What CommonBond Seeks In MBA Hires - Poets&Quants

CEO David Klein working alongside his CommonBond employees.

CommonBond is on a mission. A dynamic and ground-breaking lender out of Wharton, the young firm has staked out an ambitious goal: Providing education to all.

To achieve this end, CommonBond has fused finance and technology, with a focus on creating the best possible customer experience. Think of it as the Zappos of the FinTech world. With MBAs accruing average debts of $120K-$1300K at leading MBA programs like MIT Stern and Wharton, the loan process has become as terrifying as the GMAT and as complicated as finding campus parking. Lacking the overhead of a traditional bank, CommonBond offers lower rates and better terms to borrowers. More important, it differentiates itself by pairing a front end technology that accelerates and simplifies the loan process with an unwavering advocacy for the customer.

FOUNDED IN RESPONSE TO HIGH COSTS AND POOR SERVICE

“We keep customers as the center of everything,” says Keryn Koch, the vice president of people at people, during a February interview with Poets&Quants. “That’s what sets up apart and why I love CommonBond.”

CommonBond understands its customer base more intimately than most. It was founded in 2011 by three Wharton MBA students, who were dismayed by the high rates, byzantine requirements, and poor service inherent to securing a loan. Even worse, these exorbitant rates applied to everyone, even MBA candidates from top schools who represented the lowest risk for default. The light bulb went on – and a new venture was born. David Klein, CommonBond’s CEO, even dropped out of Wharton to grow the company. Turns out, Klein’s optimism was more than warranted.

Over the past six years, CommonBond has doled out over $1.5 billion dollars in loans…with just two clients defaulting. According to the firm, students save, on average, $24,000 over the life of their loan. In the process, CommonBond has emerged as the top private lender for MBAs at Columbia, Dartmouth, and Yale. It has also expanded beyond its business school roots to cover graduate and undergraduate education as a whole. All the while, the firm has kept a close eye on its marketplace, ranking in 2018 among the most innovative companies by Inc. and best FinTechs by Forbes.

WARBY PARKER GIVES GLASSES; COMMONBOND OFFERS SCHOLARSHIPS

CommonBond’s Keryn Koch

The firm’s mission may be leveling the financial field and easing distracting debt, but its real passion is impact. True to its roots in education, CommonBond has taken a page out of Warby Parker’s playbook. The firm now funds a year-long scholarship for a student in Africa whenever a loan is paid off as part of its “Social Promise” – an initiative that has paid out over a half million dollars to date. In fact, Klein invites employees join him when he awards these scholarships in Ghana – a chance to witness the fruition of their labors.

You could also argue that CommonBond is as employee-centric as it is customer-driven. One example revolves around something that MBA students can rally around: loan repayment. “For every month you’re here,” Koch explains, “we provide a certain amount of money towards their student loan to help relieve their burden since that is the whole reason that CommonBond started.”

The firm isn’t the traditional large firm that scoops up dozens of MBAs annually, however. Currently, CommonBond employs 100 people, and projects adding another 30 in 2018 due to growth. While its revenues make it an established company, the company still maintains its plucky mindset and spry structure. That creates opportunities for the right MBA candidates. Admittedly, the firm is highly selective when it comes to intern candidates, onboarding just five MBA interns in 2017. However, these MBAs enjoy a far different experience than many of their peers.

ROLES CONSTANTLY EVOLVING AS FIRM GROWS

“Things are a little different for a company like ours,” Koch concedes. “In order to get an MBA internship, it needs to be a role that couldn’t be filled by a full-time person. We don’t hire the same five interns every year because the needs of the business at that moment change. We want the MBA internship to be a really robust experience. We don’t consider them interns; we consider them employees who are ready to get back to school.”

The internship is a whirlwind experience. Over the 10 weeks, MBA interns are rotated through every part of the company, so they can build their network and understand how each piece of the firm fits together. Over that time, the team is looking for very specific qualities. Obviously, a sense of mission ranks among the most prized virtues. However, the nature of the firm – whose fast growth belies the fact that it is still a startup in some ways — requires a very entrepreneurial mindset.

