Read Wall Street Journal for Interviews? Forum

[CRaider]

I have had several professors and practitioners say that you should read the Wall Street Journal so you have more to talk about in interviews (for mostly corporate jobs I guess).

1) Are they essentially just saying to read the corporate news and the marketplace section? and

2) Has anyone ever had this actually come up or pay off in an interview?

[AntipodeanPhil]

I did a couple of dozen screening interviews and about a dozen CBs at v50 firms this OCI season, and stuff from the WSJ came up three times. Once, a partner mentioned an acquisition that been in the news recently (because it was relevant to what we were talking about), one I brought something up, and once an associate talked about an IPO from 2-3 years ago that she'd worked on (and which had featured heavily in the WSJ then).

My impression: it's some help to read the WSJ, but not necessary.

It probably also helps indirectly, though, in that you're more likely to understand the terms and concepts interviewers will use when they talk about what they do.

[2014]

I had a partner spend like 5 minutes grilling me about what I thought the best source of business news was before sharing his opinion that it was crucial that everyone read the WSJ or some online equivalent.

I agree that it's not necessary but is useful.

[sumner]

I think you should do anyway. It never came up in my interviews but it helps me understand business better, especially reading it while taking corporations and fed tax.

[Anonymous User]

I read the Economist when preparing for my LSAT (hint: reading comprehension). Since I would definitely work as a patent attorney, I have not touched that journal after I took the test.

[Liam]

The general advice of reading business-oriented news outlets to become generally aware of what's going on in that world is good, but you don't need to read WSJ specifically for that. Bloomberg/Businessweek and The Economist also provide pretty comprehensive insight into what's going on, and the two magazines are especially good because they're weeklies that distill down what's going on to its basic talking points (Bloomberg TV is also available for free online/through apps, so you can watch while getting dressed in the morning or whatever).