The PC diversity non-sense is getting out of hand

Hi Ladies and Gentlemen...
I just have to get this off my chest.
This post is addressed to MDs/Senior EDs if there are any. Others can contribute obviously.
What the hell is going on seriously with this inclusiveness/diversity bullshit/ PC non-sense ?
I am properly tired and disgusted by all this crap, and i am not Caucasian, and could theoretically benefit from it as i am from a certain religious background.
I am starting to consider finding some very small firm/HF that doesn't have enough money to waste for this non-sense and will just let me focus on my job.

Why don't you guys in senior management stand up against this crap ?? Everyone seems to be bending over to this sh*t and productive people are sick of it. I am way too junior to do anything but senior enough to start seeing what's going on.
And the worst thing, is that this is NOT solving the underlying problem.

Few random things i've either seen myself or heard about from my friends in various companies.

  • I've been asked by an HR after "screening" CVs why my selection didn't contain enough "minorities".
    I don't fucking know, i just picked the ones i thought were good. I am a foreigner from a different culture, i have no idea about what type of names are "white" or "black" or "purple" or anything. I barely read their f***** name.

  • Some kid who spent 1 year with a team, has stellar feedback from everyone, is not getting a return offer because HR said that team only had a female headcount.
    They ended up hiring some stupid summer clueless girl after 3 weeks of subpar presentations and charity stuff that left after 5 months to save dolphins or whatnot. The poor dude ended up finding a position somewhere but nowhere as good as the one he could have gotten.

  • There is a team which is supposed to be a "Key growth" area.
    But then after pretty much all the juniors left due to 1 specific bad apple, that person gets promoted, and they hire a bunch of poor kids, 2 out of which already left after 9 months for the same reasons. Then i end up overhearing a surrealistic conversation where basically someone explains that we have to "accomodate" that person because of her race/gender. Then they put another useless idiot there that threathened to sue them for supposedly being fired for the wrong reason (he was just bad). This team is now full of PC garbage hires, and are on track to miss all targets and deliver nothing, impacting several other teams.

  • Charity being forced on everyone (same story at various places), with not-so-subtle threats to your bonus if you don't comply with going to "supervise" some poor kids play tennis at a primary school or some other random activity.
    I happen to know one of the people at the charity, and i was told that they have to actually pay extra people to "watch" the clueless bankers supervising 5y old kids. And the only reason this is done is because they receive more money from the company.
    Basically this charity work is a giant farce that doesn't help anyone(it actually costs money), and is pure virtue signalling.

  • Male "working groups" to thing about how to empower women. Yes you heard it folks, someone floated this idea with a serious face. After the endless list of women-only events/groups where they go on wine-tasting with senior MDs in a setting that males would never be able to get before they make it to at least ED, it's not enough.
    Now because these garbage hires produce lackluster work (as expected), we need to waste time thinking of what WE need to do to help them.
    Are ladies not independent grown-ups that need to be treated equally ? This is the jungle. Go fight for yourself, proof your worth and you'll have an amazing careers like all the competent strong women (thank god these exist).

  • Inclusiveness Seminar that a friend had to go through. some tier 3 "actors" simulate some woman being harrassed by someone and a senior male trying to cover up the story and sidelining her from promotion.
    Then they are asking the audience to "debate". What is there to debate ? Like is there anyone that is really a sex-offender that is going to have a light-bulb moment and suddenly stop thanks to this ?
    At the corner of the room you have 4 HR taking notes.
    Noone is saying anything controversial or even trying to properly debate. Everyone is just pretending to be the most virtuous in the room.

I could go on and on and on...

On this note,
happy sunday to all the ladies, men, hindous, blacks, muslims or whatever other random groups that just happen to be trying to get on with their job.

 

it's a super gay response to actual and perceived social slights. shit tends to swing way in one direction before it course corrects. wonder where we'll be in like 5 years with all this. at lease we're not like Canada, Europe, or the Scandanavians

But all you can do is as the operator of the business that is your life, don't stand for any of that shit. Don't bend. Be super OK with people not liking you. Force people into corners with logic and make them backtrack and back down. Honestly, the #1 reason I'm looking forward to fatherhood is gaining a giant new pool of people to offend. The other parents will hate me so much and I will have so much fun fucking with them.

heister: Look at all these wannabe richies hating on an expensive salad. https://arthuxtable.com/
 
GoldenCinderblock:
Be super OK with people not liking you.
Sure, fine, it will happen.
GoldenCinderblock:
Force people into corners with logic and make them backtrack and back down.

This has to be among the worst pieces of advice I've ever seen on WSO. At anything other than entry-level, the following things are true:

  1. People skills matter more than hard skills or "logic"
  2. If you think you can "win" arguments most of the time (or that the point in most cases even is to "win") with "logic", you're going to a) be wildly unpopular (people do not like people who prove them wrong) and b) find out that most arguments in business aren't so well-defined by data and logic that you can clearly "win".
  3. People work with and do deals with people they like
  4. By and large, the most successful people are broadly popular within their companies & industries
 

We get one of these threads every few days now, just refer to the last one for the typical outrage/ "conservative" circle jerk and the ensuing "liberal" push back. It's all very tiresome at this point.

