I know most of you grinded through college to get that SA gig and then worked very hard from there to get an FT offer. But you probably came across that one guy who stayed till 3:00 am every day even if he didn't have to just to show face or try to prove he was the most committed of your class.
So, who were the biggest hardos you came across in your years in banking?
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I was at a firm where we typically worked ~40h of billable work (~50 spent in the office) per week. Guy in the firm would regularly bill ~60h and stay in for ~70 for absolutely no reason. He was quite slow and inefficient but would regularly stay late because he felt he had to or because he thought it looked professional. He would essentially work 50% more than necessary. This would be the IB equivalent of regularly working 120h weeks when everyone else works 80h. Hardo.
Knew a guy from my SA in London. He would regularly use the entire meal stipend to load up on personal groceries for the office (mainly power bars and caffeinated drinks), and would pop adderral consistently. For the first week he tried taking over people's work ("I'll do that model for ya!"), and even slept in the bathroom stall ("10 minute commute home, bruv? No thanks!"). The staffer even recognized his antics and told him to get some proper rest, though that didn't quite stop him. Eventually he passed away from "natural causes" in the men's stall.
This sounds a lot like the plot for "Industry"
Did you need to use your little consulting frameworks to figure that one out?
Stopped watching after the first episode so if that’s what happens to the guy then I’m definitely watching it again haha
Wait... he’s dead?
Surely he meant passed out. The guy did not die in the men's stall
Natural causes?? Need some answers - was he fired ?
Had this guy in our group (Summer Associate) who did all the usual things you'd expect of when thinking about this topic; stayed way later than he needed, talked himself up, trash talked other interns in front of full-timers in the group, completely over-did his 'summer project'.
Cherry on top was... going into the final review at the end of the summer, he had this "Experience Tracker" presentation. Was a 25+ page presentation on every deal he was staffed on which included overview, deal team, pretty logos, deliverables. It even included an exec summary...
Did he get an offer?
He did... it was brought up at the town hall, but people gave the benefit of doubt in the internship setting that he reaaaaally wanted the offer.
Strange really, as it's not that difficult to get a return offer in our group. Just be a normal human being, lose/hide your insecurity, be a likeable person for a couple of months and show even a medium level of enthusiasm/positivity.
High schoolers on Wall Street oasis
Hey hey hey
Name checks out lmao
I used to be that hardo.
But it was worse. I was in public accounting. I consistently billed more hours than my peers and did good work. At the end of the year my bonus was at the top of my 10-12 person class. Me and one other person got $1,000. Everyone else got $500-$750.
NOT WORTH!!
My guess is being a post mba IB associate will require all my effort anyways. No time/room to be a hardo. Too much to learn.
lmao, this guy thinks he's gonna learn stuff in banking
Shhh! Don't tell him
Ha. It's gotta be better than public accounting.
"Our firm cultivates an environment of encouraging intellectual curiosity while providing answers for some of our client's most complex questions" - stick with the script guy
He will. Just not about things that he wants to. Gonna be a really fucking good powerpoint formatter when he's done though.
I’m in public accounting now hoping to get to IB through a good MBA program. Was it difficult getting into a good MBA and into IB from public?
Deleted
Getting into the school is half the battle. If you have 3-8 years WE, 700+ GMAT, land at a T25 program (at least), then it is very achievable. This year was a lot more competitive because of COVID and less total spots but normally that should do it. For the most part, the higher ranked your school the better your chances. That being said banks filter students in a similar fashion to schools. So if you are an M7 candidate at a T25 you will likely stand out in a good way.
Yes its possible to go B4 Audit >> MBA >> BB/EB Associate. It helps getting into business school (and most BBs) if you're not a white male, but still do-able.
Not sure if this classifies as “hardo” but thought I’d share since it’s entertaining af. Had a friend complete an internship in college, and during his time he managed to:
- burn down his kitchen
- got kicked out/ banned from one of NYC’s best clubs for fighting a dude for staring at the models he brought to his table (and then fighting the bouncer)
- spent his entire $40k-50k in internship earnings on miscellaneous things, which the CFO caught wind of and he became known as “the kid who spent all his money”
He’s a smart dude who will do well in life, but definitely a stereotypical old-school style banking hardo imo
Sounds like a fucking retard to me
What fucking internship pays 40k?
Maybe he got paid overtime. Happens for some internships at the MBA level, I know.
analysts get overtime during the summer and if the group is active will probably make more than summer associates
He is definetely not a smart dude
Heard of a kid who would stay up for several nights in a row to "prepare" for his upcoming summer analyst stint. This could was a college sophomore to be clear and hadn't even applied to jobs yet.
So so cringe
Everyone on this forum who asks how to prepare to stay up late as a banking analyst ahead of time
Imagine wanting to "practice" the worst two years of your life ahead of time
Not banking but undergrad. I went to a lower tier state school, a place where a lot of kids are grinders, first generation to go to college, etc. This one kid in our macroeconomics class would wear a full suit and carry a briefcase to class every day. Someone in class finally asks him one day where he works. Kid just responds: "School is my job". Absolute hardo.
If you looked up the word "Hardo" in the dictionary this man's picture would be next to the definition
Any chance that was in Illinois? Reminds me of my school lol
Loyola Chicago, isn't it?
