Monday @Mentions March 3, 2014

Thread of the Week:

This week's Thread of the Week goes to @"Mr. Manager" for his post "Lessons from a PE Superday". Not only was it a fantastic post, it also highlights the growing power of WSO on the Wall Street landscape. Ten years from now asking you what your WSO username is will be a standard interview question, so take a page out of @"Mr. Manager"'s playbook and always bring your A game. This thread earned him 29 Silver Bananas and 2 Tweets.

Comment of the Week:

The thread, "HELP- Pissed in Big 4 Audit" by @"breezy44" was a treasure trove of fantastic comments, but the one that stood out among all the others was written by @"_bird_" and it brougt in 18 Silver Bananas. He spits the inconvenient truth that, despite what we'd all like to believe about our own importance, we're all just easily replaced cogs in the wheel. Well said!

Caption Contest Winner:

This week's caption contest winner is @"animalz" with his shot about a non-target kid being so out of place at Goldman Sachs that they had to photoshop his picture in. Ouch...that's gonna leave a mark.

The Mechanic:

@"big unit" wins The Mechanic this week for his detailed instructions in Breaking the hedge fund case study. What can I say? This was just great stuff. The post earned him 29 Silver Bananas, 2 Google +1s, a Tweet, and a Facebook Like.

Guidance Counselor:

This week's Guidance Counselor goes to @"ichorturtle" for his post 11 Steps to Becoming a Finance Jedi. If you haven't read it yet, stop what you're doing and go read it now. The post earned 28 Silver Bananas, 10 Facebook Likes, 6 Tweets, and 2 Google +1s.

Honorable Mention:

We had a really strong week discussion-wise last week, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention @"endoftheroad" and his thread Leaving the Buy Side. The introspection it takes to even consider walking away from a job with 7-figure potential really resonated with you guys, and his post brought in 18 Silver Bananas, 6 Facebook Likes, and 3 Tweets.

Most Active Monkeys:

Four of you cracked triple digits this week. @"Mr. Manager" was out front with 134 banana points, with @"AndyLouis" chasing him with 116 and @"big unit" keeping up with 110. @"NorthSider" bats clean-up this week with 100 banana point even. Nicely done, fellas.

New WSO Certified Users:

I wanted to take the space here to thank and congratulate the new Certified Users from the past week. Welcome to the club. Some of these are new members, but all have confirmed that they work in the indicated industry at the level selected on their profile. All Certified Users have a gold star next to their usernames when posting in the forums, so you all know which sources you can trust the most. As WSO Certified Users, they get i) 3 months free to the WSO Job Board ($45 Value), ii) access to the private Certified User chat room to network with other professionals (priceless) and iii) a free ticket to attend the 2014 WSO Annual Conference in New York on June 28 ($200 Value!). Without further ado:

Investment Banking
@Valk - Mergers and Acquisitions - 2nd Year Analyst
@devoutCapitalist - DCM - Vice President

Private Equity
@BatMasterson - LBOs - 3rd+ Year Associate

Hedge Fund
@LeI3aron - Principal

Corporate Development
@chanky - 3rd+ Year Analyst

Commercial Banking
@blind_banker - 1st Year Analyst

Others
@"Dorsia Reservations" - 1st Year Analyst

Are you a working professional and you're interested in joining the WSO Certified User club? E-mail [email protected] and [email protected] your username and send a link to your LinkedIn profile.