Array
 
Controversial

1.) Diversity/ harrasment training is never going away 2.) Your implication that minority hires are less qualified than their counterparts is false. They're often overqualified. 3.) Your post isn't looking for any middle ground or discussion, from the title to the thread, it's meant to ignite the typical outrage. It's meant to catalyze the typical circle jerk that has now become standard on the off topic section of WSO. 4.) A solution? Be open minded, suck it up, or quit.

Array
 

Companies that institute retarded preferential hiring policies based on some arbitrary surface-level characteristic (e.g., skin color, whether a dude like to put cocks in his mouth, whether a girl likes to eat twat, etc.) will invariably suffer the consequences in the long-run.

Let them play their backwards children’s game, and focus on deploying your intellect and skills for a no-nonsense company where your contributions will be valued and you won’t be viewed as just another ticked “diversity” box for some corporate platoon of pea-brained mongoloids.

 

Hell, I remember overhearing at a superday that they wished they had a female in the superday candidate pool so they could have one in the office. The other analyst said something along the lines of just getting an offer almost automatically.

Thank fuck there wasn't one there, or I might be screwed.

Really baffles the mind that there are people on this board trying to deny that women don't have a competitive advantage in the interview process.

 

Fuck me sideways. When I had a superday at a BB, I was eating breakfast with all the other candidates, and when we all were talking about potential technicals, this girl asked, "What's a DCF?" with a straight face. The funny thing is she was being completely serious. The next 5 minutes was some kid from Wharton telling her the line items and walking her through it (I iwsh i was joking).

"Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
 
Funniest

I know you say you’re not white but I have a lot of white and black friends and the only ones who ever bring up “purple” when talking about race are white people

 
ssanta:
I know you say you’re not white but I have a lot of white and black friends and the only ones who ever bring up “purple” when talking about race are white people

Not everyone is black or white... There are lots of other "types" out there that don't have a chip on their shoulder because of stuff that happened 100 years ago or more and are sort of fed up by all this endless racial non-sense and just want to live their lives without hearing about diversity every 2 minutes.

 
Most Helpful

Cry harder.

Back in my day (black guy talking here, not in IB anymore), HR and senior employees threw out the resume of qualified POC. They hired Bob, Jim, and Jack with sub par grade point averages because they were white males that came from well off backgrounds. Cry me a damn river. I literally witnessed an MD throw a resume belonging to a woman from India into the garbage because he said, "i cant pronounce that shit." I will never forget that.

Not so good getting a taste of your medicine now is it? And I actually don't believe that you're a minority. Every year or so, a thread like this comes out, looking to spark some sort of factory generated hatred towards minorities. If you have to say, "I'm a minority but....," you're probably not a minority and it shows in your delivery.

Get a life. If you can't deal with working alongside minorities, go start your own firm, hire all the white males you want, and watch it crumble like LTCM.

 

oh yeah, let’s fuck up the new generation of hires because some guy back in early 2000 threw an Indian woman’s resume in the bin because she had a name he couldn’t pronounce. Your strategy isn’t even going to affect that original guy, it only hurts kids who in today’s world aren’t the slightest bit racist.

 

so Indian Americans were getting discriminated then and they’re still getting discriminated now? there’s just no win for them....

 

Stupid comment. Nobody is arguing that there shouldn't be a level playing field. Anything different than a level playing field is known as discrimination.

Any rational person would fight for equal opportunity. What the current diversity/quota situation is all about is EQUAL OUTCOME. There is a huge difference between equal opportunity and equal outcome. In fact you're not even arguing for equal outcome. You're arguing for intentional unequal outcome on the basis someone's skin color, gender, etc, which is in fact the very definition of racist/sexist.

 
tjo55:
Stupid comment. Nobody is arguing that there shouldn't be a level playing field. Anything different than a level playing field is known as discrimination.

Any rational person would fight for equal opportunity. What the current diversity/quota situation is all about is EQUAL OUTCOME. There is a huge difference between equal opportunity and equal outcome. In fact you're not even arguing for equal outcome. You're arguing for intentional unequal outcome on the basis someone's skin color, gender, etc, which is in fact the very definition of racist/sexist.

And only a mouth-breathing idiot would fail to recognize that there isn't equal opportunity, and that mandating equal outcomes in the short term is meant to level that playing field in the long term.

Socio-economically, minorities are at a massive structural disadvantage thanks to decades (if not centuries in some cases) of institutionalized and systemic bigotry and prejudice. Which means being born black means you're automatically less likely to be "successful."

In a more specific sense, when the vast majority of high-ups in a bank's hiring department are white men, then of course you're going to see a natural inclination to hire more white men if the system is left to it's own devices. People feel more comfortable with others who think and look like them, come from similar backgrounds, etc... that's human nature. But it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle in that case. For a less explosive example, everyone knows that certain groups in certain banks have a disproportionate number of graduates from a "random" school. I remember that when I was an analyst, 3 or 4 of 12 of my class were from Northwestern. And guess who also went to Northwestern? The director who ran the recruitment process for that group.

If you change the way these things look at positions of actual power, then you're in a position to create a system that can sustain itself. I agree that we don't need the number of black board members, CEOs, MDs, or what have you to mimic the overall percentage of the population, but it would be nice to get it close. Once that becomes the new normal, then you'll have a more even playing field.

TL;DR - you can't magically wish "equal opportunity" into being out of thin air - there is a reason there isn't equal opportunity in the first place! To overcome that kind of systemic issue, you need to force change in a way that may seem unfair in the short term,

 

Not so good getting a taste of your medicine now is it?

