How to NOT seem DEI
A frequent reader but never posted. Burner acc for obvious reasons.
I'm starting at a GS/JPM/MS in SF/CHI/LA/HOU in a pretty "male" coverage group (in fact, I'm the only girl in my class). I don't mind at all, but I want to ensure I'm taken seriously. For pure context, I don't really fit the "hardo"/top investment club girl mold, I've done a few modeling engagements, and have been told it would be easy to assume I am a DEI/"Becky"/sorority girl type (the LAST thing I want). My main concern is that colleagues will "write me off" and I will not be able to get the best deal/learning experiences.
I know DEI efforts can make people wonder if certain women "really" deserve to be there (and for this reason I am predominantly opposed to it because it undermines women who are very capable). I know I'm qualified: I graduated in top 5% at a target school and have had substantial relevant internship experience where I performed well. That said, I did not intern at this bank so I do not have a good idea of what the culture is like.
I know this forum gets crazy with DEI, so my question is this: what makes you perceive a woman as a competent, effective banker as opposed to a DEI candidate? I want to come in making the right impression. Thank you!
Calls her team pretty “male” and claims to be “only girl”. Positioning herself for sympathies from MDs and HR & Staffers. Your presence will add a multiplier to the bonus of your MD and Group Head so don’t worry your guest appearance in top deals is assured. Just keep repeating the first line, pretend to be busy, often talk about mental health and in no time you will be up for promo. Wait if things get rough, you can always give special “attention” to your married MD after social events to secure at least a mid-bucket. This is modus operandi of DEI Beckies. I hope the wife and kids of MDs keep an eye on these home wreckers.
Is this reality, or some weird fantasy in your head? You seriously think these investment banking women are giving 'special attention' to MDs? It's not the 80s, and even then, that's not the stories you hear from the 80s (ladies of the night, maybe). What college rejects that didn't get an internship are liking this? These 'beckies' come from the same schools as the 'males'. And those that don't are in the bad minority, the same way you get sh*tty male analysts. For example, in my top-target school finance degree (during my cohort), the professors admitted the girls got consistently higher grades in the first year...
Focus on what you can control - producing good quality work in a reasonable timeframe, whilst being easy to work with. A good reputation internally will come as a welcome byproduct rather than something you should focus on as an outcome.
"The tranquillity that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do." - Marcus Aurelius
The few comments here with real, rational advice..
Thank you!
Yeah ur dumb for asking advice here and not expecting to just get shit on by woman haters
Just do good work and what happens beyond that is out of your control
Edit:MS is crazy but I guess I’m antagonising both sides
"I don't really fit the "hardo"/top investment club girl mold, I've done a few modeling engagements, and have been told it would be easy to assume I am a DEI/"Becky"/sorority girl type (the LAST thing I want)."
......
Did not mean for it to come across that way at all (my bad)! Meant it in the sense that i want to be taken seriously but totally get the angle you came at lol
I'm just going to offer you this one bit of advice: Respect is earned.
Serious answer: do a good job at work, don't be weird at work social events, and don't mention how you're whatever demographic you are every other sentence. Basic common sense and you'll be fine.
Someone who is weird at work social events MS'd this
This is going to sound dismissive but you do it by being a competent, effective banker.
Btw people who just assume any girl is a DEI hire are weirdos and you should not want to work with them. The thought literally never crosses my mind.
Agreed lol
Just do your job well and don’t be weird in social settings. If you can do that, and people have negative perceptions, it’s their problem and not yours.
as a dude - i am curious what counts as being weird in social settings for girls?...like at most of our HHs, all us dudes are pretty muted but like act weird on occasion like any normal person? in a heavily male dominated group as well, so never seen an example of a girl acting weird at these shindigs, so genuinely curious how to spot them lol
That’s the best part: my advice is gender-agnostic.
Let me hit so I can make sure you’re chill
This is gross. Sometimes I hate this website
Serious answer - if you have a brother who isn't super nerdy, just shoot the shit like how you do w him. My gf is in banking and she grew up w 3 brothers, so she's pretty accustomed to a predominantly male culture and pretty relaxed.
Also making rips that aren't "PC" are usually helpful too. It's the equivalent of giving people some "dirt" on you (guys don't snitch unless it's the weird nerdy ones in the office), which helps level the playing field cause you start out w power over the other guys in the office because of DEI standards.
