Where is top talent at top targets choosing to go?
Where are the finance hardo students at Harvard / Wharton choosing to go after undergrad? Is it the top rx offers (pjt / evr), top bb (gs / ms), top pe analyst programs (wp / SLP etc) or the hedge fund programs (point / citadel)?
Know all of the above are good outcomes but curious what is considered the best offers for top students these days? Specifically focused on students in investment clubs, pitch competitions etc
Bump
This is a lagging indicator fyi
Agreed
All finance jobs are now a lagging indicator
Bump
Graduated from Wharton undergrad a few years pre-COVID so things might have changed since then.
Anecdotally, the absolute most elite classmates I knew (like 4.0 GPA, solo carries every finance group project, wins all case competitions, both naturally gifted and grinds hard, etc.) went to Silver Point, Blackstone, Silver Lake, etc.
Makes sense since those are the firms that host case competitions so the winners obviously get a leg up on recruiting.
Knew a few super smart kids that went to P72 or Bridgewater but they were more “math-y” or engineering-focused than finance.
The top tier IB kids, for the most part (again, based on my narrow experience), were more either hard grinders and/or well-connected rather than naturally-gifted kids like the first category I mentioned.
To be clear, when I say well-connected, I don’t mean nepotism (though ofc that happens also). Many of those kids grinded harder than anyone when it came to networking. They are, obviously, very intelligent and gifted as well, but the kids in the first category are just another tier of sharp.
Out of curiosity,the people in the first category who went to bx, slp etc. are they still at those firms? If not, what do they do now?
Again, take this with a grain of salt given my limited sample size, but the Silver Point kids I knew are still there as far as I know.
Other top HF kids (P72, Bridgewater, etc.) have bounced around other HFs - don’t see any of the ones I know that are still at the original HF they landed at post-undergrad.
The PE ones (Blackstone, Silver Lake) are more of a mixed bag. ~60% are still there as Principals now but the rest have left for high-level positions at start-ups or founded their own start-ups.
In the UK but its normally at top hedge funds for the truly exceptional talents (eg the 'perfect' candidates), geniuses (cambridge MMaths etc)will end up at the top quant shops (MM and HFs) and then then the very good talent ends (super hard working, pretty smart, good EQ) will end up at the top PE programs and GS/MS/JP
I don't think anyone really includes the quant kids in these conversations. They're usually a different cohort compared to the people gunning for Discretionary HF/PE/IB etc...
The "perfect candidate" for most shops is not an autistic Cambridge MMath student.
yeah thats exactly why i broke them into different categories... The 'perfect' candidate is ending up at a discretionary investment teams at Citadel/de shaw. I think its pretty hard to debate that.
Agreed. At my target in the UK:
HF - always take the smartest & most exceptional candidates who are numerically gifted. Usually these guys are maths/engineering geniuses who don't really care about strategic elements of business/finance
MS/JP/GS ; CVP/PJT ; MF PE - the smartest and most exceptional who want to do transactions/private markets end up here
McKinsey & BCG - the smartest and most exceptional who don't want to do finance or are passionate about strategy end up here
In UK and agree
Strong doubt. The PE analyst program vs Point72 academy (UK) tends to screen for different types of candidates.
wasnt thinking at p72 academy was more being applied to like the macro grad hires. Will get hate on this forum for saying this but macro trading will normally attract the best candidates
IB Hiring in the UK is just random, out of the three you mention - i'd say the only one that requires merit is MS. I heard that goldman and JP summer analyst process in London this year was just Hirevue and then AC. Some candidates had no techncials at Goldman AC for Classic IBD.
Not really. Obviously maths geniuses will go to quant funds but that is a small minority of people, and not the demographic of this forum. Top candidates interested in HFs will go to the MMs, but not every top candidate is - most prefer private markets. I would think a lot of their prestige/desirability comes from that they're really the only top buyside places which recruit a sizable number of undergrads. Barely any MF PEs do and if they do its a European with languages (i.e. BX with 1). If they ran sizable analyst programmes like in the US it would be similar desirability to there.
well u say sizeable but there are prob like 10 L/S seats in london for grads a year so
Most of the elite folks my firm lost out on didn’t go into finance
ai fear is real
So what did they go into which isn't immune from AI lmao
Sophomore at Wharton. the most most finance hardo seniors (the WITG SSG tacopps pitch comp 4.0 no life kids) past few years gone to RX (PJT). open secret at Wharton is BX incomings historically nepotism. PE intern programs like KKR/SLP etc. from here are also basically all diversity, with almost no exceptions, and surprisingly aren't the most finance hardo types (eg SLP recruit so late they miss out on the hardos going RX and only have IB rejects left) so overall most finance oriented here seem to either go to SM HFs or do RX, unless they're diversity and wants PE.
For those who end up at top rx ibd, what is their end game? MF Pe or something else? Also, which SM HFs?
Thought SL didnt take interns anymore
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