Calling all Non-Targets looking for gigs in IB, Consulting, PE, etc.

I'm a startup founder building a "Triplebyte for finance". 

I'm wondering if a MarketSim app where you make trades, post your excel sheets, record videos justifying your trades and modeling, and are given a ranking based on your analysis and returns would be something that actually gets used by students. 

You wouldn't be able to see other students profiles, but recruiters from top firms would be able to view yours. 

We would not include information about universities attended or companies you've worked with, but only your major, grade, and previous roles. We hope this would eliminate any bias towards target schools and fancy internships and help out those non-targets that work like crazy!

What do we think?

17 Comments
 

There's a ton of firms out there and even larger firms like blackrock and Goldman are looking for non target talent. 

Fair point about paper trading. I mostly agree about that. but it seems to be the best way to "level the playing field"... any suggestions?

 
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So it’s not a good idea in the way you’re talking about it. I think if you create a place where students / whoever can easily paper trade, like code academy or something, then people will use that.

Then, if you do end up having very strong performers one day (only becomes more than unlikely when you have very high adoption or very effective concentrated adoption, and perhaps even then unlikely), you could probably sell them to prop trading shops.

Not really a phenomenal idea since it seems hard to do, uncertain, and not scalable, but maybe if you get high enough adoption you can charge a monthly fee or something. Or just monetize through ads.

Point is — availability of a free paper trading resource online with a slick UI and engaging to use is a gap in the market.

 

case and stock competitions already signal to future employers the same thing, have monetary rewards, are more prestigious, and just simply a better alternative. Even the extreme hardos I know at Wharton wouldn't waste their time on this and would rather work with real money in their student funds.

 

good tips... the app wouldn't be targeted  at your ivy league finance student (as they already get loads of exposure to recruiters just for their pedigree), but more towards students at state schools where pitch comps and case comps aren't as easy to come by. 

 

At a non-target state school here... pitch comps and case comps are pretty easy to come by for most students here, especially those that would be competitive for gigs in IB, consulting, or PE.

 

Couple issues, and they're actually with the value prop rather than monetization. In short, this is not a viable idea.

  • The jobs you're talking about are after prestige because it's safe, de-risked, and presentable externally. This doesn't solve that.
  • To make this workable, you would have to get the Ivy league students on the platform for comparison. That would level the playing field a bit and be similar to Github, etc. But why would they join? What value do you offer them? And are you so sure that they wouldn't on average beat the non-target kids by a pretty wide margin?
  • Further, even if we assumed that IB/Consulting was actually after ability to do the job on day 1 (spoiler, it's not that simple - see point 1), how does this prove that? This is paper trading and pitches - ie relevant to S&T or hedge funds. There are already platforms for all of this. VIC, for example. But more importantly, what does a 3 year track record prove? Nothing really. You're probably just lucky.
  • The CFA exists, is somewhat recognized, is academically rigorous, attracts candidates of all types and still doesn't materially help non-targets.
 

imo doesn't work as a mass market HF recruiting tactic, however could be an interesting idea in terms of replacing those math/reasoning competitions certain firms runs at unis

 

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