Who are the 'top students' from undergraduate?
It's often spoken that only the 'top students' get the best seats (i.e. MF PE/HF) in finance out of undergraduate.
What criteria makes a candidate a 'top kid'?
If we narrow it down a bit:
- Top Target
- Academically Strong
- Finance Clubs
- Exciting Extracurriculars of some form
- Networking
- BONUS - Ace in the hole i.e. diversity/nepotism/scholarship
- Internships (often a given if the above is in check)
As a student attending a top target, I can list A TON people at least who satisfy these criteria. Similarly, these are generally seen as a large criteria for a lot of banks. Haven spoken to both bank and buy-side recruiters, they both spew the same stuff about "being keen to learn" and "being fun to be around".
So - what actually does make a 'top student'? What are the people actually getting coveted roles (i.e MF PE / Big 4 HF) doing different?
Kids who have actually tried to do the work we do even without having our resources. They can talk about the deals in the past that intrigued them, what made it special, whether they think that is replicable, how those takeaways might extrapolate to the types of opportunities that exist now, what is important in these deals, how to do work before getting into a process with access to the books, and on and on until you shut them up. Then they ask you questions incessantly because they can’t pass up this rare chance to learn from you even if they don’t get the job.
They’ve tried to gain insights from the outside, they’ve tried to learn from your competition, and they know what is it they’re really interviewing for. In summary, the top hires differentiate themselves because they have Jon Gray potential - someone who fresh out of college still manages to distinguish themselves and be ready to move into a brand new area and win, win again, and continue winning.
Only applies though if the goal is to crush the competition and become the next Blackstone. If the interviewer just wants a monkey punching bag hybrid and you just want to add a nice line to the CV none of this matters
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