Humiliated, how should I respond?
2 weeks ago I was in a first round interview for a FT position at an IB with international presence for one of their coverage groups - will keep anon for now.
Interview consisted of 2 analysts who asked a mixture of behavioral and technical questions with the interview being a humiliating waste of time.
Interview started 5 minutes late, and went from bad to worst. After introducing ourselves we jumped into technical questions. Both immediately pulled out their phones and began using them - texting, emailing and scrolling on tik-tok (I could clearly see this from camera angle).
At one point in the middle of a technical answer they both burst out laughing at some inside joke (I think they may have been texting each other?) it could not have been my answer since it was a very simple technical question. But at this point made me nervous since I didn’t know how to react to this type of thing?
At another point I answered a subjective question reasonably correctly, in which the same interviewer interrupted me to say I was wrong without looking up from his phone. (Later I googled this and I wasn’t).
About 3/4 through this I realized that I wasn’t getting a second round since both interviewers clearly didn’t care about what I had to say, were giggling between themselves and staring down at their phones.
I began to record them with my phone while asking and answering questions, discreetly of course.
I have multiple time stamped videos of both interviewers texting, joking and scrolling through their phones.
Entire process felt very demeaning, humiliating, and demoralizing since I spent ~2 days preparing for this. (interned at a bb last year and didn’t get return due to no deal flow and over hiring).
I get there are two sides to every story (3 in this case) but I was genuinely shocked at the professionalism (lack thereof) from 2 analysts at a well established bank.
And while I have a few other interviews lined up, I was wondering if there is a genuinely a constructive way of handling this? Part of me wants to put these kids on blast but I doubt anything would be done. Other part wants to forget and move on. Not to sure what to do. Thanks for the long read.
TLDR: I have videos of two analysts being dicks, not sure what to do.
*Edited for punctuation and structure
Would honestly post it online under a burner account and tag litquidity or something. It will then blow up and the company will at least internally discipline them somehow. I resonate with you prepping super hard and then not caring, so hopefully they get what they deserve.
+1 , also id suggest to literally just write off that bank completely. If those are the people working there, would you wanna be among such individuals?
That’s might be an idea. Only issues I am worried about are privacy laws and potential bank coming after me for recording without consent/knowledge etc etc.
Thought about just emailing to HR or something.
If you're in a state that allows one party recording consent, you should be fine. But to save my own ass here, I'm gonna say talk to a lawyer lol
This would be insanely stupid because op will easily be identified and called out in return. Marketing I wouldn't want anyway.
Agreed. Always dumbasses giving out bad advice without considering consequences
Agree, but probably best to sit on it for a bit, then drop it (or don’t) on your burner 6M in arrears.
Best because you’ll probably just cool down and move on, but if you’re still fired up, they’ll have less of an idea who dropped it. This is Corporate America man, do as you wish.
If you’re worried about any blowback, just redact names, blur faces, and morph the voices on the video + scrub the file of any metadata. This way, it’s obvious that it’s less of an ad hominem attack and more geared towards clowning the org.
Name drop the bank and group
Forget it and move on. The odds of the video getting traced back to you after you try to screw them are greater than zero, that itself is not worth it to get some type of revenge on a couple of analysts. Literally zero benefits to you here.
The video is solid proof but I don’t think you should post it. However, I would email a prominent person in the group and let them know how demoralizing it was. Some people out there still have manners/decency. These kids just conveniently forgot they were in the same position as you at one point
How are you going to broken multi B transactions, if you can't handle 2 immature analysts
I would have stopped the interview and refocused their attention
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I found one of the analysts who interviewed you right here!
Best move here is to just leave it for now, keep the video, and maybe use it later 10-15 years down the road lol
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Ding it to the HR team and ask to make a formal complaint.
If they don't respond follow up on email saying you'll be sending it on social media to the finance accounts, naming the bank and people involved.
That will get you an answer.
Maybe I'm just vindictive and cruel, but I would opt for this approach. They didn't have the decency to come into an interview in good faith and it wasn't even because they were busy working on something important. They were literally just d*cks about it.
I'd offer to handle this through civility: reach out to HR, and request a formal complaint. If HR sides with the analysts after you've sent an email documenting the experience, knowing HR may just shield the analysts, then sit on the video and wait six months to send out anonymously.
My logic is simple... this is not the first time they did this, this is the first time they'll have been caught doing this. If you wait a little while, HR probably won't even know which interviewee their their sh*tty analysts on blast.
If I had no desire to pursue IB as a field and take the arsonist approach, I'd blitzkrieg the video on all social media platforms as well as sending it to the bank's HR department as well as the analysts themselves and their supervisors in 2-3 months' time. I'd even consider sending it to their competitors simply to blacklist these analysts from re-recruiting and signaling to the market they'll be a PR risk. But that's just if you want to consider the nuclear option.
Email the video to the Group Head. Those Analysts are dicks and deserve to get fucked in return. Not sure why decency is so hard to give in interviews, especially when candidates prepare for hours/days on end.
I had this happen to me when I was recruiting for an analyst role in IB; the only difference was that it was a super arrogant VP.
