HYP or other Ivy League grads working low-level service jobs?

Everyone here can relate to the "I heard the brother of my friend's wife's cousin's sister who graduated from Harvard couldn't find a real job and is now working at Starbucks." Does anyone actually know someone in this situation though? Granted the recession has been tough on everybody but it can't be too hard for an Ivy League graduate to get at least some type of F500 job, even if it is a back office role.

 
ivoteforthatguy:
Schadenfreude much?

Yes. H'97 working at Macy's on the sales floor.

I don't feel the least bit sorry for any Ivy Leaguer who can't find a job even in this economy.

 
ivoteforthatguy:
Schadenfreude much?

Yes. H'97 working at Macy's on the sales floor.

Y'96 here, working as a substitute teacher. But in all fairness when I try to get the "entry level" jobs in my major field, all these years later, it's "that was a long time ago, can we have some more recent work references and don't you dare use anyone at Yale" sort of thing.

Also, in all fairness, Princeton has a teacher licensing program but that doesn't mean there are enough teaching jobs to go around with all the state budget cuts and layoffs. Back in the 90's it was easier for a new or substitute teacher to "moonlight" but now, if you can't find a teaching job even those jobs you used to call your "moonlighting" job aren't there.

 

There was an article in the newspaper (can't remember where- google iyw) of a Princeton girl who only found part-time low-level work at a PR firm near her hometown of Chicago. There was a Penn guy I knew personally who was working at Ace hardware store full-time.I'm sure there are plenty of ivy graduates every year working in jobs where a college degree isn't required. The richer ones have their family business to fall back on but otherwise would have nothing- like a Brown girl I personally know who sits at her father's newspaper.

But the absolute worst are the top-school graduates who are unemployed b/c they feel that they are "too above" taking a low-level job- like a northwestern (I know its not ivy- but close) girl I know personally who has been unemployed for two years.

This is why I'm a bit taken back when I see non-targets with sub-par GPAs and non-sense ideas on the economy and markets talk about wanting front-office jobs at BBs...."Great...But assuming labor market efficiency- why should YOU get it?" A great failing of this board is that the younger people (e.g. underclassmen undergrads) don't understand the large amount of competition for a respectable job- forget front-office wall street.

Obviously these top-school graduates doing below-average jobs are also lacking something serious that the average person has (whatever you want to call it- "gumption" or whatever) - its still at least partly indicative of the times.

 
Seigniorage:
There was an article in the newspaper (can't remember where- google iyw) of a Princeton girl who only found part-time low-level work at a PR firm near her hometown of Chicago. There was a Penn guy I knew personally who was working at Ace hardware store full-time.I'm sure there are plenty of ivy graduates every year working in jobs where a college degree isn't required. The richer ones have their family business to fall back on but otherwise would have nothing- like a Brown girl I personally know who sits at her father's newspaper.

But the absolute worst are the top-school graduates who are unemployed b/c they feel that they are "too above" taking a low-level job- like a northwestern (I know its not ivy- but close) girl I know personally who has been unemployed for two years.

This is why I'm a bit taken back when I see non-targets with sub-par GPAs and non-sense ideas on the economy and markets talk about wanting front-office jobs at BBs...."Great...But assuming labor market efficiency- why should YOU get it?" A great failing of this board is that the younger people (e.g. underclassmen undergrads) don't understand the large amount of competition for a respectable job- forget front-office wall street.

Regarding what you said about non-targets who seek BB FO positions -- although it's definitely an uphill battle, in the end hard work, determination and perserverance will win out. If these "non-target" seemingly "uncompetitive" people work hard enough, they may get noticed and vault ahead of those Ivy League grads who simply rest on their laurels (in their case, their diplomas).

Obviously these top-school graduates doing below-average jobs are also lacking something serious that the average person has (whatever you want to call it- "gumption" or whatever) - its still at least partly indicative of the times.[/quote]

 

HYP here.

