Is it true that everyone gets treated equally once Interviews begin or are non targets having a disadvantage?
Is it true that everyone gets treated equally once Interviews begin or are non targets having a disadvantage? I mean Interviewers are just humans who can not have a completely objective view, especially when the interviewee is from their school.
I think this depends on the interviewer and team. Personally, by the interview stage, I'll tend to expect more from someone from a target. If someone from a target and non target perform similarly well in an interview, I'll inherently be more impressed by the person from the non-target because they likely had fewer resources to prepare for the interview. For me, the target school is helpful for catching my initial attention when looking through resumes but doesn't do much after that.
This is such BS. You want the non-target to blow you out the water, not you'd be impressed by some minimum. It doesn't exist.
I don't agree that there's some minimum level of application a non-target student can display in understanding IB materials and finance-related concepts to be considered a worthy applicant for an offer.
And I notice you said, "personally," using the first-person, but that is very disagreeable in of itself given that there is often a team of people making the decisions.
I wasn't arguing that there is a minimum level for any applicant, target or non-target. My point is that students from non-targets generally have to be more self sufficient in order to reach the same level of success as someone from a target. Am I more impressed by a middle class kid who got a 2100 SAT without any prep classes or by a new england prep school kid who trained for the SAT since 7th grade and got a 2380? I'm more impressed by the middle class kid. The same principle applies for job interviews.
Yes. But that's not going to lead to an offer. After a kid does all of that, the later stages still critique on arbitrary qualities like "polish" and the candidate's degree of softer qualities.
EDIT: I think basically it's a level playing field in the minds of interviewers once you get the interview. But, there's a disadvantage for the non-target without the same level of "polish" that the targets have. Non-target has to gain somehow this quality while going to school with a bunch of run-of-the-mill poor kids.
I agree with this.
Once we get through the initial screening process (minimum GPA, major, basic technical questions, etc.) - we care much more about your reason why you want to do finance/join the firm and fit versus where you went to school.
I'd take a non-target guy that really impressed me with his hustle over a "polished" guy from a target, based on knowing how they got from A to B.
I stopped reading after "is it true that everyone gets treated equally".
Unless it's an anonymous process (which interviews are obviously not), there is no "equality" or "fairness" in the corporate world - or anywhere humans exist.
We are the slaves of our own (subconscious) judgement. EEO laws cannot override human evolution.
One bank I interviewed at in the final year of my UG cut me after the second round. I happened to be in the city the next weekend for an interview at a separate bank so I asked one of the interviewers for a follow-up over coffee.
They explained that they included me in the interviews (a non-target wildcard) to see if I could "blow them out of the water." They would have only proceeded with me if I was considerably stronger than their target candidates.
A lot of the interview process comes down to risk profile, and being a non-target increases your risk profile. Nobody on a recruitment committee will get in shit for selecting a shitty candidate from a top school - a mistake anybody could make... but if they take a chance on a non-target student, who can't keep up, then that reflects poorly on them.
I've been working in finance for ten years and I still don't know the answer to this question.
Look, non-targets are certainly at a disadvantage for getting interviews. But once you've cleared that hurdle, I don't know.
I will say that Big Ten state school alumns will pull for other people from Big Ten state schools, probably about as hard as MIT alumns for other MIT alumns or Harvard for Harvard. Not as hard as Notre Dame for Notre Dame. :-) State school alumns sorta act like they're alumns of the same school in some parts of NYC finance.
Here's the answer I'd give. It's the answer I wish people with other (perhaps bigger) handicaps in life would give to each other too.
It's not always perfect, but the game is trying to be fair, and most people, even many state schoolers, agree it's relatively fair.
Stop focusing on whether or how much the game is rigged, or how that makes you feel. They wouldn't spend hundreds or thousands of dollars and a day of their time interviewing you if they didn't think there was a decent chance they'd hire you. Therefore, you focus on what you can control-- nailing the interview. If you nail the interview, nothing else matters.