1. Introduction

3rd Year Rotman Commerce student

Specializing in Finance & Econ

Worked at Fidelity Investments as a Financial Analyst Intern

2. Describe your job

On a team that is responsible for selling mutual funds and ETFs to clients and banks. My team was analyzing different numbers. I spent most time analyzing mutual funds and ETF sales and seeing which funds sell the most to find why certain funds are selling more and what types that clients are demanding. An ad hoc job: I was trying to make sure I was on the deck for most of the time to analyze stuff when my team members needed it. Most of my work was pretty good. But I did see people that were pretty stressed during the first month. We got much exposure in Powerpoint and Excel, which you would use in almost every finance job. Really recommend being strong in Excel and PowerPoint.

3. What do you mean by saying analyze?

Doing lots of financial modelling: most of them will be based on Excel, which requests pulling data from Fidelity Investments’ database using other platforms.

4. The nature of the job?

Very analytical jobs but a lot of daily tasks are very repetitive. There is also ad hoc stuff that I was randomly asked to do different things. Doing things that I don’t expect is also part of the job.

5. Working Schedule

It depends. For the first month, I was not used to my job, so I spent more time getting my work done well: usually starts at 8-8:30 AM and ends at 7-8 PM. But in later months, it was like from 8 AM to 6 PM. The hours are not too bad.

6. Something you really like about the job

Having a supportive team is the best part. In the first month, I remembered that I was not that good technically, and I was asking my team to have an hour zoom call with me to show me different things. They were very helpful and nice. They really wanted to help out. Ensure the team is good, which has a supportive culture, especially when we feel down because you are not that good. Fidelity has a great culture about this!

7. What was something that you don’t enjoy that much about the job?

The whole working from home is actually a challenge for me. It’s weird to just sit in your room and work alone with no one talking to. You need to go on the Zoom call whenever you have questions, which is kind of weird. We don’t have many events set up for interns to meet up, so it’s very weird that I didn’t meet anyone on my team.

8. What Excel functions do you use the most?

No regression. I used a lot of VLOOKUP, INDEX MATCH, and IF functions. VBA was also used sometimes but pretty much being guided. I basically saw what others have done and tried to copy what they did. I used to use LOOKUP first, but INDEX MATCH is more efficient. Mostly, I only used those basic functions, but you need to be really good with them.

9. What other programs do you use the most?

Powerpoint. After doing my analysis, I would just copy my work to PowerPoint, made a presentation out of it, and sent it over to someone to see it.

10. Describe something that you have done multiple times that you think you like a pro at?

Make powerpoints every week based on the data from the sales of ETF and mutual funds on that week. Then I will analyze to find who sells the most ETF and mutual funds and make a presentation out of it. It gets very repetitive and easy. So I just need to press 2 buttons and analyze very quickly and then put the top sellers on the PowerPoint. I remember, at first, I used 40-50min. But later, I only used 5-10min for later weeks.

11. Did your work get overwhelming and stressful, and how do you cope with it?

It’s a very ad hoc job that requires you to get the work right on time. The issue is not that you need to hand in your work right on time, but you only have 2-3 hours to complete them. So my advice will be to write down a timeline for the tasks needed to be done, plan your time, and add an extra hour when asked to make sure you can do your work properly. Also, I think over-communicating might help. Because it’s all virtual now, no one knows what others are doing. I basically told everyone that I could complete your work, but I had all these to work on at the same time. And people are OK with that. Being given a bunch of tasks in a short time is very stressful.

12. Advice to students interested in the position?

Be very curious about everything. When you intern, you are at the bottom of the bottom, knowing this will be really good. It will be great to tell yourself you know nothing, even in the case that you actually know how to do something. Don’t say, “I know it.” Keep an open mind to learning. You want to learn from everyone as much as possible.