Tons of friends are doing odd things. None are unemployed except by choice. Anyone who wanted a finance or consulting job eventually got it, even if it took time.

I know it's heresy here, but many kids just don't want these jobs. They did internships, had offers and just bailed on it. Some did typical things: law school, med school, TFA. Others are coaching sports, working at random companies, non-professional grad school.

********************************* “The American father is never seen in London. He passes his life entirely in Wall Street and communicates with his family once a month by means of a telegram in cipher.” - Oscar Wilde
 

While I can't imagine it applies to all Ivy students, there must be a couple out there working jobs that they actually enjoy even though others would perceive those jobs as "below them".

 

Honestly, any Ivy kid who isn't employed either has some social malfunction, or is an asshole. The alumni from a state school can hook up even the WORST candidate, so I totally fail to see how anyone from Harvard is on the dole.

No sympathy, no excuses, sorry don't want to hear it.

Get busy living
 
Best Response
UFOinsider:
Honestly, any Ivy kid who isn't employed either has some social malfunction, or is an asshole. The alumni from a state school can hook up even the WORST candidate, so I totally fail to see how anyone from Harvard is on the dole.

No sympathy, no excuses, sorry don't want to hear it.

That's horseshit. I'm at an Ivy and I know many people that are smarter/harder-working/more social/in harder programs than me that didn't even get interviews at banks. Many people.

Going to an Ivy does NOT entitle you to a job in banking/consulting, even if you have a good GPA in the "right" major. Sorry, that's just not the case. A lot of extremely bright, qualified people I know have crappy internships/starting jobs because the economy sucks and companies just aren't hiring to the extent that they were.

It's not for lack of effort, it's for lack of opportunity. Some people get lucky, others don't, and to the extent we make most of our own luck, 85% of people at Ivies are motivated, driven, and hard-working, and have done all they can to secure the best possible careers.

The other 15% don't need to work anyway.

Also, quotas. Goldman, for example, took 12 people from my school, Barclays another 12, not sure about numbers for the other banks but I'd guess similar numbers. But there's a finite number of recruiting firms and positions available, and once those slots are filled, say 60-70, you're left with hundreds of people for whom there isn't space at a bank or consulting firm that recruits. Maybe some get jobs purely through networking with firms that don't recruit on campus (as I did), but that still leaves hundreds of people with nothing.

You seem to think that firms recruit at non-Ivies when they've "run out" of qualified people at those schools, but that's just not the case. There's a predetermined number (maybe flexible by 1 or 2 in special cases) that they will take, but after that they simply move on to the next school.

 
UFOinsider:
Honestly, any Ivy kid who isn't employed either has some social malfunction, or is an asshole. The alumni from a state school can hook up even the WORST candidate, so I totally fail to see how anyone from Harvard is on the dole.

No sympathy, no excuses, sorry don't want to hear it.

I'm new to this site, and I assumed from your other posts that you were a more serious poster, but this is a load of shit.

I went to an Ivy and I knew kids who ended up at sales jobs at horrible companies. Fact is that the Ivies graduate like what 25k undergrads a year? It's not as if every top job feeds to Ivy students and then to "lower" schools - that's only true of a few industries.

Not many Harvard English Lit majors can waltz into a firm and say "do you know who I am?!" and get a cushy office job. These people end up at Borders or trying to sell shit on Etsy.

 

well stop majoring in english lit then, even if it is harvard.

NorthEastIdiot:
UFOinsider:
Honestly, any Ivy kid who isn't employed either has some social malfunction, or is an asshole. The alumni from a state school can hook up even the WORST candidate, so I totally fail to see how anyone from Harvard is on the dole.

No sympathy, no excuses, sorry don't want to hear it.

I'm new to this site, and I assumed from your other posts that you were a more serious poster, but this is a load of shit.