As someone who is quite a bit older, OP, read the second paragraph here. This is really, really, really good advice for relationship-building in general.
You want to give something up to people. You want to show you’re human. You want to show your vulnerabilities. For many young men, this comes in the form of non-PC rips that are inappropriate. It’s a form of bonding, showing that you’re placing your trust in the people listening to you not to rat you out, and encouraging the same rips from them in front of you. It’s how you get close to people. You don’t get close to people by being fake nice but never trusting them with anything real.
Also, the girl analysts in my group (who were all phenomenal) were aware of their position of privilege as women and actively talked about it letting us know they were aware, and complained alongside the male analysts about the incompetence of the DEI-hire female associates and VPs whenever they dealt with it, making us feel like we were all on the same team.
Just do a good job. Be proactive. Over-communicate progress and timing expectations. I think people mostly get annoyed at DEI hires who slack off or make their job harder. It’s unavoidable that standards are lower for women and minorities, so prove that you would have been hired under the normal standards.
What are you talking about, everyone knows IB analysts model all day every day
I say this as a DEI and as one of the only non-white individuals at my firm. People start to appreciate your differences when they respect you. You’ll often find, people are not too different.
Work hard, be humble, and be detail oriented. This career, DEI or not, can be very demeaning. Don’t ever take the insults or negativity to heart. Incorporate criticism when given, and ignore the offenses.
Insecurity and self perception is a key reason for burn out.
Analysts and junior associates who bully or talk negatively of the competent, are usually the most susceptible to being bullied themselves or getting booted. Also good detailed work usually translates to more seniors wanting you on their teams.
I think my time in banking has been one of my most humbling experiences. Even though I’m only fairly recently graduated, I do believe many college students are blinded by their ego.
how was ft recruiting for you
also is DEI still a thing? i thought trump dismantled that incentive for businesses?
If you want to not seem as DEI, then just be good at your job lmao
Just pull similar hours / files as other hardworking analysts on your team. Don’t require special accommodations by virtue of your gender. If the whole pit stays in office till 10pm then don’t bail at 6pm daily banking on your female privilege. Take constructive feedback like your male peers who don’t go around yelling “misandry/toxicity”. Keep your relationships with superiors platonic, quite a few of you are sleeping with VP & above and often end up in inappropriate situations with them.
If the whole pit stays in office till 10pm then don’t bail at 6pm daily banking on your female privilege.
Thats the whole thing.
I saw so often, how women in office get treated very differently to their male counterparts. You want to be part of the team? Then act like the team and work like the team. Just blend in.
Lots of unhelpful comments here but my read is just show up and do the same work to the same standard (better if you can obv). Don't be leaving at 7 to “work from home” without kids or a family, just be helpful, humble, and ultimately a pleasant person to work with and I’m sure you’ll be fine.
You’re overthinking about not being seen as a DEI hire, and I get it, but people in IB are far more likely to notice the quality of your work than the assignment of your chromosomes. So just make sure you’re squared away on that front and it’ll work itself out.
People will judge you at first. Not even just for being a woman, but for being new, and looking like you don’t “fit” their idea of a grinder. It sucks but it’s true. Your only job is to be undeniably good.
Deliver on the little things, never miss a detail, and don’t seek approval. The second you start overcompensating, that’s when people label you. Let your work speak. Silence > trying to prove a point
Would you say this is true for new hires at the senior associate+ levels too? Or is getting more FaceTime prioritized heavier?
you are DEI. nothing else.
You're looking at the world the wrong way if this is what's looming over your head when you think about the workplace.
I would technically fall into the same DEI classification you described, but that has never crossed my mind before I read your post. You're just putting yourself in a losing situation by viewing everything through an identity politics lens. A job is just a means to an end at the end of the day, there's nothing noble about it.
I couldn't care less if I'm viewed as competent, DEI, etc. or not by my peers, it's just a paycheck to me. Once you don't make it that deep, your life will feel a lot less burdensome. Also, if you genuinely felt like you were qualified, you wouldn't have felt the need to make a post reassuring yourself that you are competent.