“Since we are growing so quickly, consistently building out new products and going into new segments the projects that we outline in February during the interview process may change slightly by the time they arrive in June,” Koch says. “So we want someone who isn’t afraid of the challenge and OK with not knowing exactly what their role is going to look like.”

FROM INTERN TO “CULTURE CARRIER”

Along with a fearless attitude, CommonBond also seeks MBAs who can take ownership. Koch cites a NYU Stern MBA, Dave Carter, as an example. Despite lacking sales experience, Carter accepted the challenge of launching a partnership division during his summer internship. He became so successful that he continued working at CommonBond while he earned his degree. Now, he heads up partnerships for the firm and has been tagged as one of the future leaders of the firm.

CommonBond’s front lobby in its Soho (New York) office

For Koch, Carter is a “culture carrier” who personifies the best of the firm. “Whether they have seen it done before or not, they’re not afraid to take on that ownership – and they’re not afraid to ask for help, either. We hire people at CommonBond who want to help others. If they have the strong attitude, want the ownership, and like the accountability, we’ll see it in the results.”

Recently, Poets&Quants sat down with Koch to learn about the opportunities that MBAs can enjoy at CommonBond. What are the firm’s expectations of MBAs? What are some of the perks to a career at CommonBond? What advice would she give to MBAs looking to work at this Soho-based innovator? Find the answers in our exclusive in-depth Q&A with Koch on how CommonBond recruits and develops MBAs.

P&Q: What does CommonBond look for in a resume and background that many candidates might not expect from a firm like yours?

KK: What I found to be interesting is when people apply to CommonBond or ask questions, they often say, ‘I don’t have lending industry experience’ or ‘I don’t have FinTech experience’ or ‘I only have experience in a large bank.’ First of all, that’s definitely not the case. We really enjoy the perspective of those who aren’t in the student loan space. One of the advantages of having MBA interns is that they are our customer. They have student loans and will eventually refinance those loans after graduation. We are able to get a lot of information from that. Plus, MBAs have the skills to do a lot more beyond the job that they applied for.

What we look for in a resume is someone who has shown leadership in the past at their schools. We look for individuals who ask good questions about CommonBond. They indicate their preference for being part of a team or learning about a new industry. We like someone who is entrepreneurial and eager to learn something new and being able to identify their own projects. Since we are not a gigantic investment bank, that means summer interns are likely being groomed to be a full-time hire in a year. Given how we’re changing very quickly, we don’t offer full-time offers at the end of summer. So we’re looking for someone who is looking to get into a new kind of organization and environment. Many of our interns work in fields like banking or consulting, and have their MBAs sponsored by their employers. We’ve had times where they know they are going back to their previous employer after graduation so they can’t accept a full-time offer from CommonBond, but we’ll still hire them as interns if we feel their entrepreneurial spirit and willingness to learn are a good fit for us.

 

CommonBond team picture.

With CommonBond, we talk a lot about our mission, which is all about providing education to all. There is a lot that can be taken away from you, but education is one that can’t be. Education gives you an advantage over others. Therefore, for every loan paid off, we provide a scholarship for a student in Africa, particularly in Ghana. In fact, our CEO is in Ghana now [late February] meeting with students who received scholarships. So showing a passion for a mission-based company is something that my colleagues and I look for. We find that those who really believe in the mission thrive in this environment like CommonBond; they want to work to serve the higher purpose versus just trying to work for a profitable company. So entrepreneurship, along with this appetite for working at a mission-driven company, is something that jumps off the resume to us.

P&Q: What kinds of skills does CommonBond anticipate needing in the coming years that you may not possess enough of now? 

KK: Things are a little different for a company like ours. In order to get an MBA internship with us, it needs to be a role that couldn’t be filled by a full-time person. We don’t hire the same five interns every year because the needs of the business are always changing. We want the MBA internship to be a really robust experience. We don’t consider MBAs interns; we consider them and treat them as full-time employees who just happen to return to school in two months. There’s a difference there. Interns produce “real work.” They receive ongoing feedback, set goals, and participate in the performance review process. They really see what it is like to be a CommonBond employee. We don’t know what we’re look for until a couple months before we start bringing them onboard. Ordinarily, we’re holding interviews in March and April, which is really late for MBAs. We’ve actually pushed our recruiting schedule up for the first time this year in order to increase the candidate pool. We tend to look for candidates with varied skills, who are open to learn new things and go outside their comfort zone.

