eye contact, listening skills! and use words such as contribute, enhance, and improve in your responses.

C. Be prepared for the Ice-breakers.
Over 80% of interviews start off with an icebreaker like “tell me about yourself”. These are dangerous and you need to be on guard. Interviews are rarely interested in you to the extent that they are will to sit a listen to where you grew up and irrelevant stories – so we have to keep it relevant at all times. So how do you answer it? You need to do some homework.

Prepare your own marketing statement the night before. Everyone needs this at all times, it is sometimes referred to as your elevator speech or pitch. Imagine you get caught in the elevator with the boss between floors; you would not want to miss the opportunity…

This is what it looks like, prepare a 3 part statement:
Part 1 – One sentence summary of career to date.
Part 2 – Accomplishment you are proud of that will capture the employer’s attention.
Part 3 – One sentence summary of what you want to do next in your career.

Example “I’ve had 16 years of experience in the industry while serving as a {job title} with company ABC for the last five years. While at ABC, I led the successful {accomplishment} which resulted in us achieving {bottom line impact…saving money, saving time, awards/recognition}. For my next career move, I desire to move to a company with more prestige where I can continue to add value for the long term.”

Tips. We always need to do our homework and this statement is a good demonstration. Part 1 needs to be relevant and most people have to work at making this short, easy to ramble on here – the interviewer is not interested.

Part 2 is very telling, prepare as many accomplishments from your career as possible, select the best for your marketing statement and use the remainder through out the interview to answer other question. For example if you get a skill question “what do you know about ..?” You can have a specific accomplishment that highlights your knowledge.

Part 3 allows you to answer “why am I here and why you should hire me?” right up front. Don’t miss the chance.

**An Extra Tip: If given the opportunity to ask a question at the very beginning of the interview – Ask, “What exactly are you looking for in a (title of position)?” Listen Carefully! You should target the rest of your interview answers so that they cover what the hiring manager’s response was to that question.

D. How to answer behavioral questions.

You are going to get many questions in interviews that are skill, knowledge or behavioral based. For example, what’s the most difficult situation you ever faced on a job?

Answer questions with examples, so you will be glad you did your homework. Remember rule 1 – it is all about them, how do you joining them benefit them? How do your previous accomplishments and experiences benefit them?
One way you want to think of this answer using the SOAR or STAR principles.

Situation Situation
Obstacle Task
Action Action
Result Result

“I was in this situation, I was given this task, I took the following actions and result was…”

See how all the accomplishments you prepared for your marketing statement will be very useful?

Each discipline will have their own skill requirement so be prepared, we can’t cover that here but all employers are looking for the same three things:

Skills, Experience and Stability

But be prepared to highlight the “intangible” using accomplishments. Saying you are a “good team player, good communicator, hard worker, cultural fit, internally motivated” with no context is hollow.

E. Be ready to ask good questions.

When finally the interviewer will ask “have you any questions for me?” The wrong answer is “No”. Interviewers like to talk about themselves and they get as much out of you questions as the answer to their questions.

Prepare questions in these 3 categories:
Questions about the job / opportunity
Questions about the company, however never ask something that is publicly available.
Questions about the interviewer, how about testing them with “tell me about yourself”

Sample Questions:
-What would you expect me to achieve in the first 6 months?
-Is there anything I can tell you about my qualifications that I haven’t said yet?
-What are the principal challenges I would face in this job?

Should you be linked in?

2007-12-28T11:50:00.002-05:00

Should you be linked in? What is your online presence? You may need a New Year's resolution – get an online presence by joining a social network!

There are so many social networks now, which should tell us something; they are very popular, and popularity leads to the commoditization. So how do you choose where to spend your effort? And are they really worth it?

The goal is for us each to enhance and manage our online visibility not just connect to people. That said, one does need to exercise discrimination. I don’t know them all, but here is a partial list: Viadeo, Doostang, Facebook, Ecademy, Xing, Twitter, Linkedin, Orkut, JibberJobber, Myspace, Plaxo, Spoke…. (Underlined indicates ones I use)

[LinkedIn has over 16mm members, and most IT and Finance Professionals have already joined. Why are Lawyers’ slow adopters of these sites?]

Like many people I have never worked to develop and maintain my own network. If it was not for my wife I could barely send out 5 Christmas cards. She on the other hand has kept the same Christmas card book for the past 20 years, and from this she sends through snail mail several hundred cards each year. Each year she marks the book for each card sent and received. If she sends you a card three times without getting one back – you are dinged next year!

We all know that the kids are addicted to MySpace! Did you notice that Microsoft bought a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240m – this values a small start up at 15 BILLION. This is nearly as much as Google was valued at when it went public!

In November of 2006 I accepted someone’s invite to “LinkedIn”, I visited the site, but I really did not get it. They don’t make it easy; these networks are not MySpace which will accept just about anyone. You actually have to work at it and it initially is not obvious how to build your network. You actually have to link to people you know. This summer (2007), when I decided to put some effort in, the picture became clear. Not only have I reached out and connected with almost everyone with whom I have worked with over the last 25 years, I feel for the first time to be ahead of my wife and I understand why Microsoft overpaid for a small three year old start-up. This is a huge shift and we can't allow ourselves to fall behind.

I really like Facebook, but it is not for business. My daughter and I have even stopped using email to communicate, we use Facebook (feel free to visit my Facebook http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=577698401), excellent site for close personal friends.
For business, LinkedIn.com is the place to be. It takes a lot of work to build your network but it is worth it. Visit my profile at (http://www.linkedin.com/in/zebriod)

Plaxo is a site aggregator – can be used to manage all the others therefore it is worth watching for the future, the interface is nice too.

[Note: Everyone needs to manage their profile on Zoominfo.com or they will do it for you.]

**** Happy New Year ****

By Zebriod © 2007
Raymond May