Don't take shit from anyone (up or down), treat other juniors kindly (don't be nasty/NEVER gossip), show you are a machine (get shit done asap, stay late if you need to, know your numbers inside out, have opinions on things and do your research), banter with others, do not bring up your gender every chance you get.
There was a girl in our team of all men who was honestly quite mid, always brought up her gender to everyone outside our team when talking about us (she gossiped a lot) and was horrible at presenting her work. But she got all the attention and promotions as people wanted to make sure the only girl doesn't feel left out (literally child treatment). Another girl joined our team recently - she has a great attitude, knows her stuff REALLY well (technical and commercial - solo'd a deal within her first week), treated interns very well and pushed back at seniors when needed. She has everyone's respect immediately. Pick which one you want to be.
How would you advise going about not taking shit from anyone? Feel like that’s inevitable no? Like what would be actionable in that situation
Honestly just follow some common sense and you won't have any problems. Do the exact opposite of this and you'll be just fine:
-Start every sentence with "as a female banker"
-Call everyone you disagree with an "incel"
-Dismiss all feedback on your work as toxicity
-Leave at 6pm because you have Solidcore and happy hour in West Village
-Hook up with your managing director and then proceed to tell your colleagues that they're creepy for dating a girl 2 days and 3 hours younger than him
-REF out the model and then blame the analyst or randomly change colors instead of the usual format because you think it looks better (if this sounds oddly specific...)
-Just show up in your group head's office and try to engage him in conversation like you're someone important
If some of these sound oddly specific and based on something that actually happened, it's because they are
My observations are not unique then. They use their female privilege and eagerness of MDs to retain them to manipulate especially if they are attractive. Later they confide to their peers, how creepy that married MD is while continuing to flirt with them at social events and being spotted in compromising situations. Purposefully trying not to be specific but a lot of them are hooking up with MDs with grown up kids.
The MD is also at fault here
Understandably hard however when you're in a sausage fest nearly all your waking hours
Correct. No excuse for MD to be involved in such situation. A lot of this crap happens under the disguise of mentorship meetings. Coffee chats evolve into exclusive social event invites and gifts.
You will never escape other people’s bigotry - the only thing in your life you can control is being undeniably competent. No one cares if you’re DEI if you’re the most technically strong analyst in the group.
The worst thing you can do is wear your identity on your sleeve, the only consideration that matter is consideration of your skill. If you’re not good at something? Work 10x harder to get up to speed and you’ll be fine - don’t blame potential underperformance on anything else besides your will to succeed.
deny everything and admit nothing. plausible deniability always
Easy, don’t act like a white male, they’ve enjoyed a system of DEI for themselves for more than a hundred years but they just call it “merit”. Make sure to complain that team at work is now 2% non white.
We all agree white males are not diversity but white females are? Make it make sense. This topic has been discussed to death on this forum. White Beckies filling up majority of DEI seats (~40% of class / promotions) is just white privilege in pink. You bunch are subject to same socio and economic conditions as white males but are presented as victim at every instance. On the contrary, men of color Arab / Asian / Brown are not included in any diversity streams. At this point, stop calling them DEI quotas, just call gender quotas. You fem*els are at war against younger men.
We get it, you voted for Mamdani
I didn’t and I don’t like woke agenda. America has a gender war issue and not a racial one as many white men would like us to believe as it fits their narrative. Majority of Democratic votes are women.
The other side has nothing to offer but fear mongering, trickle down economics, which hasn’t worked out and people are willing to risk trying something new. You can shout how bad Mamdani will be, but lots of people don’t care anymore, all the predictions of rich people leaving, and crime skyrocketing, again the people in power have done nothing over 30+ years to make life better for average citizens and instead picked away at every single support system. You my friend have a credibility problem, the current regime exists to only enrich itself and people have figured that out by now. Hence Trump or Mamdami who are just opposite sides of the same coin. The capitalists are running out of goodwill with most = more and more extreme political choices.
It’s the capitalists fault for being so self centered and single handily focused on enriching themselves that they couldn’t help but go over the line and start to piss off regular folks.
Again people elected Trump to destroy the system and people electing Mamdami also want some kind of systematic destruction of norms.
People choose instability only when their backs are up against the wall.
On the main topic, DEI, woke, etc are just dog whistles for anyone not white, and anything that is taking away something that rightfully belongs to whites by inherent virtue of their superiority.
