SEO Candidates are a joke

ooooooookay, b2.

MoneyKingdom:

Honestly. How much BS is it that they have these sub-par candidates in banking. It's nearly 4:00 am and I am still in the office, and my collegue (came from SEO) left at midnight.

Thankfully his reviews were awful and I hope we get rid of this unqualified diversity moron.

Fuckin joke. At least during a downturn they are the first ones to get fired. Thank god.

I think you're making a generalization, but I see what your saying. The 3.1 kids from Princeton or Yale who get in through SEO don't bother me - just because black or white you can probably get in through connections anyway - its just the 3.6 kids from Howard bother me. Particularly since 95% of the rest of the office went to high schools more competitive than that school.

I think SEO needs to be altered for sure, but there isn't anything wrong with trying to diversify the workplace.

Can someone please explain the point of diversity recruiting to me? Companies want the very best candidates... if these just happen to be white males, so be it. Why would they take the less qualified minority/woman?

DISCLAIMER: I am considered a minority.

The best candidates are not white males. The best candidates are Asians ;-). The point of diversity recruiting is, how does it look when you meet a client from a different ethnicity and he sees that the entire team is filled with white males? Also, this just prevents the whole mess associated with the racial discrimination etc. You really don't want to consistently face lawsuits because of this issue. In addition to that, most people who make it through, regardless of their race are very intelligent. The difference comes in the amount of hard work they put in which MonkeyKingdom points out to. Most of the SEO candidates that I personally know off are very intelligent.

I feel you mcds on the Howard comment. I interned in D.C. a few summers ago and met a ton of kids who were going to Howard and Morehouse and kept going on and on how they went to schools 'at least as good as Harvard.' Gimme a break buddy, the reason you're not at Harvard is because you couldn't get in.

Yeah I'm not sure why Howard/Morehouse is so well regarded. I mean historically I can understand, but their SAT entrance scores are in the 900/1000 range. I mean, I think many people on this board - and I say this as a black male - probably could have scored in that range in 5th or 6th grade. (I say that knowing a girl who is now a Yalie who got a 1380 in 7th grade, I think I got a 1120? something like that).

In regards to why diversity is important, its for two reasons

1) PR. Honestly, this is the main issue. If everyone is a white male from Connecticut who went to HYP and is in skull and bones, its not going to look good from a marketing perspective. Now if you're a hedge fund or PE/VC this doesn't matter as you're not dealing with the public. Also, most of your clients are probably white males from CT anyway, so its not an issue. But in any other field you'd be vilified.

2) Minorities can gasp actually be useful. I think people don't realize how much we're a product of our environment in regards to our outlook and perspective and I really could care less how intelligent you are, the fact of the matter is you will still be ignorant to a lot of issues that would be useful in the workplace. Having a diversity of backgrounds leads to a diversity of thought that leads to a better ability to make strategic decisions when you have a more thorough view of the world on the table.

3) Not every minority gets in through AA and many of these people don't have the network or resources that others have and therefore need some kind of push in order to get in. I personally know several people, mostly Africans, who have really high GPAs and fell comfortably within the ranges of admission numbers but they don't know anything about recruiting or how the process works simply because they haven't been exposed to it. I know one girl who had to be told what the SAT was her junior year because she had never heard of it. This goes back to understanding not everyone comes from the same background. Wall Street works in cycles and if you're not in that world, its going to be very difficult to get in when you don't know anything about it. And from a firm's point of view, they're losing talent for that very reason.

I definitely agree that firms and grad schools shouldn't be dipping so low down the chain just to get minority students. Particularly when you have a job to do. Its one thing if Harvard Law wants to let in a kid with a really low LSAT score or something, because its not like they're going to lose anything. If anything, they put themselves in a great position to get more donations later on because that student will inevitably become successful and will be grateful for the opportunity that they received. However, it doesn't make sense to hire people that simply don't have the academic training on par with their peers. I'm not trying to single out Howard/Morehouse/Spelman, but I scratch my head when I see the logic in that.