You act like we all personally had something to do with this? Was the instance you witnessed wrong? Absolutely, but to assert that systematic retribution against a group of people down the line based on surface level characteristics who were too young to be a part of whatever you went through is a logical course of action is deranged. 

Sorry you felt discriminated against "back in your day" but back then I bet you felt that merit should be the main factor in hiring someone, not skin color. Now that we all want it based on merit you now want to flip and have people given advantages based on skin color? 

 

I read something from a guy who had helped start a few successful Silicon Valley companies. His rule of thumb was that when his company got large enough to have an established HR department, it was time for him to move on. Those are words that I live by. Fortunately it's easier to do that in real estate than in corporate America. Stay small and you can pretty much avoid the bullshit.

 

WSO added a database of companies by diversity..... either way, it's pointless to discuss with liberals. They just hate everything that has European heritage for racial reasons. Virtually no different from Islamic terrorists

Never discuss with idiots, first they drag you at their level, then they beat you with experience.
 

There are many things to untangle here so I’ll try my best, as I think this is important and think that this topic is almost always poorly represented (and very one sided and angry). This may come off as a lecture, but I don’t know how else to word this, so putting it out there.

First you need differentiate between the idea and the implementation. Start with what your bank/firm/etc is trying to accomplish with this and why, make sure you understand this, then go to the implementation. You may disagree with both but I think it is important to distinguish those two, a great idea with terrible implementation is still terrible, but you know what problem to address. If you group those together you may be confusing the idea with the implementation and that is risky and causes people to be frustrated with good ideas.

Now, going to the diversity issue and the focus on this. It is important to understand a few things:

1) no one will ever get this right. Diversity can be defined many different ways (income inequality? Race? Ethnicity? Sexual orientation? Etc), so while firms are trying with diversity there are times they will miss groups and no one will ever have the perfect measure. I frequently see low income as a group that is excluded from this, but arguing that it isn’t perfect for one group is dangerous and focuses the attention on missed things rather than on positive outcomes, I would view that more as something that can be improved as opposed to a reason why this doesn’t work.

2) I think most of us can all agree that there are many barriers to entry (some very clear, others harder to see and measure) for many diverse candidates, I’ll explain more later as I know many people (especially the junior people) focus on the current programs and say “no it’s the opposite, they get all the opportunities!” So I’ll get back to it.

3) because of #2 recruiting diverse candidates is harder and more expensive. The pool is generally smaller because of #2, as an example the ratio of female to male students in STEM (outside of a few schools) is low, unless you believe that somehow women are less analytical (I do not) or have less interest in analytical problems (also not something I believe) you need to spend more time finding the talent because they won’t be visible in your “standard” pipes. If you just went to top schools and took finance majors you are missing a huge population.

4) long term vs short term - if you want someone who knows financial models for 2 years, then talking someone who studied this for years in college and comes “trained” might be fine, if you want to build the future leaders of your organization you need to do more. At the end of the day, I want the best of the best at my firm, the problem is how you define “best” and where I think many people confuse things. It isn’t necessarily your school (but that’s a good filter) or your gpa, I need creative thinkers, people who will crush analytical problems, people who will be leaders and rally people behind them, etc. If you want the best fraction of a % in your organization the idea that the fraction of the % of the population that is the “best” is all white males is most likely wrong (based on studies, but more importantly probability and frankly common sense). But again, they will be all over the place, you need to find them, many won’t be studying finance because they don’t know what that is.

5) environment - a step further is if you want the “best” in the world you need to build a culture and environment that not only recruits these people but has an environment that retains the talent. It might come as a shock to some of you, but people generally feel uncomfortable in environments that are completely different than what they are accustomed to, AND upward mobility can be seriously hampered by this.

6) getting back to the barriers, there are many things to discuss but I’ll outline a few: a. Years of recruiting people “like me” has led to a very homogeneous organization. And people tend to hire people like them and promote them. So it can be harder to even get through the first round interviews. Tied to this and some of the below making connections are harder as a lot of this candidates aren’t in the right “clubs”, or sports, or traveled to Switzerland for their winter ski trip, etc b. Connections (For school and work) - a lot of this stuff is second order but the US workforce (in senior positions) for a long time lacked diversity, this leads to wealthy groups lacking diversity (this is changing) and therefore connections (legacy admits at school and connections at work). A lot of underrepresented groups don’t have this opportunity. c. “Interest” - many people learn about careers and get interested in subjects at school through their Family/friends/etc so due to how history has played out you end up with a less diverse group in STEM majors (historically) and finance paths d. Culture - a lot of diverse candidates don’t feel comfortable at these firms and so they don’t apply or accept offers (you don’t see any senior leaders who have your background, you don’t make connections with the people, what makes you think you’ll succeed?) etc.

7) similar to my long term, diverse teams (again MANY ways to measure this) tend to outperform (differing views, experiences, etc that diversify the outcomes, think about it as a higher sharpe...)

Ok there are many more points we can hit but I think the issue many people have is with implementation. I think people focus on a few examples that highlight the “negative” aspects (from their view) and get worked up about those instead of thinking about how they would tackle this issue. Hiring someone just because they check the “diversity” box isn’t a way to solve this. But putting a ton of effort into finding the very best for your firm, means you HAVE to focus on a diverse talent pool, because as I said the top fraction of a % of students/employees/etc come from different backgrounds.

