Do kids ever get ignored/dinged for having too good of a resume?

Hey guys,

So simple question. In the context of graduate and summer recruiting, do firms ever ignore (don't even call) or reject kids because their resumes are too stacked? Also are people less likely to respond to a cold email from someone with a sick resume?

Maybe it's a concern that the person has too many finance items and so is a robot? Or maybe they are concerned with you not taking an offer if given? If you saw a rising senior with 2 BB IBD summers and a megafund PE internship, and you were only a MM PE fund, would you be unlikely to respond to his application?

I've also found that if you are very stacked internship wise, people stop willing to respond to cold emails asking for coffees and informational interviews. It seems like once you achieve "success" in terms of internships, you cannot carve your own opportunities at small less formal firms anymore, but instead you are forced down the path of only applying to structured application processes (think BB summer apps).

Does anyone share the same thoughts?

 

If you did indeed had that many internships (e.g. 2x BB summers and a MF PE summer as you mentioned), then you would and should have built your network at these firms so that you have people to reach out to regarding vacancies come FT hiring.

Can't comment too much on being "overqualified", which sounds ridiculous given this person is still a student or fresh grad, but i wouldn't fault a smaller firm to question the candidate's commitment should an offer be made out.

 

I've seen "full" resumes get dinged because the resume didn't tell a cohesive story e.g. internships in consulting, AM, IB, Accounting.

I've also seen people get dinged because their resumes were waaaay above the job requirement and there was fear hiring them would be "disruptive" to the hiring flow e.g. you hire a 3rd year analyst as a 1st year, end up effectively demoting your 2nd years as opposed to hiring people who can support them (or at least be equals)

 

It does happen. If your resume is significantly above the typical hire of a firm, they may not grant you an interview on account of the fact you are simply using them as a "safety." Specifically, where in the event you did interview and get an offer, the feeling was you were unlikely to take it. I saw this happen during my undergrad where kids with BB IBD caliber resumes applied for audit accounting type positions.

It can also happens in school admissions. I had a colleague applying to law school. Got into ALL the top schools (including Yale) but waitlisted an Upenn.

 
23mich:

It can also happens in school admissions. I had a colleague applying to law school. Got into ALL the top schools (including Yale) but waitlisted an Upenn.

lol this happened to me. It's a tactic to boost the school's USWNR ranking by making it appear as if the school is more "selective" than others.

On topic: Yes. For example, if my firm is hiring an analyst, we will only consider those candidates whom we feel are a match in terms of experience/comp expectations. If we wanted someone to do associate-level work, we'd hire an associate.

 

Yeah, this can totally happen. We'll probably give all the top resumes a phone interview, but when it comes down to superday invites, and definitely for offers, a "will they accept" and more importantly "What are the chances they stay for 2+ years" is a big consideration. Last year we dinged a guy with a 3.9 from Wharton undergrad with 3 PE internships. Nice enough guy, but he was clearly going to jump to PE at first chance possible once he had "IB Analyst" stamped on his resume. Assuming they're good enough to hang around for the A2A promotion, we'd like at least a 50% chance of them accepting it.

 

Literally just got rejected for a telecom sales job at a F500 because the recruiter felt like my experience/achievements are too much for an entry level outside sales job ( i only have 1 year b2b exp), and i need to apply for a higher level one (that is not even available/hiring).

Crazy

 

The short answer is - yes - there can be. I'll refrain from commenting too much on your friend's position, but there are certainly candidates out there I would not hire for an analyst (or associate) job because they are over qualified. The primary issue here is not that i'm intimidated - quite the contrary, I actually would love to have someone with more experience reporting to me. However, the issue is whether they will be willing to do the work and frankly whether they will be sufficiently challenged in the role to perform at their best. At some point, experienced professionals feel, and usually rightfully so, that they shouldn't have to do certain tasks. Sometimes this attitude is reflected openly, and others it becomes a passive aggressive be issue. In either case, the attitude is unhelpful to the rest of the team. Also, if you place someone in a job where they feel underutilized, it can inadvertently cause similar issues. Personally, I would always prefer to have someone more experienced, but you've got to be sure the personality fit is right for the job. In the case of your friend, the one thing I will say is that by assigning him the task of filtering resumes, the senior team members pretty clearly indicated they were looking for a very junior role (otherwise they would have asked someone else to deal with it --- your friend isnt sorting the MD resumes for example). So, if the role is that junior - its probably best to look for someone who is hungry to do that work and won't be bored by it.

