People don't care about prestige anymore?

Changes as you get older.

Cars, houses, country club memberships, where you vacation, how many kids you have, watches, how much you raise for charity etc.

I think the world rewards prestige to those who go into careers that are intellectually confusing or otherwise difficult to enter. It’s not meaningful to me, because those two things are not what defines me. What defines my career satisfaction is my quality of work, if people around me are fulfilling, and if my family is benefitted by my career (both money and in time). Prestige has its place in academia, as it’s usually well deserved and as the products of academia are intangible (other than engineering schools, little different) then prestige is the currency there. Outside of that, I do not care. There are more multi millionaires in non prestigious lines of work than there are in ours, so that kind of discredits prestige

The worth you put on pedigree depends on the social circles you are surrounded by. The “oh you went to HYP? What year?” Or “what years you were at MS/JPM do you know xyz” definitely comes as you get past 30. It’s a networking thing. No intelligent person places self worth on it, but it opens a ton of doors.

Prestige in finance jobs died down a bit as salaries are not as disproportionately high as they used to be (if you account for inflation), and there are more paths and more opportunities out there these days compared to say 10 years ago. Simple as that. 

Gen Z Banker, it is hard to feel prestigious when information is so readily available.

There's people that sell courses that make more than my MD, and then the most intellectual people work in Quant & AI.

Banking just feels like it's for midwits, me included. Smart enough but nothing special.  

Finance and consulting "prestige" will impress other professionals, assuming you are in highly prestigious firms. But I wouldn't put law (or medicine as well) in the same bucket, given that the prestige of those traditional professions is well received by the broader population even if they can't differentiate between working at Skadden or a regional law firm (95%+ of people).

As a matter of fact, the further someone is from NY/London corporate bubbles, the more they'll be impressed knowing you are a lawyer or a doctor and less about IB/PE/HF. Inside those bubbles all those professions will let a "nice" exclamation followed by a question on "what's the name of the company" to assess how prestigious is the job. 

So the value of prestige is the social leverage it creates. Does someone treat you better because of this? Do your parents brag about it? Do you get special treatment because of your profession?

I left in this thread my view on why finance is prestigious and not tech (Is Big Tech more prestigious than IB now? | Wall Street Oasis), but In your discussion, I'd say prestige is much more important once you're outside your office and deal with the average Joe, where lawyers and doctors are much more positively receieved (and less hated) than bankers or some HF/PE guy who interestingly feeds the IBs/biglaws. 

As a matter of fact, I think generally Gen Z lost respect for lots of professions and even "prestigious" ones because they look down to anyone who works for someone else despite still living with their parents.

"I feel like both finance/consulting even come with some sort of negative stigma..."

This can depend on where you live and who you interact with but part of this stigma is from people who simply dislike the ills that extreme forms of capitalism with no regard to communities/ water/ air quality/ social impact etc have. 

As well as the traditional hippies, with social media etc these ills are becoming more widely known amongst people who might otherwise never have thought too much about it.

But yes, in a dating context, there are a certain type of middle class girls (and their friends etc) who won't look kindly on a job for a company they view as immoral (rightly or wrongly).

I can only imagine the growth of PE and AI's current impact (data centers and the like) will only turbocharge this.

Btw I'm still a capitalist before +100 ms.

I think the number in your bank account matters more than 'prestige' but obviously there is a time and a place for it. I certainly don't view 80 hour work weeks as prestigous whether it is for a Sewer Cleaning company or Goldman Sachs (but what do I know).

The madness of crowds definitely has to play a role in how prestige is viewed.

I would say a lot of this has changed post covid. Pre covid, there was a bit more glamor to finance and such. I think in recent years, I've noticed that if you work in big tech, big law, high finance, or consulting, all 4 of which used to be very prestigious, the actual positive payout of that prestige has lacked outside of very specific circles. 

Honestly, one thing I'd wager is that social media normalized these careers a lot. It's like, for older folk they don't care, and for younger people they've seen 100s of bankers and such on social media to the point it doesn't feel like a "rare" career the way it used to. You didn't see all that many highly paid software engineers or bankers or consultants day to day, and so their actual roles were more "mystified" in a lot of ways. It was like, "Oh they work at goldman so they must be doing something big and important" but now, they've seen 40 videos from goldman and former goldman employees talking all about the firm and now its lost its glamor. 

It's kinda like learning how the hotdog is made. 

Instead of telling people that you're in IB/PE/HF , say that you're an amazon warehouse worker and report the results to us. I think you'll quickly recognize how much prestige the job/industry still holds. 

I can't speak for older people, but the culture of finance recruiting definitely pushes students towards prestige focus.

These are no longer careers that get you in the top 0.1 percent income. 

When we keep having non targets take prestigious roles the role stops becoming prestigious and just more and more what its always been a job. Back when certain banks only hired certain schools and that was it was a prestigious opportunity. As time went on and finance became more accessible with non targets  landing  shit naturally the prestige wears off and the jobbecomes exposed 

It's not as prestigious to work for someone else in my view. The amount of hours + inflation vs. comp growth, it's more of a suckers game than ever. Not Gen Z, older millennial for context.

Realistically most people cannot work for themselves but even those working at "prestigious" firms in the industries mentioned, I'm not sure what to think given you clearly dedicated a big part of your life to reach that point. And you continue to work a lot for...the prestige? The money? Is the money really life changing?

Prestige is having control of your schedule and time while still living the lifestyle you want. Time is precious and smart people try to buy it back. It's the ultimate luxury regardless of who you are.

Providing a comfortable life for your family while simultaneously being there to watch your kids grow up - is that prestigious?

Very few people really care where you work and maybe won't even remember eventually. Your friends and family will remember the times you were there for them. Because you had the time for them, vs running around a dirty city crammed into public transportation polishing your MD's apple so you can make 100k (net 72) more next year. If that's your idea of prestige well good luck.

LOL wso is so good for entertainment after you realize this. 

Largley depends on the people you're talking to. At a NYC networking event, being from a well-known / respected employer turns more heads and opens more doors. 

Where I live outside of NYC, no one really cares. A lot of the wealthy families here are small business owners and eclipse what most white collar professionals make at most employers.

Most car dealers literally can’t write in complete sentences. Prestige is dead man.