VP screwed me over at superday
Hey all,
This is really bugging me. Recently had a superday with the regional office of an BB/EB. During one interview, the VP asked where else I was interviewing. I told him I was also interviewing at Firm X. He then asked which firm I would choose if I had the option, and I said that I'd choose his firm over Firm X (obviously) because of blah blah blah.
The VP said he knew people at Firm X and would let them know that I'd choose his firm over Firm X. He then pulls out his phone and literally starts emailing/texting his buddies at Firm X...
Didn't get an offer from that office, and never heard back from Firm X again (they had verbally invited me to a superday, but my contact there ceased contact with me).
So... WTF was that?
Sounds like a mega douche. Can't do anything about it though.
U fuck that guys wife or something?
Name the firm.
You should fuck his wife now
Kick his ass!
Well since everyone already brought up the possibility that he's a mega douche, I'm going to propose another possibility which is that you might have unintentionally offended him somehow. Go through your interactions with the firm and firm x, phone calls you had, chat before the interview, and obviously what you said during the interview. We all like to think that its not our fault, but people like that don't last that long in this business. And I'm not talking about evil people who ding people for fun (plenty of those around), but people who do so blatantly while being politically incorrect. He clearly wanted to send you a message. If he just wanted to ding you, he could've done so privately with both firms. Were your answers to the behavioral unauthentic and douchey in general? Did you bad mouth the other firm in any way? Did you make fun of anyone there even as a joke? Were you 100% politically correct with your answers?
Also if I was in your position, I would've asked him kindly to please not do that. You let him do it, so what did you expect to happen? He was 100% out of line but at the same time maybe you bruised his ego somehow and he was just trying to impose his dominance over you and wanted you to fold and admit defeat. He was going down a 100% non-politically correct path already so you should've just come clean and said: look, I admit that my answer was not completely honest, but I'm just an undergrad student who'd be happy to receive any offer in this job market and both your firms are great. However, here are some things I genuinely love about your firm/group." If you said something like "That's fine, I stand by my answer." then you were protecting an ego of your own when technically, you didn't have the moral high-ground (again, even though he was absolutely out of line).
Also, obviously I don't know anything about you but you also authored a thread about "whether it was possible to get dinged for being too strong of a candidate".
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/strong-candidate-rejection
Again not saying that you come off as a cocky person, but you must think highly of yourself on some level to feel the need to ask that question.
Agreed. I feel like part of the story is missing here. I know some CRAAAAZY bankers, but they would never do this unprovoked.
I look forward to the day I meet a 'CRAAAAZY' banker.
Hey man, thanks for taking the opposite stance and bringing up some new points — this is a good segue for me to add some more color to the situation.
Regarding the thread that I made about being too strong a candidate: I'd posted that after getting dinged from a lower BB (DB/UBS) whose interview I had absolutely crushed. My suspicion was that they had dinged me because they figured that I wouldn't take the offer, despite selling myself well. I later found out that other strong candidates had also been dinged.
Overall, I've been very, very, very careful during the recruiting process to not come across as cocky, arrogant, etc, in any way, shape, or form. To that extent, I don't think this was an issue. Also, my reason for why his firm over Firm X was not, in any way, offensive: it was because I personally wasn't a fan of how Firm X structures their groups, which is a very legitimate and non-offensive answer.
My recruiting process for that MM went as follows: 1) a single informational call with a mutual friend; 2) a formal phone interview that resulted in a superday invite; and 3) me showing up to the superday early and hanging out with the analyst in charge of recruiting. Everything went great, people were friendly, we had some laughs, etc. Nothing that would cause offense or anyone to think poorly of me.
The conversation I had with the VP was very poor from the start. I didn't do or say anything to offend him; he was more or less a douche the entire time.