Since we are growing so quickly, consistently building out new products and going into new segments, the projects that we outline in February during the interview process may change slightly by the time they arrive in June. So we want someone who isn’t afraid of the challenge and OK with not knowing exactly what their role is going to look like. We are very honest and open about that and that’s something our people understand and agree with.

So it is hard to say exactly what is needed. Right now, we have 100 people now – and will have 130 by the end of the year. Everyone plays their role. We are very disciplined about increasing the size of our company because we want everyone to have a really strong role here. We want interns to come in so they have that full-time experience. Again, we want someone who isn’t afraid of ambiguity or a challenge.

Take marketing. We don’t necessarily want someone coming in who has marketing skills. You go to an MBA program to change your career because we can’t expect that everyone who has that background wants to keep doing that. So we expect people will want an internship with something that’s different. Here at CommonBond, our greatest success is when an employee who comes in as an operations professional turns into a head of product. So we really appreciate people who have the skills to be very universal and be able to take on new projects. That diverse type of backgrounds will make you very successful here as well.

For a role like engineering or capital markets, a finance background will obviously be very beneficial. Being able to code is also very important for that as well. For something like marketing and strategy, we’re looking for someone who has diverse experience because we can help them grow into the role. We want to learn as much from them as they will learn from us. That’s what makes it such a strong internship program.

We have requirements for MBAs, but they can be changed or adjusted because we want people who’ll learn and grow their skills. We also have MBAs here who are hiring managers because they know what MBAs are going through and they want to do something different. So we can’t have an exact box that we’re looking for, but we want someone who can grow in a broader role as well.

P&Q: What advice would you give to students who have their hearts set on working for you? How can they enhance their job prospects?

KK: The nature of our business is that we do a lot of outreach. We hold open houses at CommonBond. We encourage people to come and stay in touch with us. We go on campus a lot. We hold events and educational sessions, so students can get a read on us and talk to us about their experience and what they’re looking for. We do a lot of informational sessions and informal networking sessions to get to know each other. Obviously, it is very helpful for MBAs here to have relationships with their campus career center; we have great relationships with them and they send us a lot of good candidates as well.

Also, we have informal conversations, whether on campus or in our offices here in Soho. In addition to these regular visits, we also host a ton of in-office treks. We’ll sponsor different club conferences and events for MBAs on campus. We also have a real good brand recognition among MBA students because we offer MBA loans. We’re actually the #1 private lender at Columbia Business School, Tuck School at Dartmouth, and Yale School of Management. So we already have the name recognition; MBA students know about CommonBond and we’re really fortunate in that regard in terms of hiring. It’s a real differentiator for us because we have the relationship building already done on campuses.

P&Q: Give me an example of a successful MBA at your firm.

KK: Regarding full-time, let me tell you a story about one of our MBA interns who went to work for us full-time. We had intern named Dave Carter. We was a full-time MBA at Stern and he came to us for a summer. He had no sales experience, but he was actually the first person who was fully dedicated to partnerships. Our head of marketing persuaded David to go to Stern part-time and come to work for us as a full-time employee after his summer internship. He completely changed his MBA program to accommodate his full-time job here. Now, we have a 15-20 member partnership team that was actually started by an MBA intern. We gave him such an opportunity that he didn’t even want to wait a year for it. He wanted to do it then-and-there. Dave is now a director and has been hugely successful in building up the team and a huge cultural carrier. That’s an example of what we offer our MBAs. It’s always a unique situation.

P&Q: Recruiting can be a two-way street. What has CommonBond done to make itself more appealing to MBA candidates?

CEO David Klein in a meeting.

KK: For the MBA interns, for the 10 weeks that they’re here, they get a really wonderful educational experience. They also live within their organization as a full-time hire in terms of what their expectations are. They really get to stretch themselves and learn something new. They get exposed to everyone in the company, including lunches with David Klein, to talk about entrepreneurship and growing with the company. He gets to know all the MBA interns; they’re really an important part of life at CommonBond, so we want them to have a wonderful experience.