 

These days, you get all sorts of resumes when posting a job. Just a couple months ago, I posted a job in the newspaper for an entry level A/P clerk, no experience necessary, well train on peoplesoft. Guess what, I got three distinct resumes; one from a guy with 20 years experience as a CPA(and still holds a CPA license, I looked it up on the state website), one former CFO of a small company $92k yearly income(out of work for 3 years), and one from a former accounting manager of the city I reside in with 15 years experience. I didn't even bother calling them in for interviews. Quite frankly, all of them would quit when a better opportunity comes along.

In all honesty, I was looking to hire some high school grad who would've been grateful to earn $12.00/hr instead of $8.00/hr flipping burgers. I mean it is a simple task, bills come in, enter the amount and description, and click ok. I don't need some mental math expert who enters bills in at a rate of 3 bills faster per minute. There isn't even enough bills to justify hiring two people.

It is not about the title that you have, it is about how much money that you have.
 

I think its a potential to grow thing too. I know several undergrads who work with Master level students but in the workplace you are all on par for promotion (to associate level or whatever). I reckon they assume undergrads are more 'hungry' whereas Master level students tend to be more mature/have thought everything out. Sometimes being 'perfect' for the role is not what they are looking for. Also if it took a Master level student an extra year/2 years to learn roughly the same amount of finance that the undergrad will have to learn in 2 months of intensive training - and then they are both equal - who would you hire? Last but not the least - undergrads generally care less about getting crap work and people feel less guilty about it too. Would you really want to give the top 1% scorer of the top business school's Master in Finance student crap work? Or a undergrad who got a 2:1 and whose happy to just do anything to learn more - since they know practically nothing haha.

 

I think it's probably pretty analogous to applying to college. Some safety schools reject you because you're overqualified and they know that the second you get accepted to a more selective school you're gonna ditch them. Same thing here probably. If a Masters grad is doing analyst work, they're gonna jump on the first opportunity they can to get a better position (so would everyone, but the difference is people who are 'overqualified' may have more opportunities to do so).

So the end result of having to throw away resumes of very qualified people, but the rationale makes sense. Unless you're rationale is that you just don't wanna be the boss of someone your senior. In which case...c'mon brah.

Remember, once you're inside you're on your own. Oh, you mean I can't count on you? No. Good!
 
Imperialian:
Ok, I have a friend who is a first year analyst and the firm is recruiting for another analyst for next year. So of course tons of people applied and he was asked to sieve through the pile.

He told me that there were people who fit the profile, with relevant job experience/internships but are older with an masters or MBA. Then I was shocked to learn that he threw their resumes out of the window. I was like why?

He told me he felt threatened as he had no Masters and only a undergrad degree. Also some of these people were older than him, and said he can't boss the person around that much. I was shocked to hear that.

Then he admitted, if he was the boss, he would hire them in a heartbeat because talented individuals are always valued at organizations to help it grow, regardless of age or education. But then it sucks to be them because a first year analyst is sorting through the resumes.
He ended up selecting fresh undergraduates from Ivy league schools for interviews. My friend is from Ivy league as well so he did not feel as threatened by them. Not too shabby but I am appalled by the discrimination that takes place at the lower tiers of the recruitment process.

Don't worry. We're also probably friends with his manager or one of his manager's friends, so we can get an interview too.

I think life works better when we ignore credentials and focus on competence and personal skills.

Credentials never intimidated me that much when I was doing recruiting work. And if you're a more competent person than me, I want to be friends with you. I may not want you working 90 hours/week and getting your work compared against mine, but it's probably better for me that you are a part of our company than working for the competition.

