VP screwed me over at superday
Hey all,
This is really bugging me. Recently had a superday with the regional office of an BB/EB. During one interview, the VP asked where else I was interviewing. I told him I was also interviewing at Firm X. He then asked which firm I would choose if I had the option, and I said that I'd choose his firm over Firm X (obviously) because of blah blah blah.
The VP said he knew people at Firm X and would let them know that I'd choose his firm over Firm X. He then pulls out his phone and literally starts emailing/texting his buddies at Firm X...
Didn't get an offer from that office, and never heard back from Firm X again (they had verbally invited me to a superday, but my contact there ceased contact with me).
So... WTF was that?
Sounds like a mega douche. Can't do anything about it though.
Holy shit. Sorry, bro.
U fuck that guys wife or something?
Name the firm.
You should fuck his wife now
Sorry to hear that but you have to move on
Kick his ass!
Dude sorry to hear that. Keep your head up.
Well since everyone already brought up the possibility that he's a mega douche, I'm going to propose another possibility which is that you might have unintentionally offended him somehow. Go through your interactions with the firm and firm x, phone calls you had, chat before the interview, and obviously what you said during the interview. We all like to think that its not our fault, but people like that don't last that long in this business. And I'm not talking about evil people who ding people for fun (plenty of those around), but people who do so blatantly while being politically incorrect. He clearly wanted to send you a message. If he just wanted to ding you, he could've done so privately with both firms. Were your answers to the behavioral unauthentic and douchey in general? Did you bad mouth the other firm in any way? Did you make fun of anyone there even as a joke? Were you 100% politically correct with your answers?
Also if I was in your position, I would've asked him kindly to please not do that. You let him do it, so what did you expect to happen? He was 100% out of line but at the same time maybe you bruised his ego somehow and he was just trying to impose his dominance over you and wanted you to fold and admit defeat. He was going down a 100% non-politically correct path already so you should've just come clean and said: look, I admit that my answer was not completely honest, but I'm just an undergrad student who'd be happy to receive any offer in this job market and both your firms are great. However, here are some things I genuinely love about your firm/group." If you said something like "That's fine, I stand by my answer." then you were protecting an ego of your own when technically, you didn't have the moral high-ground (again, even though he was absolutely out of line).
Also, obviously I don't know anything about you but you also authored a thread about "whether it was possible to get dinged for being too strong of a candidate".
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/strong-candidate-rejection
Again not saying that you come off as a cocky person, but you must think highly of yourself on some level to feel the need to ask that question.
Agreed. I feel like part of the story is missing here. I know some CRAAAAZY bankers, but they would never do this unprovoked.
I look forward to the day I meet a 'CRAAAAZY' banker.
Hey man, thanks for taking the opposite stance and bringing up some new points — this is a good segue for me to add some more color to the situation.
Regarding the thread that I made about being too strong a candidate: I'd posted that after getting dinged from a lower BB (DB/UBS) whose interview I had absolutely crushed. My suspicion was that they had dinged me because they figured that I wouldn't take the offer, despite selling myself well. I later found out that other strong candidates had also been dinged.
Overall, I've been very, very, very careful during the recruiting process to not come across as cocky, arrogant, etc, in any way, shape, or form. To that extent, I don't think this was an issue. Also, my reason for why his firm over Firm X was not, in any way, offensive: it was because I personally wasn't a fan of how Firm X structures their groups, which is a very legitimate and non-offensive answer.
My recruiting process for that MM went as follows: 1) a single informational call with a mutual friend; 2) a formal phone interview that resulted in a superday invite; and 3) me showing up to the superday early and hanging out with the analyst in charge of recruiting. Everything went great, people were friendly, we had some laughs, etc. Nothing that would cause offense or anyone to think poorly of me.
The conversation I had with the VP was very poor from the start. I didn't do or say anything to offend him; he was more or less a douche the entire time.
