Success Story: Aric Sethre ‘18 lands job at Blackstone

Success Stories | Apr 05, 2018 | admin

By Maja Tarateta

After being introduced to London during his junior-year study-abroad semester, Aric Sethre, BS ’18, knew he wanted to return there to work.

Capitalizing on his experience living in Germany until age 10, his ability to speak German, his summer internship with a private-equity firm, and his well-rounded course of study at Fordham, Sethre recently landed a job at Blackstone in London as the fifth member of the strategic partners team managing a private equity secondaries fund.

“They are very diverse people, with a variety of experiences and mindsets, so my own experience fit in well,” he said of the team. “The cultural fit was really vital to them.”

“They felt I would broaden their exposure to the German-speaking region including Germany, Switzerland, and Austria,” he added.

Sethre applied for the position on Blackstone’s career site. Four phone interviews led to an invitation for a “superday” of interviews in New York City, where four candidates, including two who were flown in from Europe, went through 15 rounds.

“Fordham already had a good reputation with banking, sales, and trading,” he said. “I just leveraged that and my own experiences into an offer.”

Sethre recommends that candidates try to show potential employers three essential characteristics. “Show that you are curious, hungry, and really authentic,” he said. “These are the three things that really led to my position.”

He also believes these are the hallmarks of a Fordham education. “I think the other candidates said what they thought the interviewers wanted to hear,” he recalled. “But really, the team wanted honesty and to see a hunger to learn more every day.”

For now, Sethre is finishing up his honors thesis in international-equity market correlation, “taking what I learned and applying it into a real-life study that I can use in the future.”