Do banks care about college leadership?

I will be applying to junior year SA positions at banks this summer.

Over the past two years, I was able to raise ~$200,000 in donations (multiple smaller donations, not one donation from a single whale) for my school which will go toward additional resources for a department unrelated to IB.

Obviously I know in any normal case this would look fantastic on my resume, but from what I understand, banks only focus on relevant experience, and this doesn’t seem to be relevant.

I’m going to include it, but all else equal, will it make a meaningful difference?

Also, how would M7 MBAs view it?

9 Comments
 

I would say it’s probably helpful for banks but not imperative. It will help you stand out if you hit all the other bars (experience, GPA, etc) but it won’t lift you up if you haven’t hit those.

That said, leadership is very easy to bring up in behavioral interviews. It’s one of the most commonly asked questions and you can even redirect many other broad questions to it. I.e. three strengths, why should we hire you, tell me about your leadership, tell me about a time you worked on a team, tell me about a time you struggled but overcame a challenge – this list goes on and on. I would focus on this aspect as it will help you stand out a lot from other candidates whose responses to these questions will often be extremely vanilla and uniform

 

How the heck didyou raise so much? I tried raising money for my clubs and we could raise $2K max from local businesses.

Will update my computer soon and leave Incognito so I will disappear forever. How did I achieve Neanderthal by trolling? Some people are after me so need to close account for safety.
 

Absolutely. This makes you memorable in the best way, and, assuming your GPA isn't terrible, I'd throw you in the interview pile to ask about it.

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