 

This all sounds good in practice but is clearly well rehearsed and falls absolutely flat. For example firms tick the Latino box by hiring a bunch of white people (Germans, Italians etc.) from Argentina/Brazil.

Firms then tick the female box by hiring a bunch of white women from the northeast. You're going on about how people lack opportunities etc. but these white women are the sisters of the dudes being hired historically anyway. They had the same ski trips, they're also legacy, they grew up in the same neighborhoods. It's laughable that people think they bring a "diverse perspective."

It's become easy for firms to focus on this and not on actual diversity like hiring poor blacks who face actual barriers and would truly bring a unique perspective given different upbringing. You're trying to claim these aren't mutually exclusive but they are. Diversity recruiting is a scarce resource and firms are finding it much easier to just focus on women to pump up diversity numbers. This is true even at the highest levels. Every single firm in the S&P 500 now has to have a female board member (by industry convention). Goldman won't IPO a firm without a "diverse board" which they admit is a focus "primarily on women." Does any one care about their URM board numbers? Not a whole lot. These initiatives are clearly mutually exclusive and it's a travesty. Don't even get me started on how the above groups are diversity but asians aren't.

 

Again you are focusing on implementation and not the idea. Do you disagree with the statements I made or do you disagree with how you think it is being implemented?

I can only speak into how I personally view it and how I deal with it. The person asked for senior (MD, etc) thoughts so I am giving them.

I am a part of the strategy, I sit in the rooms and have the deliberations. So I can tell you how I work to implement it, so no, this isn’t rehearsed, this is what actually goes on. Can I guarantee that this is how it happens across firms? No of course not. Do I think that making generalizations as you are doing is useful? No mostly not. And do I think some firms abuse this for PR? I’m sure they do.

 

You bring up a good point. I’m pro-diversity programs, as long as it’s actually diversity. Usually it’s just people with the exact same background, and education and tax bracket, just of different shades and genders.

 

This is all well and good, and you make some solid points, but in my experience HR doesn’t give a shit about the nuance of “diversity”. They want non-white males so that they can showcase their pool and hit internal diversity quotas, that’s all.

I completely lost all respect for “diversity programs” whose mission is to give disadvantaged minorities a leg-up in the corporate world when a colleague of mine with a vaguely Hispanic sounding last name told me he was tapped for my firm’s diversity mentorship program where he gets personal guidance from an executive. I wasn’t bitter because of the program, I was bitter because this dude went to an Ivy undergrad, has a top PhD, and his dad is a long tenured professor at a solid university.

I like the dude and don’t blame him at all for taking the opportunity, but fuck HR and fuck these nonsensical, completely misguided diversity programs.

 
Pmc2ghy:
This is all well and good, and you make some solid points, but in my experience HR doesn’t give a shit about the nuance of “diversity”. They want non-white males so that they can showcase their pool and hit internal diversity quotas, that’s all.

So what you're saying is that left to their own devices, corporate bureaucrats will do the absolute minimum that allows them to say they did their job, and that no one else in the organization with the power to change that attitude gives a shit.

Which is exactly the charge that was leveled prior to "diversity hires" becoming a thing. It was always easier to hire the mediocre candidate whose father played golf with the CEO than to go out and do work to find the best people. And the higher-ups didn't give a shit, because the idea is that as the field gets winnowed down as people climb the corporate ladder, that is the better time to properly diligence hires/promotes.

As far as I can tell, if you are choosing between two equally inept, equally shitty scenarios, opting for the one that might help out a historically disadvantaged population is a clear win.

 

If it makes you feel any better, I work at a LO AM with IB programs and such, you very rarely see buyside firms (the next and preferred leap after IB / S&T / ER at a big bank for 90%) do such things. And a big part of this is because there are so few jobs available and many parts of the industry are shrinking so you have to be ultra selective on hiring just the best people. If they are women / african americans, great they're hired. If they're white or indian or asian males, then great they're hired. The reality is, for a variety of structural reasons, 80% of the those people most qualified are in the latter group. I know several very qualified, highly-intelligent women / minorities at my firm, and I have never heard of any of them try to push for this PC hiring crap. I myself am one of those minorities, but will admit that I'm from APAC origin. I certainly will never push for this garbage and compromise the quality of our firm & our research.

So to all you PC cucks out there, know that few buyside firms will ever screw themselves to pity-hire individuals just because of how much their ancestors struggled. While you may think you're winning a "victory" at big banks and some J&J out there, the highest-paid & best part of finance (IMO) won't compromise to your moronic ideals that require screwing over quality. Few of these buyside firms are public and most are quite small (nearly all well under 1k people) so there's little hope of you pulling your BS. Take your hollow little victory.

 
hedgehog9:
So to all you PC cucks out there, know that few buyside firms will ever screw themselves to pity-hire individuals just because of how much their ancestors struggled. While you may think you're winning a "victory" at big banks and some J&J out there, the highest-paid & best part of finance (IMO) won't compromise to your moronic ideals that require screwing over quality. Few of these buyside firms are public and most are quite small (nearly all well under 1k people) so there's little hope of you pulling your BS. Take your hollow little victory.

