EQUITY FIRMS, INCLUDING: GOLDMAN SACHS, CITI, UBS, J.P. MORGAN, CREDIT SUISSE,
In-depth preparation Starting in the fall, the Corsair senior leaders meet weekly for hours with the juniors, as well as some MBA students, providing instruction and mentoring. They review research on companies, knowledge of financial models, résumé preparation and interview attire. They conduct mock interviews that help the students develop concise, yet detailed, answers. About halfway through the semester, Corsair students receive the coveted list of alumni in investment banking and private equity who are willing to give honest—and sometimes blunt—advice and feedback. Alumni take a distanced approach, Bogan says, because they want students to demonstrate a strong work ethic, which employers demand. After all, students will be working more than 40 hours a week and on little sleep. “They have to go out of their way and show initiative. We want it to be a challenge,” he says. “If we held their hand the entire time, interviewers would see right through it. Hard work is the only way.” Corsair students already are gifted, but the group serves as a targeted training program that provides the tools to succeed in the interview and the internship, says David Kirby (BBA, MAcc ’08), an associate at Goldman Sachs. “We have been able to [attract] the most talented students at Georgia that are interested in finance to [coach] them specifically on how to get a job up here.” Mike Heider (BBA ’13) describes UGA alumni like Battle and Kirby as his “LeBron James.” “I wanted to emulate characteristics and traits that they had,” says Heider, who works in the industrials group at Goldman Sachs. Instead of mumbling through phone calls or writing casual emails, the students learn to employ networking
ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER
Mollie Kinsman (BBA ’08), client services coordinator at Bridgewater Associates, visited campus in September to speak to the newest Corsair class.
and communication skills used by professionals. It’s not enough to get the internship and a job offer, but students must make sure they are the best they possibly can be, says Shan Siddiqui (BBA ’14), who interned and works full time for Citi. The early Corsair members paid their way to interviews in New York, since no Wall Street firms with investment banking internships were recruiting at UGA until recently. Now, the Honors Program sponsors Corsair, including covering the cost for the students (both Honors and non-Honors) to travel to interviews and hosting firms that recruit on campus. As former chair of the Terry Dean’s Advisory Council, Darren DeVore (BBA ’86) helped Corsair transition from being run by a passionate group of alumni to a more formal part of UGA, in order to increase the number of students in Corsair and UGA’s overall reputation. “I’ve always wanted to help students and young people that want to do what it takes to succeed,” says DeVore, managing partner at Broad
24 GEORGIA MAGAZINE • www.ugamagazine.uga.edu
Pine Investments in Atlanta. “We all have a little bit of a chip on our shoulder, relative to some schools viewed as more prominent, and the chip on our shoulder is, we went to the University of Georgia. We know we are well trained, and we are proud of it. We’re out to prove something.” In mid-September, moments before explaining the hours involved in Corsair to more than 100 students in a standingroom-only Corsair information session in Sanford Hall, Kinsman beams with the news that Goldman Sachs has made him a job offer. “Not only can our students compete with the best in the country… but we’re all being asked to come back as fulltime employees,” he says. “We’re just as competitive.” McCain remembers walking into her interviews, armed with encouragement from her Corsair peers, alumni and faculty, such as Terry professor Chris Cornwell, head of the department of economics. “I felt so comfortable and confident.” She thought, “Why shouldn’t I be here?”