I think recruiters do take issue with arrogance. If you are a Harvard MBA and talking with a trader, salesperson or even a guy in research, be aware that they will be really sensitive to any sort of entitlement. You are recruiting on your competence and personal skills, not the brand name on your resume.

 
eliteculture:
Those are just bunch insecure analysts like Patrick Bateman. Grow the fuck up and embrace the competition, this is what we need in this country, fucking competitions, may the best win.
Bateman is a VP. He skipped the analyst level since his father practically owns the company.
 

If you think that's bad how about first year analysts that are part of their target school's recruitment process and discriminate against candidates based on things that have absolutely nothing to do with how good of an analyst the candidate is (fraternity connections, went to the same hs as them, football team) or just based on if this person will be their friend and go out with them. Obviously you don't want to hire a anti-social closet person with no social skills but there is a great deal of bias when first year analysts are involved.

I remember interviewing with a firm and was half-dinged at the pre-superday dinner because one of the analysts felt I talked about work too much (this was not even the case).

 

I am not intimidated by younger people, but I am sometimes wary of hiring kids who are too "perfect" in terms of qualifications and general "polish" because I am going to be asking them to do alot of grunt work and I find that sometimes the most qualified people think they are above stuff like that. I have no time for people who arent willing to 100% commit to what is going on in the present and sometimes the super-qualified types are transparently dedicated to their own advancement on an unrealistically fast timeline.

 
Imperialian:
I think there are some bias going....

1) qualified people are not willing to do grunt work. so does that mean I should make my resume not that strong? Does not make sense.

2) Undergraduates are less likely to switch jobs than masters/mba students? everyone is selfish. undergrads included. if there is a better opportunity, they will switch too.

No of course I wouldnt make my resume look worse intentionally...however I would make it a point to let interviewers know that you arent an arrogant prick and are willing to do whatever you are asked to do.

 

Don't be self depreciating, being too smart is not a liability. Say you know that you've done well, and that's why you're here: so you can keep doing better. Self depreciation is sometimes seen as a fault. Hunger and drive never are.

"There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter, or cheat."
 

The SAT is a pretty good predictor of intelligence. Don't stress. I would not expect a question from an employer about why 2390 rather than 2400. Tell 'em that you were focusing on school, because there is a near zero statistical difference between the two. Hell, if somebody asks you that, you probably don't even want to go work for them!

"When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is." - Oscar Wilde "Seriously, psychology is for those with two x chromosomes." - RagnarDanneskjold
 

They're fucking with you to see how you handle it; it's happened to me too. It's a good thing. Just say that you feel like you've done well in school but you've had time to do other things as well, blah blah blah. Don't let them box you in as a nerd.

As for the SAT, tell them you'd obviously prefer a 2400 but you were happy with the score when you got it. It's a great score, don't back down from it. But the conversation also isn't going to go anywhere that really helps you. Your interviewer is NOT actually interested in discussing a 10 point difference on your SAT. So answer politely, confidently, and let him switch to another topic.

 

I think if you're coming off as self-deprecating, it's almost as bad as being overconfident.

When I get questions like that I just say something to the effect of 'I worked hard and therefore, I achieved an excellent result.' Don't say any more than that or else you'll give them more ammunition.

 

Trying hard to troll, but receiving proper advice instead... Oh, the irony!

  • If they are serious about the questions, it's to see how you react under pressure. Will you keep your cool, or not? Will you be overly defensive?
  • If it's just a remark, then they're making a joke. This is a good sign.
  • You're not too smart for IBD. There are 4.0 GPA, perfect SAT types in IBD. Anyway, IBD is a sales & execution job and intelligence/grades can only take you so far.
  • Don't worry, your resume isn't too strong. You haven't mentioned any relevant internship experience or ECs. You need to work on this ASAP.
 
Relinquis:
- Don't worry, your resume isn't too strong. You haven't mentioned any relevant internship experience or ECs. You need to work on this ASAP.

Agreed and having the type of personality to think your resume is too good is a huge negative. I don't want some undergrad thinking he can do my job better than me just because he only missed one question on the SAT. 3-4 years out of college no one gives a shit about your grades/SAT score unless you're applying to b-school and then only the adcoms care about GPA.

These guys are just trying to make a joke, quit taking yourself so seriously.

 

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“...all truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” - Schopenhauer
 

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