Except... this is a victory. Because that "diversity hire" is now sitting in a position where they have access to the same network of connections that non-minorities have always had (as a group). Which means their kids will now have access to an education, access to the country club network, access to daddy's friends who can put in a good word, which means they start to get the opportunities at elite buy side firms. Which, by the way, may not go in for diversity hires, but certainly make plenty of hires based on who the MD is friends with, whether or not the owner/founder has kids, etc. The hiring process may not be openly geared towards diversity candidates, but it's just as influenced by the same Old Boy's Club mentality that everyone else is. It's just that no one out and out admits that anymore.

 
Ozymandia:
hedgehog9:
So to all you PC cucks out there, know that few buyside firms will ever screw themselves to pity-hire individuals just because of how much their ancestors struggled. While you may think you're winning a "victory" at big banks and some J&J out there, the highest-paid & best part of finance (IMO) won't compromise to your moronic ideals that require screwing over quality. Few of these buyside firms are public and most are quite small (nearly all well under 1k people) so there's little hope of you pulling your BS. Take your hollow little victory.

Except... this is a victory. Because that "diversity hire" is now sitting in a position where they have access to the same network of connections that non-minorities have always had (as a group). Which means their kids will now have access to an education, access to the country club network, access to daddy's friends who can put in a good word, which means they start to get the opportunities at elite buy side firms. Which, by the way, may not go in for diversity hires, but certainly make plenty of hires based on who the MD is friends with, whether or not the owner/founder has kids, etc. The hiring process may not be openly geared towards diversity candidates, but it's just as influenced by the same Old Boy's Club mentality that everyone else is. It's just that no one out and out admits that anymore.

Best summary I’ve seen of why diversity hiring exists and makes sense. It’s about getting the disadvantaged population on the ladder so they can eventually become competitive for the full spectrum of opportunities. Maybe it doesn’t happen in one generation, but the kids of the MD or senior exec who got his/her start in that program are going to have a shot at the jobs that always tend to go to people with that level of connections.

 

Just thought you should know that KKR, Apollo, Bain, Carlyle, Centerbridge, CD&R, Oaktree, Thoma Bravo, TPG, Warburg, Vista, MDP, Baupost, Advent, Clearlake, CVC, TA Associates, Audax, General Atlantic, Welsh Carson and many more buy-side firms are heavily involved in diversity recruiting for post IBD associates through third party programs like SEO and MLT..... not sure where you got the idea that "few buyside firms will ever screw themselves" by pursing diversity hiring and initiatives.

And the fact that you think the premise of emphasizing diversity in recruiting is considered as "pity hiring" is ludicrous. Your implication that minorities hired by banks are not qualified is also ridiculous. This whole idea just seems to make you really upset and it comes off as you taking this personally.. maybe you should ask yourself why that is. You seem to be so comfortable and accomplished in your "LO AM ETFs and FAANG stocks.

 

[quote="Incoming Analyst in IB - Gen"]This whole idea just seems to make you really upset and it comes off as you taking this personally.. maybe you should ask yourself why that is. You seem to be so comfortable and accomplished in your "LO AM

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

I'd say that diversity is not the problem itself (but you know I'm posting anonymously for a reason). The problem is how far it is being taken. I think that if a bank organizes some event where senior women can meet with junior women then really no one is hurt. This is cool. The problem is HR taken it too far. I then think why does HR take it so far? And the answer is this:

HR HAS NOTHING TO DO ALL DAY EXCEPT FOR THINKING ABOUT NEW BULLSHIT WAYS TO PRETEND THEY HAVE A REAL JOB

So I say the future of HR departments is this:

  • If 3 of your hires underperforms and are fired you are fired immediately.

  • If 3 of your hires leave before 2 years at the company you are fired immediately.

  • Have all HR planned activities include anonymous scores from staff. Anything under 20% approval gets you fired immediately.

I could think of more but the general idea is this: you know why we don't have time for this bullshit? BECAUSE WE ARE ACTUALLY MAKING MONEY AND LEAVING THE OFFICE AT LIKE 10 PM JUST TO DELIVER. On the other hand HR has nothing to do all day, leave immediately at 5 PM to go home jerk off some more and then come the next day to do nothing once again. Then eventually someone asks their VP about how to justify their budget and how do they justify it? Well, look at all these pointless activities we are organizing! We need all this money you are giving us!

 

Posts like these are upsetting. I’m not saying there aren’t people who are bad at their job or that there are redundancies at firms that don’t make sense, but listen to yourself. You make such general remarks that are pretty distant to what I’ve seen across the industry. There is also this attitude that keeps popping up of “we’re so much better than everyone else” or “we are the money makers” that is at many levels wrong and arrogant in a way that it is generally bad for your career long term. You both don’t have enough time to bother with “this shit” AND think HR is a waste, which is it? You might be saying that the size of the department is too large and I have no idea where you work but I don’t feel that way. I would highlight two things:

1) Almost across the board, HR doesn’t make hire decisions, the senior people of the group do. So firing someone from HR over candidates that don’t do well seems off. You (and your seniors) make the decision (again across most firms)

2) I am very involved in recruiting by choice, and I find the HR people very valuable. The question is; do you want to do their job? My guess is no, so you either think there is no value (and there shouldn’t be a dept) or there is value, and guess what you need to pay someone to do it (and most people on this board would never do it). I partner with the HR people and they help with: aggregating salary and benefit data to make sure we are aligned with competitors, figure out what internships and other off cycle programs should look like, help with the timing of recruiting based on the industry, makes sure we are going to the right schools, conferences, etc (and doing all the planning on these including putting me in contact with the right people), keeping a pulse on new programs/benefits/etc (anything that might help us with recruiting the people we need), screen the resumes, even do the intro chats and feelers for students we might be interested in.