I went to an Ivy and I knew kids who ended up at sales jobs at horrible companies. Fact is that the Ivies graduate like what 25k undergrads a year? It's not as if every top job feeds to Ivy students and then to "lower" schools - that's only true of a few industries.

Not many Harvard English Lit majors can waltz into a firm and say "do you know who I am?!" and get a cushy office job. These people end up at Borders or trying to sell shit on Etsy.

"...the art of good business, is being a good middle man, putting people togeather. It's all about honor and respect."
 
<span class=keyword_link><a href=/resources/skills/economics/seigniorage target=_blank>Seigniorage</a></span>:
But the absolute worst are the top-school graduates who are unemployed b/c they feel that they are "too above" taking a low-level job- like a northwestern (I know its not ivy- but close) girl I know personally who has been unemployed for two years.
This sums up my experience with Ivy kids who are unemployed - and I know a few - because they are A) lazy or B) snot nosed asses.

Also, I said unemployed in my original post, seriously, work on the reading comprehension. In all seriousness though, I find it hard to believe that it's anyone's fault but the Ivy student's fault if they end up in a shitty CSR job. How on earth does one go from Princeton to making less than a short order cook?

It's assumed that not everyone can or wants to do IBD, but when I see a Harvard grad working at an ice cream shop (I knew one personally for a while) I KNOW that they are not applying themselves. The majority of people going to these schools have at least average intelligence, and I see failing to take advantage of the opportunity in a very poor light.

I'm merely stating in an aggressive manner what should be painfully obvious: when people from elite schools don't have decent (again, I'm not saying GS TMT) jobs, 99.9999% of the time it's their own fault.

For the record, the majority of people I've ever met from Ivy schools were incredibly competent people, so I'm not contesting that....I just don't buy the line "I studied theoretical math and econometrics at Yale, and now I can't get a job better than groundskeeper"........not one bit.

Get busy living
 

Fuck HYP undergrads. I know a JD from a third-tier state university who could not land a law gig and is working as a floor manager at a retail outlet. The collection agencies have added so much interest and penalties that they have doubled her student loans from $140 K at the time of graduation to $280 K now. They harass her frequently even though they know that she has no money and has to support 2 kids. She cannot even get rid of her student loans in a bankruptcy. This whole education thing is a fucking rip-off. The universities need to publish relaible placement stats upfront instead of ruining the students' lives.

 

i dont feel sorry for people like this. anyone with half a brain should know a JD from a tier-3 school isn't worth the paper its printed on. and on top of that, she took loans of 140K - what was her plan to pay it off? - become a corp lawyer with tier 3 JD (unlikely to happen). if she couldnt even come to that conclusion prior to starting law...i wouldnt hire her to be my lawyer anyways

placement stats? you're one of those ppl that probably thinks gov's create jobs too. no one owes you shit. and that includes universities...welcome to life, junior.

TraderJoe1976:
Fuck HYP undergrads. I know a JD from a third-tier state university who could not land a law gig and is working as a floor manager at a retail outlet. The collection agencies have added so much interest and penalties that they have doubled her student loans from $140 K at the time of graduation to $280 K now. They harass her frequently even though they know that she has no money and has to support 2 kids. She cannot even get rid of her student loans in a bankruptcy. This whole education thing is a fucking rip-off. The universities need to publish relaible placement stats upfront instead of ruining the students' lives.
"...the art of good business, is being a good middle man, putting people togeather. It's all about honor and respect."
 
UFOinsider:
Honestly, any Ivy kid who isn't employed either has some social malfunction, or is an asshole. The alumni from a state school can hook up even the WORST candidate, so I totally fail to see how anyone from Harvard is on the dole.

No sympathy, no excuses, sorry don't want to hear it.

I graduated from a very respectable top 20 school, and my friend and I were just discussing this possibility. It's pretty classic how the first response is a woman from Harvard who works Macy's salesfloor.

