Strong candidate — rejection?
Is it ever the case that a strong candidate is rejected because the bank suspects that he won't take the offer, if given one?
Looking to hear from an interviewer's point of view if possible.
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Happens plenty of times. Why "waste" an offer on a candidate who will not accept?
Makes sense. Thanks. Any thoughts on rejection vs. giving an offer that explodes in a short time (e.g. under a week)?
No. Stop reaching.
Some schools have clearly spelled out rules against giving exploding offers. No banker worth anything will accept being someone's second choice. Especially not some kid out of school, regardless of what his resume looks like.
Yes. I can recall one situation we didn't extend an offer to someone because we learned our group wasn't the candidate's top choice. By the way, you should never let the interviewer know this. Why give the candidate the opportunity to shop around an offer in other interviews, etc? Also, strong candidates can be replaced easily with strong candidates when you work at a top BB (JPM, MS, GS). At a certain point, no matter what school you go to or what kind of GPA you have, your ability to contribute 2-3 years as an analyst isn't going to be that much different from the next strong/moderately strong guy or girl. Therefore, you're very replaceable.
This, but be careful not to tell multiple places that they're your top choice. If we find out (and usually we do) it's an insta-ding.
I couldn't tell you about BB's or other large firms but in lower MM PE we look out for it all the time. We know that most people want to go to a mega fund regardless of the chances (and I'm sure MM IB's know they want to go to a BB, or if you're at UBS the person wants to go to GS) so over the years you just develop a sense when you're the safety school and when people actually want to be in lower MM PE and work with us. Other factors being close to equal (such as intelligence, skills, fit, etc, as opposed to a GS TMT guy compared to a Jeffries guy), we'll almost always go for the guy who wants to work at our firm. By the time that people get to interviewing in PE they have a few years of experience so the tells aren't obvious but you just get a sense for when you think they're looking for something else. And in my world I'd rather have the person who really wants to be with us because if someone's good and perform, I want them be a lifer rather than someone always looking for the next thing.
This is very important to pay attention to as I had an MD make the exact same comment the other day. A FT offer called to ask if they could negotiate vacation days and if they could get an extension on the offer. Needless to say, they will not be working here.
For someone entering a field that in the long term consists of a ton of negotiating, and a nuanced pitting offers against each other style of negotiating, asking for those points not only says that guy didn't want to be at your firm, it says they'd suck at their job.
Yeah this happens all the time, although usually it's a little more nuanced. In the interview itself you'll get asked why this bank? If you can't convince me with your answer, regardless of how strong of a candidate you are, it shows that A) you're not that interested, and B) you didn't do enough research on the bank.
On the flip side, if you just do some info interviews or chat with some guys at the firm, you can always ask the analysts why they ended up going with that firm, then just parrot that back in the interview.
Committee definitely dinged a top candidate (high GPA, target school, amazing internships) because we thought we'd be wasting time and effort. Maybe it was a self-fulling prophecy, but she ended up going to GS.
What are your qualifications? Undergrad, GPA, etc.? What bank was this (BB or boutique?)
Of course a bank or PE firm would avoid giving an offer to someone who they were unsure would accept.
I can recall on two occasions being asked "if I was to make you an offer, would you accept it?"
This is how the hiring institution hedges their bets. The avoid shifting the relationship's power dynamic (which they feel is in their favor), helps them preserve stats and status, and feeds their ego.
Definitely happens - consider something like this situation:
Candidate A is a superstar, candidate B is still very strong, but not as strong as candidate A. Only 1 offer can be given out.
Candidate B has an exploding offer and outright said your bank is the top choice, and would reject the other offer. Candidate A gave a wishy washy answer on if your bank is their top choice, or if based on where they said they're also interviewing, connections to the city, e.g. if interviewing for a West Coast office but they grew up on the East Coast, family is there, went to school there, etc.), there's reason to doubt your bank is truly their top choice.
Can't waste time dicking around with candidate A given candidate B has an exploding offer, so candidate B gets the offer.
Edit: Shit, didn't realize this was 5 years old, saw it through Patrick's Linkedin :/
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