I remember Morgan Stanley came to my school and met with the black business association and gave interviews to everyone who showed up. That might sound unfair, but as someone mentioned there is no difference between that and making a phone call to the MD who was in your fraternity and your buddy from the lacrosse team who is a 2nd year analyst. The thing is both students have the requisite academic background from a top school and are capable of doing comps.

While you might be frustrated with that one student, take a step back and realize that you can't make a sweeping generalization of a whole race or program because of the potential ineptitude of one individual. While I agree that changes need to be made, its not as bad as a lot of people think it is - at least on the recruiting level.

To be honest, Indian analysts are the most sharp (at least from my limited experience) I don't think they make (generally) good VP's or MD's, but great analysts. I have a problem with anyone who gets any type of job without being fucking qualified.

This kid that came from seo did not know what CAPM or what bond spreads were. And yes he came from a "finance" background.

Imagine if they did that with professional sports. Imagine if they gave Asian-americans an opportunity to play professional football. But they dont, because that would be fucking retarded.

The problem with having these SEO morons (those of you on the street know that they never really move up) is that they create more work for the other analysts. Bullshit.

I'd like to point out that all people who do I-banking are morons. So if you ask me, why not have a couple chocolate and caramel morons with the vanilla ones, I say, why the hell not? (Just try and make sure we get the better ones...)

Obviously a post meant to be inflammatory - the smartest kid in my former group was an SEO kid from a semi-target, the laziest / worst-reviewed kid in my group was an SEO kid from a target. That doesn't suggest anything except that different individuals perform differently no matter where they come from.

Also, doubtful that one or two bad analysts create that much work for the rest of the analyst class. If anything, they create more work for the associates on their deal teams and accounts. In addition, if you're working past midnight these days you're probably working on a live deal, so your work is dictated by the deal, not by the work of other analysts. So be happy your performance is good enough that your staffer is giving you live deal experience, because you'll need it when it comes time to prepare for the few private equity jobs that are out there.

@ mcds, you took the SATs in 7th grade?? That must have been awful.

I'd say everyone should only worry about how they got their positions and worry about keeping them.... Generalization and too much time spent on looking around at everyone else is useless... Who cares? Just be happy you got yours and smile.

At my office and most of the SF ones, white people are actually the minority, at least at the junior level.

cant stand seo kids

pedigreed monkey, i thought you applied to seo? and yet you cant stand seo kids?

http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/seo-phone-interview

Generalization saves the ignorant the effort of thinking, MonkeyKingdom, F*ck off.

lol, maybe he just finishes his work more quickly than you

Now a completely ignorant question...but what does SEO stand for?? I get what it does - some sort of diversity recruiting I presume - but what does the acronym stand for?

Special Education Opportunities.

Initially started for low intelligence special ed students. When they realized this predominantly consisted of blacks, hispanics, and Indians they transformed it into a diversity program but the moniker stuck.

The acronym stands for "Sponsors for Educational Opportunity"

http://www.seo-usa.org/index.aspx

a

Thanks for the info.

aadvarkaa:

pedigreed monkey, i thought you applied to seo? and yet you cant stand seo kids?

http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/seo-phone-interview

ya i did not get an interview even though less qualified people did (in terms of work experience/leadership/gpa) because they put black or hispanic on their application. one person is a buddy of mine and i thought he was a regular white guy, but turns out one of his grandparents is part hispanic so he put hispanic on the app and got all the way to final round

another girl is an indian but has some african blood in her lineage so she put asian + black. she got into the program.

i can give a lot more details about the incompetence of these and other SEO members i have interacted with, but i think my clear bitterness will detract from my argument. so ill just sum it up with my original statement: "cant stand seo kids"

though i wouldnt mind being one of em.

I thought initially that most of the people on this board were already in investment banking. If that were the case, I think many of you would agree with me in that a bad analyst is horrible to work with.