I chose the above quote because it is amazingly ironic. It's pretty insensitive, which is something that might land someone with a reputation for being an asshole. Combine that with the knowledge that so many people most of us know personally who are in positions of power are also assholes, and it makes for an insinuation that, in fact, being an asshole is a must to succeed in the corporate world.

That's why my friend and I sell drugs now. It's better than scrubbing a Macy's salesfloor in order to make some asshole richer.

 
CapitalismA+:
UFOinsider:
Honestly, any Ivy kid who isn't employed either has some social malfunction, or is an asshole. The alumni from a state school can hook up even the WORST candidate, so I totally fail to see how anyone from Harvard is on the dole.

No sympathy, no excuses, sorry don't want to hear it.

I graduated from a very respectable top 20 school, and my friend and I were just discussing this possibility. It's pretty classic how the first response is a woman from Harvard who works Macy's salesfloor.

I chose the above quote because it is amazingly ironic. It's pretty insensitive, which is something that might land someone with a reputation for being an asshole. Combine that with the knowledge that so many people most of us know personally who are in positions of power are also assholes, and it makes for an insinuation that, in fact, being an asshole is a must to succeed in the corporate world.

That's why my friend and I sell drugs now. It's better than scrubbing a Macy's salesfloor in order to make some asshole richer.

I see nothing at all ironic about this statement, it's flat out true. Furthermore, I don't give two shits what you think of me and have no use for your approval. Facts are, you don't need perfect grades from the best school to get most jobs....so when someone from an Ivy ends up selling jewelry, it probably has little to do with their education. It's not an issue of sympathy/asshole, it's a function of .....why did this person not line up other work for the 4 years they were in a recruiting environment? Why don't they take advantage of it now? What is it that causes them to accept this low paying job and not try for something else??? People on this site are ridiculous and obsess over a small spectrum of jobs in one industry, but realistically, most jobs AREN'T that hard to get. You just have to be persistent, show up, and don't be stupid.

If you think that being a drug dealer is going to ultimately land you a better life than other employment, I don't know what to tell you. Ultimately, it's a low paying job in a highly saturated market and the 'players' typically end up shot/jaild/both over the long term. Short term, maybe it's different. Good luck with that.

Get busy living
 

Think about something for me. The people on an Ivy League admissions committee are usually people from that school who can't find jobs elsewhere and come from pretty obscure majors. They're the ones who apply for the jobs in admissions anyway though. And you think that the people these idiots choose to admit make for better human beings than the rest of the world? A bunch of toolish Philosophy majors whose two job offers were Princeton Admissions and Starbucks Barista don't make the distinction between who's Ivy League caliber and who's not, even if they make the admission choices. I hate the "Ivy League" tag people feel actually means something.

I hate victims who respect their executioners
 

What ufoinsider said in this thread is completely wrong. I have many friends that were unable to secure an employment and had to resort to grad school soon after graduation. Most of my friends in this group are attending law schools now.

A close friend of mine is working as a SAT instructor now. Princeton class of 2011. Political science major. Don't know his exact gpa, but I heard it was somewhere in low 3's. Don't know exactly how my friend approached his job search for last year or so since graduation, but he told me that only jobs he could find so far were sales jobs, as in retail sales or insurance sales. And, I knew countless others who were unable to land any white collar entry level job at all, despite having Ivy diplomas. I am not talking about getting an analyst position at Goldman or McKinsey. I'm talking about a 50k/yr entry level white collar office job.

In this economy, I would say that a humanities degree even from HYP, unless combined with top gpa, doesn't do much good for employment. I was an econ major and I graduated without a job offer, mainly due to low gpa... but fortunately I managed to get an offer soon after graduation, although it wasn't the type of job I desired the most.

 
IvyGrad:
What ufoinsider said in this thread is completely wrong. I have many friends that were unable to secure an employment and had to resort to grad school soon after graduation. Most of my friends in this group are attending law schools now.