Nobody gives up privilege without a fight and when you’ve had privilege and taught that it belongs to you by default, then any effort to bring equality will seem like a threat.
It’s painfully clear that large swaths of white Americans are low iq and that other nations like china are catching up and the day when china is developing technology more advanced than whites, their worldview crumbles because most white people justify their superiority by saying almost everything everyone else uses was invented by a white man. The fact my melanin count matches that of Einstein or Tesla means me as a high school educated white man can feel better about myself from simply being melanin related.
It’s easy to gate keep jobs like finance when the merit is ambiguous but harder in jobs like medicine and engineering.
In this world even the poorest white man is coddled by society that he’s the most capable, the best default option, the most deserving and qualified. Society is mostly controlled by whites, the news, movies, culture.
That’s why so many American whites worry about becoming a minority, losing control of the narrative and having to give up the plot.
Now of course large groups of white men who are liberal and who don’t think this way also exist, so they don’t have the same fears that many of the whites men on this forum who come from entitled backgrounds usually have.
Here is a tip for male juniors, if you see female A&A cozying up (IYKYK) to a MD in your team during and/or after social events and you believe this will provide them with a leg up on you during reviews. You need to take justice in your hand and report them anonymously to HR. HR will then ensure that MD stays away favortism. Most MDs are cowards and will not ruin their gravy train for some a**.
Before you feel pity, don’t forget the system favors them with quotas. That MD who was supposed to be meritocratic is incentivized by bank to hire and promote women over you. Besides, for years these women juniors have been sabotaging male peers behind their back by framing them as misogynist in front of seniors and HR.
So can someone point me to this army of nubile DEI Beckies willing to service their MDs… asking for a friend
In all seriousness, do the things that have made analysts good over the years
Thank you!! Why does everyone think that young female analysts/associates are hooking up with MDs? I've never heard of that. It's like some weird fantasy they all have...
One more - get along with everyone in your analyst class (this is not competitive or a zero sum game), be the person people want to work with
Have a slightly different view,
Find a way. I’m in the office at 730am and if you don’t want to be cockblocked by your associates and VPs, that’s a really good way to do it. Efficient analysts finish their work before midnight so if you’re in early, you’ve proved to me you’re efficient.
2. Find a way, Top analysts make their associates and VPs redundant. If you’re not doing this, you are probably mid
3. If you’re a guy and worried about this, you are probably focused on the wrong things. It’s not really my thing, but if one were so inclined, there are a lot more interesting ways to dip my penis than in the company ink
Fair enough - on one hand you want us to make our AS and VP redundant while on the other you want us to be liked by them. All this while being aware that banking works on apprenticeship model where analysts are dependent on coaching of AS / VPs. No savy VP likes to be outshined by an analyst and will go out of their way to distort their feedback. Seen it first hand. The only way analyst can really shine is if they have tenure in the team and work directly with MD for a few years. In short the poor analysts not only produces a quality product but then fights a turf war with AS/VPs. If this is not a zero sum game then what else is.
Analysts work late hours often due to weak guidance and fake deadlines. I have seen analysts being forced to pull all-nighters due to false deadlines from MD during the week as he wanted to play golf on Friday morning. What a loser
Why are you getting defensive about MDs sleeping with DEI Beckies. Nobody said it is you. Issue is not Beckies sleeping with MDs and gaining favors, we can’t change that. The real problem is influence Beckies gain through these close relationships and how it affects the reviews and rewards of their peers. Seen first hand Beckies trying to manipulate MDs into believing that a competent VP was misogynist while in reality he just provided them with blunt feedback like he did to their male peers.
You'll be surprised how little ppl care about this because as long as you do ur job, nobody has the time to worry about who you are. If ur in Houston feel free to shoot me a PM, can provide more insight on the culture here
What happened to just working hard
Do your work well and quickly. Raise your hand up for additional staffing if you notice you are working less then the average analyst in your group.
Ultimately, most of the DEI hate doesnt come from the fact you guys you guys got in way more easily, the frustration and hate comes from when the "normal" analyst is getting cranked and gets thrown additional work on his plate which causes him to do a 5am because the DEI analyst decided they didn't want to work over the weekend.
If you are in the trenches with them and do the work, other juniors will like you.
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