New Design, New Services, New… Everything
At long last, today I’m unveiling the new design for Mergers & Inquisitions I’ve been working on behind the scenes. As you can see (or maybe not if you’re reading this via RSS or email…), the new look is dramatically different (and hopefully better).
Motivation For New Design
Besides making everything look more professional, I wanted to address a few of the key concerns and suggestions I had received from readers.
One of these concerns was the lack of direction when they arrived at the site or first started reading - blogs are great for some things, but they’re terrible for organization. To solve that, I’ve created the “Core Content” section on the bottom of each page, which points you to the main articles I’ve written on each topic.
For now this section appears on (almost) every page, but I may change that depending on your feedback.
Resume Editing Changes
One of the interesting bits of feedback that shocked me was that some readers didn’t even realize I edited resumes - I’ve made that very apparent now and have included a link and description to the right.
I’ve also made the service more focused on comprehensive edits and longer-term revisions. The page describing it is more descriptive now and answers many of the questions I was frequently asked back when it had minimal information.
A lot of you asked for examples and testimonials, so I’ve added several examples and many, many testimonials to the page as well.
Note: The changes to the resume service will not affect existing clients - pricing and turnaround time will remain the same for you.
Oh Yeah, Those Mock Interviews…
I’ve been conducting a limited number of mock interviews recently, but I wanted to formalize the service and spell out exactly what it entails - so I created a detailed page on my mock interview service.
Note that pricing is subject to the specifics of what you’re looking for - if you’re interested in multiple sessions or just a general Q&A, for example, you’ll receive discounted pricing.
I’ve also received some questions about in-person training. I’m offering that as well, subject to geography. The terms are a bit trickier to spell out because it depends greatly on where you’re located and how you want to prepare. In any case, contact me if you’re interested and we can go over the details.
With recruiting season getting in full-gear now, I suspect interest in mock interviews and other live preparation will pick up.
The Banker Formerly Known As Prince
This is another one readers had been asking me about, so I revamped the About page and have given more information on myself, my background and my motivation for launching the site as well as what I’m up to these days.
Transitioning from being a pop star to an investment banker wasn’t easy, but it was definitely worth it.
Other Changes
I’ve made a host of smaller changes throughout the site as well, probably too many to list here. I’ve been working on this new design for awhile, so by now I’ve forgotten a lot of the minor changes I’ve made.
Online Course: Still Coming
I’m still working on the premium site that will offer in-depth video tutorials, presentations and clips of real interviews and provide a comprehensive overview of what banking is, how to network your way in, how to construct a resume and how to ace your interviews.
(The mock interviews are being offered in addition to this, not in place of it.)
It has taken longer than expected due to the sheer volume of content and everything else I have going on, but it will be available this recruiting season.
Your Feedback
I realize this is a lot to take in all at once, so I’m anxious for your feedback and any further suggestions you have.
Also let me know if you see any display problems or something doesn’t look right, as well as the web browser you’re using. I did quite a bit of testing on different browsers, but no one’s perfect - not even a former investment banker…
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Looks great, except that under Resume/CV editing on the right the bar should “fade”. The boundary between the text with the picture behind it and the border is too sharp, it makes it look cramped. You can tell the book is cut off, the telephone looks better because its complete.
Fixed, thanks.
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Yikes! The resume editing service jumped from $100 to $197?! Looks like poor timing on my part…
Unfortunately I was getting inundated with requests (5+ per day) and was no longer able to respond to people efficiently.
Since I value customer satisfaction and want to give each person the most attention possible, I had to raise prices and make each resume into more of a long-term project.
Site looks excellent. Great work.
Thanks! Feedback seems positive so far, so I’m encouraged… now I just need to hire a staff to help out with everything else.
No worries, I still plan on using your resume review anyhow…haha.
The site looks good. Only criticisms I have are that your pitches of the resume review service and mock interview service slightly resemble a pop up add or a pesky salesman at the mall. This might just be me, but I feel like the resume review sort of sold itself in the previous format in the sense that all the info/stories you gave reinforced my belief that you would do a good job. The way it is now makes me feel like you’re trying to SELL me something as opposed to actually help me. I hope that made sense. Not trying to be mean or anything!
Also, I like how you changed the color scheme to accentuate the important aspects of each page, i.e. the posts, comments. However, I’m not a huge fan of the gray and black theme…my initial thought was that the site doesn’t look as inviting as it did before.
Nevertheless, I think ultimately visitors of your site will probably be more interested in the info than the format so basically all above the above was just one long aside…lol.
Yeah I thought about both methods for my new pages - the thing is, I get a ton of search visitors every day who haven’t been to my site before. When they look to buy, they’re looking for as much info. as possible… regular readers could use a much shorter page, but basically every single online marketing person out there advised me to be more descriptive rather than less. I may change them around a bit depending on feedback, we’ll see.
Yeah the gray/black theme is definitely more “grown up” - I might change the colors at some point, but I felt like I had to make things look more professional to scale the site.
Thanks for the comments.
Nice job though! And props for getting a mention in the Journal.
[...] & Inquisitions unveils a new [...]
Hey Inquisitor,
New design looks good- really well structured. I’ve had an opportunity to go through pretty much everything and have found it immensely useful. I especially like the ‘Core Content’ section and the way that you’ve broken it down into categories.
I’ve been accepted into a Summer Internship as part of the M&A team with a Big 4. From what I’ve gathered, the M&A/ Corporate Finance side plays the same role as an independent M&A adviser (Rothschild, Lazard) however focuses on the mid-market space.
Questions:
- From your experience, how are these guys viewed by the BB’s?
- They’ve only accepted a tiny group of Summer interns - will I really need to battle for a Graduate offer? Suck up to the Analysts?
- I imagine that I’ll be spending a lot of time working on pitchbooks - do you know of any online resources that I can utilise to touch-up my PowerPoint skills?
Thanks buddy!
1) About the same as regional boutiques are viewed.
2) Probably not, they have been less affected by the downturn than banks have.
3) Not offhand but honestly all you need to know are the shortcuts for alignment and such… most places have their own built-in macros so useless to try to learn it all on your own.
Inquisitor,
Like the new site and you’ll likely see a fair amount of activity after this crazy weekend of investment banking market news!
Keep up the good work.
David
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