A close friend of mine is working as a SAT instructor now. Princeton class of 2011. Political science major. Don't know his exact gpa, but I heard it was somewhere in low 3's. Don't know exactly how my friend approached his job search for last year or so since graduation, but he told me that only jobs he could find so far were sales jobs, as in retail sales or insurance sales. And, I knew countless others who were unable to land any white collar entry level job at all, despite having Ivy diplomas. I am not talking about getting an analyst position at Goldman or McKinsey. I'm talking about a 50k/yr entry level white collar office job.

In this economy, I would say that a humanities degree even from HYP, unless combined with top gpa, doesn't do much good for employment. I was an econ major and I graduated without a job offer, mainly due to low gpa... but fortunately I managed to get an offer soon after graduation, although it wasn't the type of job I desired the most.

thank you for the reality check.

 

Bottom line now is it's difficult to find a job period, forget about in banking, consulting, corp finance, etc. People on this site have a very warped view. I went to non target state school in NE and was applying to be a night stocker at Lowes and a pizza delivery guy before I landed this job through an alumnus. It's absolutely conceivable that an Ivy grad with a humanities degree could be working a bullshit retail job at the mall. Whenever any of you monkeys get angry that you're not working at KKR, GS TMT, etc just remember it could be a LOT worse.

 

Why such an infatuation with the Ivy League grads or students? It's pretty sad and idiotic to create a thread wondering if unemployed Ivy grads exist.

What's even more comical are claims from non targets getting FO positions. Do you the math, no one believes you. You're working MO or BO and you're only angle is an MBA. Keep playing the lottery.

 

You guys are all ridiculous. You go to college to become a more knowledgeable/learned individual and gain a strong skillset (critical thinking and analytical skills) that will be transferrable to any post-graduation endeavor, not just to get a better job.

Very few people strike out at Harvard OCR. You are much worse off at NYU Stern or Michigan Ross where everyone is fighting tooth and nail for banking and consulting jobs/internships. There are a lot of Harvard grads who are more interested in medical school, public health, journalism, teaching, academia, fine arts, etc. than finance. This applies to all the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke, UChicago, etc.

There are some people who go to college just for the sake of learning. Being surrounded by the most brilliant minds in your generation and being taught by world-renowned professors are what Harvard students are paying $200K for, not the banking and consulting OCR.

Harvard would be the same quality institution even if no bulge bracket bank or consulting firm showed up for OCR.

 

As a recent Harvard grad, I have seen many of my classmates struggle post-graduation. Thing is, many of them come from families with means so rather than work low-level service jobs, they just live/travel on their parents' dime.

 

Yep, I knew someone like that - me. Not Ivy, but an Ivy-equivalent target. The only offer I had was from a PR firm doing a graduate internship. Salary: 30k. for NYC.

Thankfully eventually got an offer, but I know I wasn't the only one. I had some friends who graduated and were working shitty jobs just to buy time/pay the bills while still gunning for finance/consulting/tech.

Currently: future neurologist, current psychotherapist Previously: investor relations (top consulting firm), M&A consulting (Big 4), M&A banking (MM)
 

I posted the "graduated from a top target and still unemployed thread" last week, so case in point, but I haven't given up or anything. I don't know what it'll look like in a year or further down the road, but I do know a lot of people still looking for jobs. It's not exactly something people publicize though.

Oh and as finance/consulting-oriented as my school was, a ton of people have no interest in either field. Lots of people in some of the softer majors working odd jobs.

 

If you have to work a crap job for a short time, corporate security guard is the best. Paid to study and hang out in the office and made some great contacts. Both of a professional nature and a personal one.

MSFS Incoming Intern
 

There are some people who are misguided in their major and career ambitions (i.e. making it in music, film, acting, etc.) and end up living with their parents for a year or two. However, the fact of the matter is that having an Ivy League background get you in the door at least somewhere that is somewhat prestigious, even with a sub-3.00 GPA.

 

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