Not the best candidates got recruited
Maybe just as I do, you know a couple/few people who are not deemed as a top candidate out there in the job market, however, s/he somehow secured a position at a top firm ---not through personal connections, just somehow. Meanwhile, you see those highly qualified friends/classmates/former colleagues, "highly-qualified" both in terms of soft and hard skills, (still) struggling to get into big banks or top financial institutions.
I'll start with two examples: a guy at my previous program, who is a big scholarship winner, and someone very personable and knowledgeable about the industry and the interview questions, somehow struggled during recruiting. He ended up at a place that is not even a finance company --- he was aiming for finance.
Another classmate of mine, a girl, asked me what a DCF is before her final round at a big 4 FAS department. I was wondering how she managed to get into the final round if she did not know DCF.
She ended up at a big bank's credit/liquidity risk department, getting paid fairly well and the hours are not too bad. According to herself, she did not get asked a single technical questions except what VaR is.
TBH, I'm just baffled. Have something like this happened to you/someone you know?
It’s called life isn’t fair
Yep, chalk it up to the ol' Life's Not Fair.
Obviously, could be due to a number of factors. But usually, there is a reversion to the mean, in the sense that -- if a person doesn't deserve a certain job -- he/she will probably not be able to keep it. Of course, some people will take advantage of a lucky break and make the most of it. Just gotta put your head down, not worry about the "unfair" aspect of it and make your own breaks.
asking the real questions here lol
The girl ? Eh not really...
maybe these “highly qualified” candidates aren’t as highly qualified as you think. If your friend was truly competent he would’ve been able to break into finance, maybe not IB, but some other position that he could leverage later. if his recruiting didn’t go as planned there’s most likely mistakes he was making or his profile wasn’t as competitive as you’re making it seem. and likewise, maybe these people you deem lowly qualified aren’t as lowly qualified as you think. who cares if someone doesn’t know what a DCF is? it can be taught in less than a day
A lot of projects back in school were group projects. Worked with both of them and heard of similar opinions across different groups. That’s why I know their competencies.
Really ? So you are saying you can secure jobs without knowing “walk me through a DCF” or what free cash flow is ? I highly doubt that.
plenty of rockstars in college who couldn't recruit well, either lack of effort or personality/fit issues - conversely, plenty of guys just coast thru college but didn't fuck around when it comes to recruiting and ended up landing offers
my $2c
"Another classmate of mine, a girl," - that's how to get a job in finance
I’ve seen this 3 times on my LinkedIn now that banks are hiring on affirmative action principles for minorities and many highly qualified non-minorities are still unemployed. 1 of the 3 minorities all of whom I’m friend was actually qualified for IB.
MS all you want but I’m speaking truth and you know it, just observe who’s landing FT offers and who isn’t
Sunday night and I'm wine buzzed, but have a few thoughts:
1 - Yes yes, life isn't fair and all that, but you also can't look at a single sorting instance as a permanent result. Your career is this weird repeated-game tournament thing where you go through many sorting iterations over a long period of time. You often go through your first couple of iterations when you are getting your initial education, then another when you are sorting into internships, then another when you go through the full-time process, etc. I know this forum likes to place a lot of emphasis on making those first couple jumps, but you really do have several more of them and if you are learning from each round then it really isn't ever over for you. Yes, it's better to get ahead earlier, but plenty of people start strong and fizzle out. Life is stochastic and over time the quality people will be able to figure it out.
2 - Your perception of who the "best" candidates are as an undergrad is not super relevant. Sure, there are some things that you think make certain people a star in an undergrad environment, but those things aren't really market tested and the reputation in that environment doesn't always map to life outside of campus. There are plenty of foibles in the academic environment that become red flags in the actual private sector. The mapping between the two environments is very famously imperfect, everyone has their own stories of the mediocre "peaked in undergrad" kids and the overlooked kids they knew in college who become total studs out of undergrad.
3 - Reality of the situation is that commodity-skill feeder programs (Banking, Consulting, Accounting, etc.) don't actually need to fill their entire class with "the best candidates" - especially if it's not a career track role. The work at these programs can be challenging, but the supply of candidates functionally capable of doing the work far exceeds the demand for the role and performance returns on top vs median performing IB Analysts is a linear return at best - unlike more pure performance domains like Entrepreneurship, Investing, Trading, Software Engineering, etc. where top performers can have non-linear performance gains vs the average in their cohort. A total fucking stud top bucket analyst can maybe do the work of 2-3 average analysts and they would be a hero amongst heroes, whereas a top performing market investor can can out-return the average by several orders-of-magnitude or a top performing software developer can basically do the work of an entire development team (lookup the entire Silicon Valley mythology behind "the 10x Engineer"). Thus, from the bank's point of view, it's totally okay to exhibit satisficing behavior as it relates to filling many of those seats - the organizational machine to train "good enough" candidates into adequate commodity performers is well established, there's a huge excess in supply to intake, there's not a lot of downside risk, and there's not tremendous upside value to be captured by incrementally better hires. Good enough works fine most of the time.
Helpful comment. Thanks.
I think from what I have seen a lot of the smarter people have coasted through the high school and college and think that landing an IB internship will be really easy. They look at their resume and they are like wow I have everything needed to get the internship so I don't need to put in efforts. My friend is like that right now, double major, extra-curriculars are there but no efforts and its been difficult for the person to land an interview till now.
From personal experience, a lot of the smart-on-paper type of people are kinda introverted/nerdy and that is kinda difficult when you go through recruiting because of how social recruiting is (speak to people, be impressionable, make a connection). I am like this and I honestly initially never thought I would become this outgoing (the process has made me this way). So, we have to come out of our shell to do this. So, that's anything thing that gets us I think. To counter this, there are people who may not be the smartest but know how to talk and impress people and can make a connection very easily.
Finally, I think diversity recruiting (which I am not saying is bad, I think it is a great way to bring in underrepresented people) has definitely made it harder as well. For example a straight Asian male who's aced his classes, gotten into the right clubs will be at a disadvantage during this process.
I think the only way to mitigate this is to apply to as many places as you can. IB recruiting can be a crapshoot so might as well try our luck at as many places as we can.
a straight Asian male who aced classes, got along with ppl and the right clubs but disadvantaged at recruiting...hey, why not
Quibusdam voluptates ullam ullam autem et et consectetur ipsa. Est aut numquam et necessitatibus. Quod laudantium aliquid ex atque provident. Occaecati temporibus aut sed et perspiciatis. Voluptatum doloremque quis consequatur. In et aut et non.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...