Short of it is they help make it so that by the time I’m talking to someone, doing a presentation, etc, all the stuff that would annoy me is done and in a good spot. And guess what, people who do that for seniors at your bank/firm/etc are very valuable. You say you are making the firm money (let’s be real, especially at the first year analyst level), but they are saving senior people a lot of time, that is valuable.

 

All I'm talking about is giving them some skin in the game. The reason you do your job well is because if you don't then you will very soon see the consequences on it as you beg on the streets. If you are actually so afraid for HR that you think giving them some very simple goals and limits will absolutely crush and kill them then I think you see HR with even less worth than I do.

I actually see my rules as "they will make HR be more conscious of their decisions". You actually think they will get fired for it. I think you just admitted the HR people you know are very, very incompetent. Why are you simping for them?

 

Facts. And no one wants to hear it. Its the classic equal opportunity vs equal results argument. By making hiring decisions based on race/gender/etc. it is inherently discriminatory.

 

Insight day at Evercore – the head of office spent 5 minutes touting how much they cared about diversity

Superday at Evercore – every banker I met that day was a white male, apart from the receptionists and the HR. they didn't bother to parade one single person with some degree of "diversity"

12 of us interviewed that day - everybody who got the offer was white

 

I do not think there are binders full of diversity candidates that seek employment in finance. The pool is smaller and therefore it is more difficult to fill these position with minority candidates.

 

You'd be surprised. I go to a target and there are numerous women who know absolutely nothing about IB and land BB offers. There's one specifically that is quite hilarious in the fact that it so clear she was a quota hire.

Its just kinda a sad situation because these quota/diversity hires themselves feel like they don't genuinely deserve to be there on their own merit which really messes with their self worth.

Same goes for affirmative action. Was a recent published study from Harvard Law that concluded that affirmative action admittants were 4x as likely to fail their bar exam compared to non-affirmative action admittants. Just really don't know how anyone can argue that the quota/diversity/affirmative action trend is in anyway helpful in the long run to any school/company.

 

Diversity recruiting happens ~2 months earlier than regular recruiting. Vast majority of the top diverse candidates are snapped up then / don't factor into the 'regular' superday you're (appearing to be, at least) describing, so it follows that later rounds' attendees and offer recipients are overwhelmingly 'non-diverse'. If not, remember that veteran, LGBTQ+, etc. candidates also qualify for the early process, so you may have just had a diversity superday full of rockstars that fall into another targeted bucket.

And FWIW, Evercore is probably one of the most diverse (if not the most diverse) of top IBs. Superdays are staffed by a random smattering of associates / VPs who volunteer for the day, so could just be random chance that you saw a bunch of white dudes (or they just like interviewing more than do other demographics).

 
Prospect in PE - LBOs:
Insight day at Evercore – the head of office spent 5 minutes touting how much they cared about diversity

Superday at Evercore – every banker I met that day was a white male, apart from the receptionists and the HR. they didn't bother to parade one single person with some degree of "diversity"

12 of us interviewed that day - everybody who got the offer was white

I think I'm the only black guy in the entire equity research department of my bank.... so my question is, why aren't there more of me if it's so easy to obtain a finance job as a minority? You know what I think? The words on diversity and these programs are only there for show. Far more qualified minorities don't get a job than do.

You know what I think? It's still better to be a white male trying to get into finance or any other position of power in America than being a minority (shocking, I know).

You know what this leads me to believe? The average white male hire is less competent than the average minority hire as the minority overcame all the inherent biases and prejudices (read WSO as an example) to attain a role.

Shall I provide an anecdote? Ok. I networked, got an interview, and did an entire stock pitch to get this role - I knew what I wanted and made it happen. Meanwhile, one of my peers mused that he didn't know what a stock pitch was when he was interviewing and he just talked about college football with the hiring manager. You think I would've been able to get away with that? Probably not, imo.

It is what it is though, I just keep grinding while ppl like hedgehog9 make assumptions as to the circumstances of my employment.

Array
 

You want to provide anecdotes? Let me give you one. I interned at a BB bank my junior year in IB and there were 4 kids in a coverage group seated next to mine. There were only 2 FT positions and two of the kids were basically rock stars (both asian dudes), 1 kid was decent (white dude), and 1 kid absolutely sucked (black girl). The African American girl literally kept referring to her school no one at the firm had heard of as "the Harvard of the South" and every piece of work she turned in had to be massively redone. She didn't know what a DCF was, couldn't edit a PowerPoint deck to match the preferred format to save her life, and was intolerably braggadocios. I know this because the there interns towards the 2nd half of the summer picked up a bunch of her slack as the associates realized she was totally incompetent.

Anyway,, come end of summer the group had to give out 2 FT offers only. The entire group except for the head MD chose of the 2 rock star asian guys. But the head MD (who was also Head of Diversity and a black guy himself) vetoed the decision and said one of the two FT offers should be taken away from one of the rock stars and given to the black girl. The entire group protested against this. I myself heard the associate (who sat 2 desks away from mine) arguing - as carefully as you can against the head of your group - that this girl was absolutely inept and also a pain as a person to be around. But the Head MD wanted to hire her for no other reason than that she was black and female.