New England based
Reminds me of those kids that would wear suits to my state school's finance club (when the dress code was business casual), sit in the front row, and immediately spam the speakers with their resumes when the presentation was over.
Honestly I go with the dress shirt and tie as a minimum for business casual events just to play it safe. Always heard to err on the side of being over professionally dressed rather than under.
similar thing happened in my school lol.
hardos would turn up everywhere in suits (or at the bare minimum biz casual + briefcase), while the dudes with SA/FT gigs lined up would be chilling in flip flops
Respeck
LMFAO this is absolutely the greatest thing I've ever heard 😂 "school is my job." Bwahaha
I should also note I couldn’t stand this kid, putting the above comment aside. Just a complete dick and I made it well aware I did not like him. When I got into my masters program and updated my LinkedIn he messaged me to inform me that he too would be pursuing graduate studies, albeit at a different school. Pretty sure I just unfriended him. What a wild cat
this guy walked so non target hardos could run fckn legend
makes sense when you just launched your company. Don't think this fits
1. Not a rumor
2. Being a hardo is when you're a fucking tryhard for no reason, not when you found an EB and have to grind so that you can become a billionaire
Want to find a Hardo? Just give the CFA research challenge winners a visit on LinkedIn. There you will find the cream of the crop and utter definition of a Hardo plus a plethora of LinkedIn Flexes
https://www.cfainstitute.org/en/societies/challenge/past-champions
A new hire at a company I used to work for was sick on like his third day on the job. He apparently went into the bathroom to puke, and over the course of the next two hours I saw him walk up to 3 people (including myself) and told each of us that he was sick, and had just thrown up in the bathroom. All three people (including myself) told him to go home, and his response to everyone was "nah I think I'll just stick it out for the rest of the day." Such an office hero.
This same guy would park his car next to our COO's every morning, repeat jokes senior management members would tell, buy a very small amount of donuts holes for the office every Monday, and constantly hang around senior management members at work parties.
While people are joking about Industry, back in 2011 an associate at Skadden actually died working after weeks of several back to back 100+ hours. No drugs/alcohol...just merger agreements. Horrible.
Also happened at BAML back in 2011:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25051924
A few years ago, we had a summer analyst who was living in one of the NYU dorms that has no air conditioning. He would come in on weekends sometimes when it was really hot just to enjoy the A/C. We used to rogue staff the shit out of him.
Damn that's kinda a dick move, dude's not even a hardo, just wanted to enjoy some ac LOL
Rubin Hall... Been there done that.
In the animal kingdom, who/what is the most hardo aminal?
the ant
We were once working on an analysis of potential merger targets for a client. The potential target had way higher CapEx relative to its closest public comp, which was an identical business in pretty much everyway. The difference was pretty substantial (CapEx as % of Revenue consistently 20%+ vs. 5-10% for the comp). He wanted to know how the research/investor community thought about the differences in capital intensity. We told him that equity research analysts never brought it up. He didn't believe us and didn't think the client would believe us either. So he made us pull (purchase) every single research report by a major wall street brokerage from the last 10 years that (1) was about the target company or (2) was about the competitor but mentioned the target by name in the report. He made us open every single report (thousands and thousands of reports) and control f for "CapEx", "Capital Expenditure" and a few other variations of the word to confirm that no research analyst talked about the target's capital intensity and then made us put together an excel list of every research report we went through as back-pocket support just in case the client pressed us on this.
As a follow-up: (1) the client never asked us about this and (2) the difference had to do with a difference in accounting policies related to capitalizing software development costs and not anything fundamentally different with the businesses.
The guy is an absolute lunatic
Sorry to sound like a dick, but wouldn't you guys have been able to figure out that it was related to a difference in accounting for cap software costs after pouring through thousands of reports? Maybe I'm missing something (like the accounting wasn't disclosed/discussed in the K), but just seems like something one would be able to figure out prior to paying for thousands of reports...
Literally zero reports mentioned this, it was never brought up on earnings calls and neither company had filings that clearly explained this.
this sounds exactly like investment banking. weird.
Guy during my summer was very reluctant to turn in the business expenses he incurred (including travel as we went to one cross country meeting). In part, I think to him it felt similar to awkwardly asking people to pay you back when they've borrowed money from you. That said, he was a total hardo and probably felt too that it would help him secure a full-time offer.....the idea that he was willing to financially sacrifice on account of the firm. Either way, to me it was taking it way too far. Companies are responsible for reimbursing business expenses and everyone fully understands this.
Not that I think it is common to think this way, but my parents are always shocked that I use the dinner and uber stipends that my bank offers. They think the company monitors these very closely to see who is spending what and that these get factored into my performance evals and bonus.
Me. But we got paid overtime.clipped 30k that summer. Weekends were fun to say the least
Looking back I think I was probably the most obnoxious 1st-year analyst ...
/RoastMe
Good chance I wouldn't want to get a beer with you
Well, since you asked for it, you sound like a cuck.
m/f ?
First week of work, another 1st year analyst in my team sent our staffer an email saying he was free and that I was as well and could help with staffings lol like bro what fuck off.
Yeesh
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