Been in the HF industry for some time, but the level of aggressiveness and rudeness has become worse. I get it, many funds in L/S equity land had a sh@ year. But after having reached out to a HF (networking, but clearly looking for a seat) I received an absolutely ridiculous and outright rude response. I’m contemplating to either not respond at all or respond in a similarly aggressive fashion aware that they will not hire me. What would you do?
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Would love to share the name, but clearly they have had a tough time already.
Maybe start by telling us what actually happened?
Can we see the response?
I would just ignore it and strike that fund from my list, I would not be a cultural fit.
What will responding back in a rude way do? Make you feel a bit better when you send it and then risk that your email gets forwarded and made public? You work (or are looking to work) at a hedge fund, apply that same thought process, risk vs reward. Zero reward to do that and some risk, seems like a bad trade.
I thought the same, no upside. But after 8 years on the buy side I am fed up taking some of the shit and attitude of some people in the industry. To be clear here: the message didn’t come from a well known founder/CIO, but an absolute nobody. I even thought about forwarding the message to his boss/the founder.
But why? Who cares? If they have terrible employees or a terrible culture it is their loss, you aren’t taking sh*t (or at least it shouldn’t feel this way) because you don’t know them, value their opinion, and you shouldn’t spend more than the time it took you to read that email thinking about them.
If you think this is out of character and the firm is a good place but this is a crappy employee, sure forward it along to a higher up and ask if that’s really how they want to treat candidates/others in the industry. If that’s just the way the firm is, they are the ones that are going to have to deal with it in the long run (no one wanting to work for them, etc). Your response isn’t going to change someone who is a sh*thead that is way too engrained in their way of being (or they could have just been having a bad day)
This thread is worthless without a redacted copy of the email.
Absolutely not, really had to do my best not to two piece that guy in a response. The responses here helped with that. And if you are in the industry you know better, it’s just way too small.
If you wanted to live on the moral high ground you’d swallow your pride, be thick skinned and not rush to a message board.
Posting without providing evidence of what was said is just seeking emotional support.
Dont post personal names, fund names or any identifiable information. But if you want sympathy, then at least give us a reason to be sympathetic.
Ignore the temptation to retaliate. You gain nothing and high risk you start a fight with irrational people already proven to be emotional and obnoxious. Nothing good comes of it.
Max I got was "I'm afraid we have no interest in meeting you. Best wishes" when I cold emailed with a message like "(...) I am available to meet if that interests you"
I thought that was rude enough then, lol. But seems like you've got something much worse
I would resist as it's just downside... they can and prob will fuck you big time in this small industry
Rejections and even humiliations are part of the game
Maybe when you land a job and have less reputational downside, get back to them and say smth
how is that rude? they have no interest in meeting you and we're direct in their response.
they didn't say anything bad about u just they don't wanna meet
Annoying but my advice is that in scenarios like this, you stand to gain nothing and stand to lose a lot (being blackballed, having a few people in the industry not like you, etc). 0 tangible reward, unlimited loss. You would never pull trig on a financial trade like this so why pull it for an emotional/logistic one.
I think you’ve already done the best thing here - share it anonymously to link minded folks, we all empathize and bash the douche, you feel supported and somewhat vindicated and you live to fight another day
Welcome to the hedge fund world my friend
There is something about the finance industry and assholes. That said, I can't begin to tell you the number of autists who email me asking for advice or a job and come off incredibly rude.
If it were me, scorched earth motherfucker.
I will 100% go petty and nasty with that individual, and made it very fucking clear they/he/she have made an enemy in the industry.
I couldn't care less about the comments above. I'd rather send a clear message that 'You don't fuck with me'.
Or maybe that's just me, at least as far as I know, this would never happen to me given people inside and outisde of my firm, are scared of me. I went ballistic a few times in the past and shredding a few individuals to pieces, only had a few small HR talks as a result, but since then no one ever crossed me. I retain absolute power, unquestionable authority, authoritarian reign at my pod. I stop caring about 'professionalism' a long time ago. This isn't IB or PE where the working environment is filled with risk-averse beta cucks. This is HF, you have durable alpha and you can do whatever the fuck you want, especially if you made PM and still smashing it during multiple market cycles. I can carve out my strategy any fucking time to run my own family office.
Bottom line, the only reason we do HF because we don't have to schmooze, either to clients, or colleagues or peers. Make enemies, lots of them, and subjugate them, period.
Oh man the egos in this industry. That’s all good and well when you are creating alpha, have one or two bad years (or quarters) and see how “scared” people are of you. People aren’t scared, people just don’t want to deal with your sh*t and will find the first reason to throw you out when you trip up. You don’t have to schmooze, but think about it, your attitude is exactly the reason the OP gets responses like that, heck you might be the person on the other end of this email.
No one is saying suck up, but the fact that things like this trigger you say more about you than anything else. If you were happy, confident, and had a good thing going you wouldn’t give 2 sh*ts about someone being rude to you. What’s the point of writing back? You really think that’s going to “scare” this person? Make them “not mess with you”? Please, people don’t care enough about your opinion to be impacted by your angry rants.
You sound like my friend group lol
Public equity investors pride themselves on being able to see what is in front of them without personal bias. In front of you right now is a feeble-minded, nobody slighting the mere thought of you reaching out to him. End him. Make it ugly.
.
Looking for a job cm45? Catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
Questions for OP: was the person you got that blowback from someone involved in legal? Because that's kind of par for the course with them, but once you learn that it's almost schadenfreude watching colleagues pull your reaction after dealing with them. Or were they just some cranky analyst who wants to try and flex on someone to make up for their crap decisions and results and simple fact that they're just an analyst and their narcissism is ratcheting up telling them they should be the PM/CIO?
Sleeping with his wife seems to be the easy solution here.
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