Let me you an example. We had one intern who developed investor decks. She had never done them before. She worked with our head of strategy and built a deck that is being presented on a daily basis. She has the ability to go back to her next employer or school and say she had a wonderful experience and really impacted CommonBond within 10 weeks. A lot of interns can’t say that. A lot of organizations don’t have that kind of exposure to be able to really go end-to-end and just earn it.

We also do lots of networking during the internship. They have a lot of exposure, so they can develop their network. Last year, we had five interns and they became very close friends while also developing relationships across the company. We also hold a lot of fun activities related to networking too. We have a monthly happy hour, where we bring the entire company together. For example, this month, we are having an Olympic-themed happy hour where we are representing the countries of our employees with drinks and appetizers. For people from the UK, we have Pimm’s cocktails. For people from India, we have Formosas. That’s another example of a fun activity outside the office for these MBAs to get to know more people and expand their network.

We actively solicit feedback from our MBA interns to make our programs better each year. During the 10 weeks as interns, they get to really know what it is like to work at a leading FinTech company. We also stay in touch with all of our interns, providing career counseling and opening up personal and professional networks for them. For example, let’s go back to the intern I mentioned who put together our investor decks. Her hiring manager put her in touch with a friend in San Francisco and she was able to get another opportunity through that network at a small company where everyone knows each other. That network is priceless and that’s another big advantage.

CommonBond workspace in its Soho office.

Our onboarding is another benefit. It is pretty extensive. We put MBAs through new hire onboarding just like a full-time employee. So they do rotations with every part of the leadership team so they understand what every department does and how CommonBond works as a whole. That’s something a lot of interns in a company don’t get exposure to because they are just working, for example, in one department. Here at CommonBond, we put our energy into how the company is structured so they are exposed to the whole businesses.

For full-time employees at CommonBond, we pay a significant portion of health and medical benefits; typically, we go above and beyond. Currently, everyone at CommonBond has equity ownership – so we want people who want not just to receive a paycheck, but people who want to benefit from the future growth of CommonBond. Second, we have unlimited vacation. We allow people to take the time off they need to reset. We have very generous primary and secondary leave – also known as paid maternity and paternity leave. We think it is incredibly important for people to take the time off with their growing family. We offer 12 paid leave weeks for primary care givers (and this covers adoptions as well) and four weeks paid leave for secondary care givers.

We have lots of different wellness benefits. We offer gym memberships, yoga, and benefits like in-house massages. We also practice what we preach and offer student loan reimbursement. For every month you’re here, we provide a certain amount of money towards your student loan to help relieve your burden since that is the whole reason that CommonBond started.  Since we have an enterprise function that sells into other businesses, we actually created what we call a ‘401K for Student Loans,’ which creates a platform for other companies to have that kind of reimbursement. We do that internally as well.

We also have catered food twice a week and monthly happy hours. We are a mission-based company – that’s what we’re based off of – and believe in giving back to the community, so we have paid time off to simply volunteer. We also sponsor women’s and LGBTQ focus groups and spend a lot of time focusing on those diversity initiatives.

P&Q: If an MBA was weighing an offer from CommonBond and another firm, what would give you the edge?

Michael Taormina, left, Jessup Shean and David Klein co-founded CommonBond

KK: Along with everything we discussed, we have a very unique set of full-time benefits.

MBAs are often taking summer internships to learn a new skill – that’s why they’re going to school. At CommonBond, we strive to create a culture of learning and discovery. Most MBAs go back to school to learn something new and expand their network. We provide that experience for them. We’re also very, very transparent in our interview process about what to expect with CommonBond because we don’t want there to be any surprises. Our strengths are our genuine nature; people tend to like us in the interview process. Being so transparent gives us the edge in making the decision to come to CommonBond.

P&Q: Every industry comes with its stereotypes. When it comes to CommonBond – and your industry as a whole – what are some of the biggest misconceptions that students may have?

Being a FinTech company, especially in student loans, I think the biggest misconception is that the only way you’ll get hired full-time as an MBA is if you have finance, FinTech, or student loan experience. We want to bring all the right people into CommonBond to build out our team. I think it is definitely a misconception that it is difficult to get an internship if you don’t have that specific background.