Tell me how that in any way is fair? This asian guy grinded his absolute butt off for the summer only to get shafted because he wasn't enough of a minority to be handed things for free. I was fortunate as I was in a group with 3 interns with 3 offers to give, but I literally couldn't believe that decisions were being made this way in that group. So while affirmative action can be good to an extent, when you take it this far it ends up screwing over those most deserving while rewarding those who are least deserving the system itself is failing.

And no, the average white male hire is not less competent than the average minority hire lol. Pretty much every non-black/latino hire had to have GPAs above 3.7 while I spoke with several minority hires with GPAs of 3.3s and 3.4s. And largely, the guys with 3.7s and 3.8s ramped faster and became productive more quickly. So please stop spreading misinformation to justify hiring people based on the color of their skin.

 

And hedgehog9

You both make reasonable points. Here is what I would say: if you think it is easier for a black guy to get a white collar job than it is for a white guy, you would be completely wrong most of the time. If the hiring manager is white and the clients are older white people, it might be very difficult for the black guy to get the job, The issue might not be overt racism but the hiring manager might be concerned about how his clients would feel about hiring the black guy. This is not overt racism but it still is a form of racism.

Another reason you find a disproportionately low percentage of black people in finance might be, on a statistical basis, they might prefer other industries such as law. With that said, black people may prefer law (I know these are generalizations) but this might because getting a job in finance might be difficult.

Regarding affirmative action and diversity, I am kind on the fence on this one. A hiring manager should hire the person who is most qualified for the job. However, if the applicants are equally qualified and the firm wants to be more diverse, then they should hire the minority. With that said, affirmative action is not just about current diversity, it is also about giving people a chance when they might not have one. Of course, no one should hire someone who completely unqualified for a job. That would not make much sense for the applicant or the employer.

 

If you're the only black guy in the office, then why aren't you using your position to advocate for more black people? I'm go to a nontarget with an alumni network that is very well known to go to bat for students. I networked my ass off to get superdays and despite having great conversations with some people, the only people that actually got me interviews were alumni. I know that if I'm in the position to help people who go to my school I would do it if they made the effort to reach out because I'm in a position to do that and that's how I broke in. I'm not saying these two things are completely comparable, but I am saying that you're in a position where, even if you don't have a say in the recruiting process, at the very least you can express your opinion or if anyone contacts you you can refer them to a colleague and get their name around.

 

The implementation is by far more important than the idea.

"One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results." - Milton Friedman

Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.
 
molderingpeanuts:
Another relevant quote: "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." - Chief Justice Roberts

This is the "I don't see color" argument and it's garbage. Even if you as an individual doesn't see color, society does - and it affects people's lives (for example, sentencing in the criminal justice system, driving while black, etc.). If someone can't acknowledge that and maintains "I don't see color" then they are a part of the problem and not the solution.

Array
 

ah another bitch-baby and out of touch post on diversity efforts. At this point, just a scroll through this comment thread is enough to provide reason as to why diversity hires exist and is necessary.

 

Great argument pal. Really glad you brought up empirical evidence to support your claims. Hiring simply on the basis of race/gender is the definition of racist/sexist. Don't know how anyone can argue otherwise. There's absolutely no solidified evidence that any of the diversity/affirmative action has resulted in anything positive for firms/schools. Whereas there was a recent study that clearly showed that Harvard Law affirmative action students were 4 TIMES as a likely to fail their bar exam at the end of law school in comparison to their non-affirmative action counterparts.

 
tjo55:
There's absolutely no solidified evidence that any of the diversity/affirmative action has resulted in anything positive for firms/schools.

I have no interest in argument with someone who struggles to acknowledge obvious present day barriers (and consequently gaps in access) within both the job market and academia for women/URM. You highlight that affirmative action candidates are more likely for failure; you do realize that barriers to success in longevity while being female/hispanic/black/low SES doesn't end at the "congratulations" letter, correct? You do realize that you attributing someone's hire "simply because they are ___" with all other factors disregarded only strengthens the need for a diverse community, due to people like you?

If you are so dense that that you only view diversity as a negative, there's really nothing that I, as a rando on an online forum, can do to help you. Perhaps all I can do is be glad that you aren't making decisions. There's nothing I can do for you if you are disillusioned enough to think there is an equal playing field and access for all, even in 2020.

Sorry pal, seems like you're gonna have to keep punching that wall; maybe along the way you might stumble on studies that paint clearly the sort of present day inequalities that exist for minority candidates within ultra selective industries - oh but, yikes, might be a bit out of your range.

 

LMAO hedgehog9

What a pitiful existence you must have to be harboring this much anger. Why the fuck do you care so much? Did a minority take your precious PE job? Wait my b, *AM job, you must be killing it so much, making those big bucks in asset management.

I know this is a message board, but fuck man. Let's see you say what you're saying to a minority's face. Not someone in industry, just your average minority working 9-5, see what they say. I'll give you a hint, bob and weave.

It's funny how these incels come in and try and implement their godly world view they regurgitated from 4chan, Manifest destiny right!? Fuck you. I'll just assume you're part of this pussy generation that wants everything handed to them and then blames others when things don't go your way.

 

Hedgehog is a cuckboi just like 90% of this site.

Still angry his "black MD" gave a "black intern" a FT offer instead of the asians. How did that directly affect you? Are you one of those butthurt asians? Or are you one of the thousands of butthurt white boys here? You're like that one fucking moron who said he can tell if a white/black/indian person wrote an essay. Just grow up, it's sad people like you are in the industry.

