How to Know If You Should Bark Up the Wall Street Tree

People often wonder "Is Wall Street for me?" It's more than just an office job and the people who get hired have a lot to them, aside from being lucky enough to make a great living.

One of the buzzwords job seekers hear a lot about today is "fit." What does that mean? Is it like being intellectually "fit," or "fitting in" like the cool kids in school?

Actually, its both!

People sometimes want Wall Street because studying business in college is less time consuming than most STEM and financial services has a better jobs situation than law. For some others, they just love finance/stock market, tho I've seen a lot more of the former. Of course, there are some trade offs, like all things in life if you want such a good deal.

Here's the deal: there are a few archetypes of people who work in high finance, which means IBD, PE, HF, or the middle office and back offices of investment banks. I am not referring to cold callers at bucket shops or gamblers at day trading arcades.

  1. The Mathematical/Computing Genius: Most mainstream finance outside of quant-funds (like Renaissance Technology and DE Shaw) involves rather simple math and little calculus. However, supply and demand for Wall Street creates a surplus of supply of would-be financiers and a deficit of jobs available. Therefore, Wall Street, being in the upper hand, gets to winnow the field by seeking overqualified academic types both in school name and/or major.

  2. Well-Connected Scions: These people know the sources of large scale capital, and that money can be used to build the institutions business. They don't just take any scions; they take ones with good social skills, part of which means knowing how to have fun and amuse people, hence why "brosephs" make it in the business. These skills and abilities, or resources if you wanna call them, don't require you needing to know dick for math aside from 1+1=2. There's a reason why guys like Jeb! Bush, who had the furthest thing from a finance degree when he graduated UTexas, (long before his dad was VP and then Prez) could get into finance right out of the bat. Many cases like that, even 40 years after he graduated, occur. Or how Jeb could get back in finance, at Barclays after he left office in FL.

  3. Athletes: There is some tie in between this one and the previous one. Yes its a common experience, and common experience, alongside common interests and background make strong relationships. But athletes are usually the popular kids in high school and colleges. They know how to smooth-talk, do what they want, and get what they want! Do some of these types use manipulation and even "bullying" at times? Sure. But life isn't fair and finance is the epitome of that axiom. Athletes, thus have social connections similar to the "well-connected scions" category, and are also often "brosephs." The common reason athletes get preference over others is often said to be "teamwork skills" exclusive to team sports. Baloney: the Robotics and Mathlete teams at elite schools know how to work together well to: problem is that the common lack of people skills those guys have often renders them less useful at getting money out of people than athletes. Sorry, Integration Bee 2015 Gold Medal Winner.

  4. The Lucky Hustler: The guy who fits none of the categories above. Chances of being this guy are slim, but life is a game of odds, as was said in Boiler Room. A 4% chance beats a 0% chance. To be this guy, you need to have your social skills at the top of their game, you should have a strong network (meaning the people you are close friends, in most cases, rarely random BB MDs you met on a plane and swapped business cards with), and yes, being what society at large would call "unattractive" hurts you. This is a superficial business in which people will find a way to keep the fewest amount of people in to take their money. You might also need dumb luck, as I had. Of course, since I had it, I can live without hating the others or being too jealous. Also, having a good (tho not M7 MBA) or MSF, or elite modeling skills will help you make this fourth category ,but will not make up for lack of the others in a vacuum. Even if you're an Excel beast, if you lack things from the other categories, no one is really gonna care.

That's the bluntest anyone is going to say this. Firms will seek the people with the strongest combinations of the top 3 types. Even the diversity hires will have more of these traits than the diversity applicants who didn't make it. (Diversity hires could even be said in some ways to be similar to the 2nd category: they can pull in rich folks of their own race/ethnicity and act as brand ambassadors, thus being profitable.) If you fit none of these categories, you will need to be the Lucky Hustler.

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