Edit / Clarification: Grades are NOT the only metric. But they MATTER.
I've been noticing a lot of posts recently with people asking about their chances at recruiting if they have weak grades. I often hear the message that grades are not everything, that soft skills are important too. While it's true that I don't want to work with a robot (airplane test etc.), the thing I care most about is my potential colleague's ability to do the job. If I could only pick a single factor to evaluate a potential junior banker on (in terms of a "paper" application - no interview), I would choose grades.
I've heard some people say that grades aren't always well correlated with performance. I agree. But I would counter that if you could pick one other metric that you think is better what would it be?
A more traditional school of thought would suggest that grades are a proxy for work ethic, ability to learn and base level knowledge / intelligence which are important factors of success in a junior banker's career.
Unlike stocks, for people past behaviour is often a good proxy for future behaviour. I'm very hesitant to provide a recommendation for someone who has weak grades.
Most banks have a cut-off that isn't insurmountable. I'm not too far from it. I highly respect people with grades well in excess of the cut-off because you can often tell that they earned it (something I have not done, could not have done and therefore value greatly). I have usually found that I enjoy working with these ambitious individuals.
Would love to hear any other opinions.
Eh, in my experience grades are basically used as a proxy when no better one exists. I had a kid apply that had like a 2.5 GPA but raised his younger brother after their dad died. I wasn't about to question his 'work ethic'. Similarly I have had people with 3.9 GPAs be total dogshit entitled dickholes.
Your GPA tells your story unless you have a better one that goes beyond it (like internships, outside activites, etc). Thats basically what it comes down to.
Agree that grades matter in recruitment, but if I had 1 factor alone to base hiring off of (and we're talking about college grad recruitment) it would be internships--quality internships. Quality internships show that the individual had either the grades, soft skills or both to obtain a sought after internship. This allows for other people (other organizations) to do the heavy lifting for me.
Tbh grades are a good indicator of what you need from an analyst - someone who can work till 3-4am and show up next day and not get tired (which is what you get from a good school, tough major, high GPA person). The social guy who might be fun to get a beer with generally disappears early, gets drunk at a weekday night and doesn't show up next day till noon and can't even find him to open the conference line, even from his bed. Happens more often than you'd think and his social skills are pretty useless cause his only client interaction is carrying roadshow decks. BUT best analysts are ones who will just work hard, do whatever is asked with grounded expectation of the job, and lack a privileged mindset (e.g. I'm to good to do this). They can be from a "lower" school, but they're not a 2.5 who was messing around for last 4 years either. In any case, tough for 22-23 year olds to deal with the demands of the job with little recognition.
Also analysts can be dumb. You need some intelligence, and we have few dumb ones in my group somehow. Also even though internships are important, they follow the same rules anyway (can't easily get a good internship with low grades).
if this is really the expectation, then it's a no brainer why analysts jump ship. i'm glad my former group did not operate with this mindset.
opening a conference line... can't you do that yourself? I actually agree with you that the most reliable analysts are obedient, do whatever you ask, no questions, etc... but is this really good for the industry? Is this how you want to be grooming the next "generation"?
while resource allocation is an important aspect of management, if you judge a person's performance based on trivial points such as this, you are destined to fail as a manager. I am curious... are you post MBA associate or a-a promote? If you are post-MBA, shame on you and the school or whoever instilled this type of thinking onto you. If you are a-a promote, this is your opportunity to make a difference in the banking culture.
the deck carrying comment, i find this funny. if the analyst didn't go, YOU would be the deck carrier.
the BEST analysts filter out the bull shit but gets the necessary and important work done when its needed.