Also, what's with your cocky attitude? I mean, you're in asset management bud. Not some BSD LBO associate.

 
Intern in IB-M&A:
Also, what's with your cocky attitude? I mean, you're in asset management bud. Not some BSD LBO associate.
 

No, he's just a loser. Like a straight up definition of the word loser.

No need to cuss and all that because he is what he is and a lot of other people on this thread are the same. Just feel bad for them and move on. It's funny how riled up people get on these kind of threads when you know a majority of the people commenting are just that, losers.

 
Ralph_Lauren4122:
when you know a majority of the people commenting are just that, losers.

I think you could say almost everyone who comments in the Off Topic forum are losers. Myself included, but I don't think a lot of people spend their days on anonymous message boards...

It's been said and I will say it again, there's a reason why those at BX/KKR/P72 don't come on here

 

Says a guy in RE. Let me guess, a washed out frat boy with a below average IQ who couldn't crack into the actual buyside when they found he was nearly autistic? We're all just surprised you can spell, or more likely, speak and have this dictated to someone who knew how to type. Please go back to your nonsensical life, but appreciate the try champ lol

 

Informative note: the wording ''institutionalized/systemic/structural'' was virtually unheard outside the academia until 2014. Mostly because before that, it used to be confined to a very fringe circle in humanities departments known as ''Critical Theory''.

The boomer takeover in the 90s resulted in a cultural shift in the academia, with critical theorists taking over large swaths of departments and administrations, under the new banners of ''intersectionality'' or ''critical race theory'' or similar offshoots. By the second Obama term, these people had now produced at least a generation of students indoctrinated with such theories, who then replicated the ''woke'' shift in most of the upper tier media. There are studies performed by Joshua Goldberg on the shift of ideological content over time

See this thread: https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1244744783148584963

The spike in ideological language with terms such as: privilege, oppression, marginalized etc. is humongous. So that everyone knows what these people are up to, Critical Theory is Marxism. The obsession over ''system/structure/institutions'' should give it out (Marx took it from Hegel), but if you aren't used to ideological language, then you might get fooled.

Because Marxist economics was virtually disqualified since the fall oft he Soviet Union, left leaning academics found other ways to push their agenda, by masquerading it. Instead of focusing over the proletariat oppressed by the bourgeoise, they replaced both with new categories of oppressed and oppressor. Instead of focusing on economics, they focused on culture. This is the same thing attempted by Soviets and Maoists as soon as Marxist economics delivered famine. They did not blame Marxism, they blamed ''social institutions'' and started tearing everything apart: see the ''Cultural Revolution''. The goal, however, hasn't changed. They simply thing that for communism to finally work, what can be ''socially constructed'' should be erased, because it creates inequality.

Only by erasing institutions and cultural heritages equality can be finally achieved. It's utterly appalling that corporations are embracing this, but then again it's simply further evidence of the decadence. It's not a case that coronavirus affected the Western world the most, while Eastern Europe and East Asia are doing okay. We have a hugely influential segment of society pushing towards our own destruction, often unknowingly.

Most people who support this kind of things do not understand the background nor the goal. The ideologues do, but they also carefully crafted a language that is either positive sounding, or outright inaccessible and repellent.

Never discuss with idiots, first they drag you at their level, then they beat you with experience.
 

Btw, assuming you are actually black, those who bully you in the thread for allegedly being a diversity hire are complete idiots.

edit: and don't edit your posts to ''.'' If you want to tell me to fu** off, do it.

Never discuss with idiots, first they drag you at their level, then they beat you with experience.
 

It’s funny how people tend to have different default assumptions about individual differences than they have about group differences.

A lot of the comments here basically imply that the only possible reason that two groups could differ in average achievement is discrimination. So any actual average difference we observe is ipso facto evidence of discrimination.

If (say) Mexican-Americans achieve less in Silicon Valley than Russian-Americans (struggle more to get hired, get fewer promotions, get paid less) that’s because white people are prejudiced against Hispanics. But if Bill Smith achieves less in Silicon Valley than Tom Jones (struggles more to get hired, gets fewer promotions, gets paid less) the default assumption is that he hasn’t performed as well, not that management or Tom is prejudiced against him.

 

Yep, more butthurt college kids are pissed that black and hispanic people are still getting jobs when they can't.

Wasn't Mr Trump supposed to make all those darker skinned folks go back where they belong? If not to their country of origin, then at least to the back office?

 

This is some real First Fucking World Problem Thread. My grampa always said people need a healthy war once in a while or else they conjure up some bullshit to exert power over their fellow man - how right he was.

 

Blows my mind that in 2020 people are still crying that an occasional black guy / hispanic / girl gets an offer and its not still 99% brads/chads/thads from connecticut.

We all know about 'prestige' in this business, we all know how important targets are. We all know how belonging to a certain social strata in society is to eventually getting an offer. Why is this any different? This is from a white guy - god knows that the only people getting any offers would be asians nigerians and jews if the process was 100% on merit alone. Take solace in the fact that firms will always be at least 70% white and stop bitching, its an embarrassing look.

 

We need to have recruiting where the name, gender, race of the candidate is hidden from HR. That way they select strictly off of merit. 

If you disagree with this, you are literally asking for less qualified people to get the job. 

 

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