This is as much out of (morbid) curiosity as anything else to be honest. As someone who skipped bschool and didn't go to one of the 'top' targets I wonder: how much does school network matter for experienced professionals, especially in hedge funds. I'm thinking both undergrad and MBA.
Some of what I've seen:
+Obviously, OCR is everything when you're actually in school (undergrad and grad).
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School pedigree definitely seemed to matter for buyside recruiting post banking, but this seemed to be more about resume strength than 'networking' per se.
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Friends that went to Wharton/ Columbia/ Sanford bschool having trouble breaking into HFs or getting placements after their funds closed down/ they were fired. My expectation was that it would be a relative cakewalk to leverage the network to find another good gig. Interestingly, HBS friends seem to have much less trouble here, but still see a lot of HBS grads at HF jobs I consider 'not that special' (though I also see plenty with truly incredible opportunities)
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People from 'random' non-targets getting fairly insane opportunities (e.g. top HF out of undergrad) via networking
I guess I'll segment this question in two. For people that are 2+ years out of school (ugrad or MBA) and have needed to find new opps in the HF industry, has the school network been a big help?
For people recruiting/ working at HFs, do you give minor (or strong) preference to people from your alma-mater or are you all about finding 'merit' regardless of where it comes from?