"I personally wasn't a fan of how Firm X structures their groups"
Why would you speak badly about Firm X though? Why not say what you like about the firm you're interviewing at instead? Like the fact that you're criticizing how a bank/MD decided to structure their groups comes off as incredibly arrogant because you're indirectly implying that you could've done a better job IMO. And if you couldn't, why weren't you a fan? IBD is a very politically correct culture. The fact that you thought that criticizing how another bank structures its groups is "completely fine and non-offensive" says something about how distorted your perception is.
Also, the tone of your whole write-up basically screams: you can find absolutely no fault in the way you carried yourself during the interview. Even a great interview has aspects that can be improved upon. That again speaks volumes about how you see yourself. Have you ever considered the fact that, albeit you being able to shoot the shit with an analyst your age, from the perspective of older/wiser bankers you come off as arrogant?
Also, I know plenty of "strong candidates" who received offers at "lower BBs" who turned them down for MS/GS/JPM. I would highly doubt that they would've even bothered to interview you / give you a superday if they "thought you were too strong". A more likely reason is that they could tell that your answers weren't genuine, non-specific, and that you weren't committed to the firm at all.
Btw, if you were such a strong candidate, why didn't you close any of the top bucket BBs? Why are you recruiting for a MM group?
Curious, do you go to a target and was this for FT or SA?
Some people are just assholes.
Some of the threads here are downright comical and unbelievable.
I smell a troll or an unbelievably bad interviewee w no self awareness. Despite being "too strong of a candidate", at some pt you have to look in the mirror and realize that you're the problem rather than everyone else.
"Too strong of a candidate"
Stay strong. Maybe you'll get a better offer after this
LOL this is gold. Thanks for not being too embarrassed to share this with us +1
Why dont you publicly say both the firm names here?
It will do two things:
A lot of us will get to know how douche employees of that MM can be and further how the Firm X can just cease contact due to a text from someone not involved in recruiting. Trust me this is going to hurt both these firms since people here at WSO will have a bad impression of them.
Someone from these firms here at WSO may probably chime in to support you
What are you talking about? He clearly stated that he has friends at the firm he got dinged from. They are probably giving him the cold shoulder now because no one wants to badmouth a VP. No good will come of this for him, nor for anyone else on this forum by him publicly naming the firms. Best case scenario he still has no offer, worst case the VP finds out OP exposed him on a public forum and, considering why this thread was created in the first place, will probably do everything in his power to make sure OP never gets hired.
This is 99% a freak incident and OP offended the VP somehow. Not a big deal. OP will move on and land an offer somewhere else.
I don't know if you know anything about the real world, but its a tough business out there. It doesn't matter if you're from a top target with a stellar resume, at the end of the day you're not entitled to anything. "This will hurt their firm in the long run". Oh really? Will it? Are you going to report them to the better business bureau? Jesus you sound like the friend that's plotting the demise of her bestie's EX after she gets dumped. Move on. Op has moved on, and there's no reason why you should be recommending silly things like this.
Dude calm down
Fuck his wife.
Fuck your wife
i'm dumbfounded that he had the audacity to do that.. hearing of something like this is certainly a first..
This is probably that VP on WSO.
?
You said you thought you were too strong of a candidate for a bb yet you are interviewing at mm. You honestly offended the guy somehow abd you are oblivious to how.
Obviously I changed some details of the story for confidentiality... people seem to be getting really hung up about that. Edited original discussion to BB/EB.
We were told during MBA recruiting that don't tell multiple firms during their interview they are your #1 (can say one of the top 2-4, etc.). Reason was interviewer will go ask their buddy in some other bank about it, and both will screw you over. That's exactly what happened to you.
And being on the other side, we do bounce around candidates with friends in other banks. You just get more data points.
Apples and oranges. It's one thing to take a candidate that you are going to offer and tryto figure out if he'll accept / or is just telling everyone they are his top choice (which is why absolutely don't tell every group you're their top choice--it does get around)--vs. what the OP says happened here--that the VP told the other bank that his bank was the OP's top choice, despite not giving him an offer. At the MBA level, anyway, school teams often have a set number of offers and those that decline are then allocated to other schools.
