7/7/2011 Submitted an application for the Research Assistant position, and get a call back within an hour from a secretary. We schedule the interview for the next day 7/8/2011 Interview with the Senior VP goes well. He started off with some behavioral questions which went really well. He then asks me skill-based questions about the free cash flows and other valuation methods. I answer both questions correctly in detail, and feel like I left a positive impression. He tells me that he wants to put me through the next round. 7/11/2012 The secretary calls me to schedule a phone interview with a managing director. 7/12/2012 Interview with the managing director was supposed to start at 9am. I don't get a call from her in the first hour. I wait another hour but still don't get a call from her so I call the secretary, to let her know of the situation, and to ask whether the MD is aware of the interview. The secretary tells me the MD is aware, and sends MD an e-mail to check her whereabouts. I wait for another four hours, but slowly starting to come to a realization that I may not get the call the at all. I call the secretary again to check whether she received any reply from the MD, and she tells me no. After eight hours of sitting at my desk and blindly waiting for a phone interview, from someone who cannot be reached, I convince myself that this maybe the nature of the business, something I should get used to if I want to keep pursuing this career. But I also think to myself, “How can a person be so busy that she couldn’t take one minute of her time to let me know that she can’t make the appointment?” 7/22/2010 Ten days later, the secretary calls me to re-schedule the interview with the MD for 7/26/2010. 7/26/2010 I go into the office for the interview, get settled in, looking at the ticking clock to find myself sitting and waiting again. 30 minutes later, the MD struts into the meeting room. I finally get to meet this person who is well known for her accomplishments. Given her stature, I’m expecting some professionalism out of her so I think to myself that she may show me some regrets for blowing me off two weeks ago, maybe even for walking in 30 minutes late. To no avail, she does not apologize, nor even mention anything about the missed appointment. We go straight into the interview. After we spend the first 5 minutes on some behavioral questions, the MD goes straight for the skill questions. For the first question, she asks, “run through the cash flow statement." I tell her about the nature of cash flows, and how the income statement is comprised of both non-cash and cash items, whereas the cash flow statement only includes the cash items. Then I explain to her that there are three parts to the cash flow statement- CFO, CFI, CFF. She stops me right there, and asks me to explain the CFO. I tell her exactly how to get to CFO- CFO = NI + Non-cash charges + gains/loss +/– changes in working capital. She gives me a confused look. She then goes on to ask me “analyze the airlines industry?” As a person applying for an entry-level Research Assistant position, having no prior experience in the airline industry, let alone in equity research, I feel like she has just thrown the kitchen sink at me. I'm thinking to myself, "did she even read my resume?" I don’t know where to start from, and start to blindly throw darts around the question. I tell her about how oil prices could be an underlying driver of the profitability and demand. She tries to refute my response. We argue back and forth; and the discussion starts to become pointless. She tells me that I should have used the Porter’s Five Forces to make that analysis. I tell her that I am aware of the term and its principles but never had any experience to understand its usage. She tells me not to make any excuses. After a few minutes of useless exchange, we say bye to each other, and as I’m packing my stuff, the MD storms out of the room, out of the sight. She does not express any remorse for the missed appointment, nor show any courtesy to walk me out the door. We are all different, but all of us deserve at least some extent of respect, whether you are the star Director of Equity Research or the candidate who failed to get the job. Throughout this interview process, the MD clearly gave me the impression that I was not worthy of her time. She doesn't understand that value of time is equally precious to everyone. If she thinks that 30 minutes of her time with me was a waste, how does she think I feel about an entire month I spent for this interview process? I bet that she won’t treat her clients the same way she did to me.