"I personally wasn't a fan of how Firm X structures their groups"
Why would you speak badly about Firm X though? Why not say what you like about the firm you're interviewing at instead? Like the fact that you're criticizing how a bank/MD decided to structure their groups comes off as incredibly arrogant because you're indirectly implying that you could've done a better job IMO. And if you couldn't, why weren't you a fan? IBD is a very politically correct culture. The fact that you thought that criticizing how another bank structures its groups is "completely fine and non-offensive" says something about how distorted your perception is.
Also, the tone of your whole write-up basically screams: you can find absolutely no fault in the way you carried yourself during the interview. Even a great interview has aspects that can be improved upon. That again speaks volumes about how you see yourself. Have you ever considered the fact that, albeit you being able to shoot the shit with an analyst your age, from the perspective of older/wiser bankers you come off as arrogant?
Also, I know plenty of "strong candidates" who received offers at "lower BBs" who turned them down for MS/GS/JPM. I would highly doubt that they would've even bothered to interview you / give you a superday if they "thought you were too strong". A more likely reason is that they could tell that your answers weren't genuine, non-specific, and that you weren't committed to the firm at all.
Btw, if you were such a strong candidate, why didn't you close any of the top bucket BBs? Why are you recruiting for a MM group?
Some of the threads here are downright comical and unbelievable.
I smell a troll or an unbelievably bad interviewee w no self awareness. Despite being "too strong of a candidate", at some pt you have to look in the mirror and realize that you're the problem rather than everyone else.
"Too strong of a candidate"
Why dont you publicly say both the firm names here?
It will do two things:
A lot of us will get to know how douche employees of that MM can be and further how the Firm X can just cease contact due to a text from someone not involved in recruiting. Trust me this is going to hurt both these firms since people here at WSO will have a bad impression of them.
Someone from these firms here at WSO may probably chime in to support you
What are you talking about? He clearly stated that he has friends at the firm he got dinged from. They are probably giving him the cold shoulder now because no one wants to badmouth a VP. No good will come of this for him, nor for anyone else on this forum by him publicly naming the firms. Best case scenario he still has no offer, worst case the VP finds out OP exposed him on a public forum and, considering why this thread was created in the first place, will probably do everything in his power to make sure OP never gets hired.
This is 99% a freak incident and OP offended the VP somehow. Not a big deal. OP will move on and land an offer somewhere else.
I don't know if you know anything about the real world, but its a tough business out there. It doesn't matter if you're from a top target with a stellar resume, at the end of the day you're not entitled to anything. "This will hurt their firm in the long run". Oh really? Will it? Are you going to report them to the better business bureau? Jesus you sound like the friend that's plotting the demise of her bestie's EX after she gets dumped. Move on. Op has moved on, and there's no reason why you should be recommending silly things like this.
Fuck his wife.
We were told during MBA recruiting that don't tell multiple firms during their interview they are your #1 (can say one of the top 2-4, etc.). Reason was interviewer will go ask their buddy in some other bank about it, and both will screw you over. That's exactly what happened to you.
And being on the other side, we do bounce around candidates with friends in other banks. You just get more data points.
....I'd pull the phone out his hand, because at that point in the game I wouldn't want to work there anyway.
Anyone that believes this hasn't worked a day in the real world, let alone Wall st.
As an update: I ended up at a BB/EB, so very happy about how things worked out. In hindsight I should have done something about this, but as a potential SA I was nervous about stepping out of bounds in any way. Also, I just looked up the VP's LinkedIn and he left a few months after for a corp dev position.
This was definitely the strangest experience during my SA recruiting process.
When I was interviewing at google the interviewer asked me who I voted for and proceeded to spend the first half of the interview questioning my sanity. This followed by asking me questions about how YouTube generates it's income and after I answered the question perfectly she denied what I said was correct, rephrased it and told me I was wrong.
That sucks. Get his name and pay him back the favor somehow- what a short dick loser.
I love how firms get offended if you're interviewing at other firms- but they're interviewing multiple candidates and not just you. It's bs