Education, contacts helped machinist become analyst

Here's a career riddle: Can a machinist become an investment analyst?

In Madison, one person has.

Raised in Denver, Jesse Haifley went to college at the University of Chicago and graduated with a psychology degree and no real career plan.

During what he describes as a "noncareer period" of mostly restaurant work, Haifley met his future wife and moved with her to San Francisco. Since he had always enjoyed shop work, he studied to become a precision machinist, and spent months interviewing and networking in hopes of landing a starting position.

In many ways, the effort it took to break into this new field was an indicator of what he'd need to muster when making his next career move several years later.

Although Haifley had a successful experience on the shop floor, even winning a regional machining competition, he was thinking about expanding his professional role beyond that of skilled craftsman someday.

He had always been good at quantitative analysis and interested in the financial markets. When life brought him to Madison, and within proximity of the UW-Madison and its high-quality business school, he decided that the time was right to pursue a career as an investment analyst, and getting an MBA seemed like a natural way to start.

As a recruiter, I frequently hear from job-seekers who want to change their career direction, sometimes radically. At that point in Haifley's career, I would frankly have been unable to help him get interviews, because employers ask me to send them candidates with relevant work experience.

What impresses me about Haifley is that he was determined to do whatever it took to succeed, even if it took years, and he persisted in the face of all the roadblocks that career-changers encounter.

After graduating, Haifley worked hard to land his first job as an investment research analyst. Even with his MBA, an education that gave him the skills for an entry-level job in investments, he found employers reluctant to consider someone with a "nontraditional" career background.

I helped Haifley get an interview at a Madison fund that was recruiting a junior research analyst. Haifley showed rare initiative: When they mentioned a particular statistical analysis software package they use, Haifley found a contact who had it, spent a couple of days learning how to use it, built an analytical model and demonstrated it for them.

The key point that I impressed upon him during this process was that, for both his resume and his interviews, it was important to understand the likely hesitancy of an interviewer toward a career-changer, and to answer all questions about his past work with a strong emphasis on relevance toward the new career.

This approach carried Haifley through several rounds of interviews with my client, but they ultimately passed him over and hired someone they felt had better work experience.

Throughout his several-years-long career shift process, Haifley persisted.

He secured an internship at a Madison investment firm during graduate school, but it did not turn into a full-time position.

He stayed in touch with his business school professors and alumni, who helped him get informational interviews with investment managers, and he arranged many such interviews, both with and without introduction from a contact.

His unusual background garnered attention that converted into interviews with several companies, but repeatedly employers found it difficult to "take a chance" on a smart candidate with a background that seemed foreign.

To bolster his investment skills and to demonstrate resolve, he took the Level I exam toward certification as a Chartered Financial Analyst. This is a demanding all-day test covering dozens of complex equations.

Some investment firms help their junior staff by sending them to extensive test-prep courses. Haifley studied for it on his own, and passed.

I like Haifley's story because he did everything career-changers need to do. He educated himself. He networked. He sought out and took advice on resume writing and interviewing techniques.

And earlier this year, after nine interviews, he was hired as an equity research analyst at the State of Wisconsin Investment Board. Haifley now helps SWIB manage its pension fund portfolios as a stock analyst on the international equities team.

Peter Gray is the head of executive recruiting at QTI Professional Staffing in Madison.