When your staffer places you with the dumbest, laziest analyst, it tends to piss you off. It's hard to split up work when you have to double check every thing the idiot does, not to mention wait for an associate to blackberry you his "ok".

In my limited experience the kids who go through SEO are morons. It is absurd. It's "diversity" policies that make the workplace less efficient.

It's not that the SEO kids are morons, it's that they know why they got the job. They are that clever. They also know that the firm will find it harder firing them than a white guy. Which is why they don't really give a shit, and if they do get managed to get fired, they just move into another bank. Banks can never really say anything bad about an ethnic minority no matter how bad the SEO kid was because they are afraid of facing a discrimination suit.

lmao.... You know what's even funnier. Most kids who do SEO come from privileged backgrounds...and go to top schools already (yale/princeton/etc)...so my thing is this....why the FUCK do you need SEO.... you already have been spoonfed since you were a little fucking kid.... just like everyone else who is white .... you guys already have "equal opportunities" .... I'd say SEO should focus more on getting bright people into investment banking who would work their asses off....but since they go to a non-target (many times due to socio-econommic factors outside of their reach) .... are shunned forever from banking.....and I think there are white kids...asian kids....black kids...spanish kids....who are all bright and who fit that category ....

x

I agree with mack387.

Instead of looking for underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, look for underrepresented universities.

I'm not hating on SEO, but there's a need to diversify across many factors, not just race.

a lot of times the brand value of going to a target is what matters more than target students' increased ability to do the job (while i think that in general the quality of students is higher at targets, there are definitely some people at nontargets who could be competitive as well). but importantly, clients/general corporate america are still far more impressed with somebody who has that target degree on their resume just on first impression. anybody who has the hyp has seen the reaction from lots of people. and when you're charging millions (literally) for your services, it helps.

so i think diversifying out of target universities heavily would be a mistake. Even if you were to assume that you could find a more qualified and talented class by cherry picking only from nontargets and ignoring targets altogether, i wouldn't do it. after all, this is a client service business. hell, even on the buyside, getting money from investors means having their confidence (especially initially). while people from targets may not inherently be better bankers or smarter or harder working, there is a public perception that they are. and this perception matters.

This is ridiculous, SEO has some very bright kids. I go to a high target school and we have 5 kids in SEO, the lowest GPA in that group is a 3.79 and they are all very bright and 3 of them play varsity sports. Talk to them and they'll tell you they do SEO because its a foot in the door, 2 of the guys work constantly to pay for school meaning they've got no network. These kids would be in an I-Bank regardless they just happened to come through SEO.

At the end of the day, there are stupid people anywhere. People make it seem as though the only stupid analysts are in SEO.

Who said they make it based on race, because the program only takes minorities (asian, hispanic and blacks) doesn't mean they're somehow under-qualified or unqualified. It's just a different avenue for getting in.

I have 4 friends in high school who barely pulled 1900's on their SAT, they were 10 - 20% in the class and they're all at H/Y/P because they row. They're different ways to getting to a position, its what you do once you get there. Because they came in through SEO doesn't help or hurt them once the job starts its who succeeds from there. SEO or not, some people will be horrible hires and some will be great. No one in SEO is waiting for anything to be handed to them, they've still got to work hard. I'm the last person to argue for diversity inclusion programs even as a minority simply because I'd rather not have to fight the double standard that I'm not qualified its why I didn't apply for SEO. But I will say that some of the posts I've seen here are ridiculous, I agree SEO has its flaws I'd rather it be a program based on socio-economic class rather than race because I think the class divide is becoming greater than racial divide. Even though in breaking down classes, minorities still hold much of the bottom scale.

Simply put lumping all SEO kids together because of a few bad ones you've seen isn't a fair generalization. I've worked with some dumb people of every gender, race or class doesn't mean I can go judging their gender, race or class because of it.

Disclaimer: I am a minority, I did not apply for SEO nor will I be and I will be working at a BB this summer.