Something really doesn't add up here--if banks want to give you an offer or are on the fence, and you tell them they are your top choice, it will help you; if you tell them they're your top choice and they don't offer you, they'll sit on the information--unless you did something egregious. The only other thing that makes sense is it got around that OP was telling everyone they were his top choice--although that's not what has been conveyed in the narrative.
I honestly don't see any banker purposely sabotoging someone like this--it would reflect worse on him than the candidate, IF the candidate was being truthful and not telling everyone they were their top choice.
....I'd pull the phone out his hand, because at that point in the game I wouldn't want to work there anyway.
true that
........
Anyone that believes this hasn't worked a day in the real world, let alone Wall st.
Agreed, if you are referring to this being fireable and thinking it's a good idea to call HR and the confidentiailtity thing
This is absolutely absurd if true and I think could be grounds for you to take action. I've seen litigation filed for much less grievous "HR incidents"
That sucks, did you end up getting an offer from anyone else?
The real loss is that he screwed you over with the other firm. Sounds like he helped you dodge a bullet by not advancing with his firm
As an update: I ended up at a BB/EB, so very happy about how things worked out. In hindsight I should have done something about this, but as a potential SA I was nervous about stepping out of bounds in any way. Also, I just looked up the VP's LinkedIn and he left a few months after for a corp dev position.
This was definitely the strangest experience during my SA recruiting process.
oh my god dude - this sounds horrendous, I am really sorry to hear this and that happened to u.
That is known as libel / slander and he could be sued for hundreds of thousands in damages. All you have to say is that you didn't say it - plenty of lawyers would take this pro bono.
On the bright side, you have a hilarious story to tell other bankers at networking events
When I was interviewing at google the interviewer asked me who I voted for and proceeded to spend the first half of the interview questioning my sanity. This followed by asking me questions about how YouTube generates it's income and after I answered the question perfectly she denied what I said was correct, rephrased it and told me I was wrong.
Totally inappropriate.
Political views are actually a protected class in California, so that's grounds for a lawsuit if you were dinged and were otherwise a strong candidate.
Source this. I am not aware of a California statute or constitutional principle which would provide for political affiliation as a protected class, and particularly not in the case of interviewees (as opposed to employees). California has certain laws on the books that preclude employers from limiting the political expression of employees except in certain circumstances (e.g. when such affiliation runs contrary to their business interests) but it's not clear to me that this extends as far as the hiring decision.
That sucks. Get his name and pay him back the favor somehow- what a short dick loser.
I love how firms get offended if you're interviewing at other firms- but they're interviewing multiple candidates and not just you. It's bs
Wtf. Good motivation OP, for doing one better next time.
What a douche.
How common is it to find supreme assholes like this aforementioned VP in investment banking?
How do people like that get promoted to senior positions?
The VP-level of IB is an excellent real-world example of the Peter Principle outside of the select few passing through on their way to MD.
I do not think the question is entirely horrible. They could simply be gauging your interest. But, calling up the other bank and shitting on you is way off base.
the guy def didn't pull in college
This won't help now but you should have just straight up ask what the reason for that was all about. The first thing that came out of my mouth reading this was 'what an odd thing to do as an interviewer' - so ask exactly the same (albeit probably should be put more politely). Isn't competition manifested in everything he does as a VP? Why can't you weigh up options if he's interviewing other candidates?
You got dinged, move on.
Lol bro this was from months ago
Oops. Ha.
This is not true or not entirely true, but if it's even close, I would have scorched the earth, b/c there is no one at any level in the industry who would sanction this sort of thing. I'd calmly relay the events in an email to the firm's HR department, the head of the group that employed the VP, your school's campus recruiting coordinator, and cc the firm's general counsel, just to give everyone an appropriate scare, make them wonder if you're considering legal options.
I told my #2 they were my #2. They offered more money, chose them, things worked out fine.
was this before or after they had offered you the position? because that makes a huge difference.
Name name name
Wow...what a dickhead.
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