I literally walked out of the interview when it was my time to ask him questions.
The bank was Jefferies. I later got an offer from GS/MS/JPM.
If I can come to face to face with him now, I’ll tell him to suck my dick. He’s now at an even smaller bank, while I’m in PE.
My recommendation: post the video and blur their faces, while naming the bank in the post. People like this don’t belong in the industry and your story literally reminded me of the experience I had over 10 years ago when I prepped so hard for the interview.
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PM the names of the two individuals who did this to you. I’ll make sure they are never hired by my PE firm and will also alert their names to a few friends at other MF/UMM PE groups. Karma.
Not wanting to attack their careers... but I really hope they can become more professional
Drop it, we want to see it, and when I say we, I mean me.
What they did is not ok. They should be fired tbh
What you did is not ok. Secretly recording them is a huge issue and makes you a huge liability
Not the point of the thread, but I find it really hard to believe anyone at a BB didn't get an offer because of lack of dealflow. Did any intern in your group get an offer? If so, it wasn't dealflow...
I get that recording others without their consent is typically not allowed, but seriously, if OP had no proof of this happening, then these analysts would just keep on (and probably will continue to) treat interviewees with callous indifference and cruelty for a process they know full-well these interviewees are preparing days for. If they want to abide by the social contract of not being secretly recorded, then they should uphold their end of it by not being d*cks in their literal jobs.
I say blur their faces or whatever bare minimum standard is required to publish the video, but they brought this on themselves and if not OP, it'll be their next interviewee.
Write it down and move on. People need scratching posts. You could even take it as a complement to your own friendly temperament.
I’d definitely do something with the video if I were you. Whether that’s sending to HR or posting it online. To be honest, sounds like because of them you got screwed out of a fair interview and potentially a job offer which could at least get them fired. I’m super petty though
Had a similar experience at JPM in one of their energy teams. Guy never looked at the camera was yawning looking out the window playing with his pen, acting as if all the technicals were wrong, full of false ego etc… Instantly didn’t want to work there and cut the interview short.
I don’t get the ego at the analyst/associate level you’re a grunt - know your place and execute your basic task to some level of professionalism
They sound annoying, but I would instantly fire and/or blacklist anyone secretly recording a meeting to “expose” someone for being rude. Outside of flagrantly illegal acts, that has no place in this industry, or society in general. Just forget about this and move on
Edit: deleted rest of message. Felt so strongly about the above that tone may have been too harsh overall
In your shoes I would probably be critical too.
Interview started with both phones out and on the table facing up and turned on.
yes, recording is not ok and a liability, but so is being a dick.
I think when I didn’t immediately post videos and dox the company/employees, I showed a somewhat mature and rounded aspect of my character.
I think by you immediately criticizing my character/return offer, you showed yours.
Dude, what a way to respond... this isn't even about the interview at this point since the interviewee didn't even have interviewers in good faith. They didn't berate OP on lack of technical understanding or poor research into the company or any of the thousands of missteps in an interview. They literally just didn't give a sht and you're saying that OP is in the wrong and throwing no stones on the analysts, who's job it was to interview candidates, that then took our their phones ignoring the candidate during what was probably a 20-25 minute interview.
Those siding with OP simply just have more empathy and can relate having been in similar situations or understanding the difficulty in recruiting with a saturated market in a hyper-competitive industry. You can write it off as maturity for not over-reacting, but OP took the right steps in looking to resolve things with civility first.
All I can say is... I hope those analysts work for you next since you see no problem in their actions.
For the perspective of someone on the other side: there were a few candidates who were clearly googling/typing shit into ChatGPT during a virtual interview and you could tell it was an AI response. I tried to keep it professional, but I was definitely cracking a smile more than I should have. These candidates had no respect for our intelligence or time and were obvious bad fits for the group in terms of both technical ability and social awareness. Sounds like the OP is just salty they were not as prepared as they thought they were.
Pull out your phone and start texting next time
Had a similar experience but for a summer analyst role Superday. Interviewer (associate at BB) started the interview 8 minutes late. He was clearly on his phone most of the time and was just uninterested in all of my answers. He only showed interest when I mentioned my internship for the summer at another BB (he had an outdated version of my resume so unless he looked at my linkedin he would not have known about the experience). He then proceeded to straight up ask which bank i would pick if i had both offers.
Brought back memories.
I had a fucking MD do sth similar to me at a regional office of a BB on super day not even first round.
At the time there was only one role, and months later I found out he hired his nephew or some shit.
I’d side with the others, blur the faces, leak it to online finance accounts with just the bank name.
Waste days of our lives and our chance at careers gotta bring back some repercussions.
JPM Tech?
You can't send the video to anyone, because it's not good that you filmed it. Forget the law, it's bad for you reputationally.
You can complain to HR, but few people in human history have ever been glad they complained to HR about anything.
I'd send both analysts a sincere-sounding thank you note. Then I'd add them on Linkedin. And I'd count on the odds that at some point, I'll be in a position to screw over at least one of them. You'd be surprised at how small the world is.
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