P&Q: What are your expectations for entry level MBAs? What are your most successful new hires doing to hit the ground running and quickly add value? 

KK: CommonBond evaluates strong performance and contribution across attitude, ownership and results. In terms of attitude, it is someone who can deal with ambiguity. It is looking around and learning about the process of what is being done, whether it is the business around them or what they are doing. They are not afraid to learn a get to know people. People who have a really strong attitude, in a positive way, who want to work well with others and collaborate are incredibly successful here especially when they are first starting.

The second piece is ownership. They aren’t afraid to take something on. Whether they have seen it done before or not, they’re not afraid to take on that ownership – and they’re not afraid to ask for help, either. We hire people at CommonBond who want to help others. If they have the strong attitude, want the ownership, and like the accountability, we’ll see it in the results. Those people who have those three values are super successful and will have great careers at CommonBond.

As an example, I would go back to Dave Carter, the intern from NYU. In his internship – and to this day – he was able to demonstrate a strong, confident, can-do attitude. Not only for himself, but he was able to bring other people up too. He is a huge culture carrier and someone who is going to be the future of CommonBond. He didn’t have any experience in partnerships and sales, but he built out a function. Turns out, people without specific sales experience can do amazing things. He hired his boss – and had no issues with it – because he wanted to learn. He has a positive attitude and got through to everyone in the company very quickly. He is the perfect example of ownership. He coaches his team up around him and builds up the team underneath him. He is one to celebrate across the team as well.

MBAs from four different elite MBA programs spent the summer interning at CommonBond in 2016 The four were chosen from an applicant pool of more than 200. Pictured from left to right are Marissa Kaplan, Harvard Business School; Vasu Sharma, North Carolina Kenan-Flagler; Nick Pucci, Chicago Booth; and Divya Narayanan, Wharton. Courtesy photo

P&Q: What excites you personally about working for CommonBond? 

KK: There is a sense of real ownership here. I came to CommonBond because I wanted to be part of an organization of trust and accountability and really build up this function. In my role in HR, David Klein, our CEO, is so passionate about people and culture. It is so fun to work with him and collaborate on ideas and carry out those ideas. Meeting David is the reason I came to CommonBond. This is a new industry for me. I was in investment banking, AdTech, and now student loans. CommmonBond has exposed me to a new industry that was very appealing.

The reason why I stay here is that we have a community of really helping each other out, whether that’s pitching in or giving recognition to others. It’s something that I love to be a part of. It’s also important to me that we are a mission-driven company. We don’t just say we are a mission-driven company, but we truly live it every day. We do have a higher calling, which I think is very important.

Just today, we were named the Most Innovative Company in Education by Fast Company. I can tell you that the innovation here, whether you’re talking about contributing to our capital markets team, our business development team, tech team, or another group, we always stive to be best in class. We do a lot with a little here and it’s exciting to be part of the organization here.

One of the exciting parts of being at CommonBond is that I get to meet the customers. Obviously, student loans isn’t something that’s nice for them. Still, they go on-and-on about how wonderful our customer service is. We keep customers as the center of everything. That’s what sets up apart and why I love CommonBond.

P&Q: Anything you’d like to add?

KK: I’ll add two things. First we have an annual MBA summer series. It takes place 6-8 weeks over the course of the summer. It is for MBA students to take a look at different career paths. It is an in-person career series here in New York, but it also streams online. That’s something that has been very successful. Even if you’re not an intern or full-time hire at CommonBond, we still provide a ton of resources, tools and events for MBAs to develop your own career strategy.

Second, CommonBond was started by MBA students. It was started by Wharton students who were frustrated and challenged by the loan process. Our CEO, David Klein, actually dropped out of Wharton to start the company. We understand, first-hand, what it is like to be MBA students and we understand the mindset. Even if we don’t have an MBA, we work with tons of MBAs. So there is a huge support system here and culturally we share a lot of similarities with MBAs.

DON’T MISS: COMMONBOND EXPANDS INTERNATIONALLY or MY STORY: FROM BORROWER TO LENDER

 

 

 

 

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