Over the past week I have been getting a flood of pm's/emails asking for advice, and I have chatted with some of you over Skype as well in prep for interviews, and one theme keeps coming up that really boggles my mind and in a way really annoys me. This idea of Goldman or bust.
I am not going to mention anyone's username on here, but one kid for example wanted to know what the best way to get a job at GS S&T was. Now this seems perfectly fine, GS is a strong name, but then this person goes on to mention that they are willing to take a job in an EM country if it means working for GS, and would even consider going for IBD. Another case is one of a guy who was actually thinking of GS PWM over another BB S&T while his interest was in S&T.
Honestly, what is this huge focus on working for Goldman? It is just another bank, and especially for Sales and Trading, success depends on a lot more than the brand name of where you work. The idea of choosing brand name over division really just boggles my mind. Are you not interested in finance at all? Is it just a matter of telling your parents/friends/gf/yourself that you are a BSD? Can anyone of the college kids explain to me the rationale behind this way of thinking?
I have also thought of an experiment, what is the discount you would take to get a job at Goldman as compared to let's say CS/UBS/DB/BOAML/Citi?
