When I was around 10 years old or so I realized that (1) having money was much prefferrable to not having money and (2) the best way (so I thought) to get money was to go work on Wall St. I never had any interest in chasing some fucking ball around. Why? Is there money inside the ball? I just wanted to make fucking money. So....
(1) Why after so many years does it seem that chasing a fucking ball around would have been so much more helpful than the enterpreneurial activities I have engaged in for a finance career,and
(2) Why is it so fucking wrong to just say " I want to work here because I want to make fucking money?"
1.) Athletes are stronger, and won't die when the sweatshops work them 100hrs/week
2.) Because banking is not just about capitalism/money, it's doing "good" work for society. Align your interests with their party line
Good work for society? Really? Like when AOL bought Time Warner?
1) if you were a D1/D2/D3 athlete and still managed to crank out a 3.5-4.0 I think that shows a lot of skills in the management/ability to prioritize category, considering any time spent at gym/practice/games/travel was time directly not spent on academics. Now to play devil's advocate, yea if you played a sport you also likely had a study hall/tutors at the ready and all the help you could want but at the end of the day you gave up a substantial more amount of time specifically not to academia then the average student.
2) Saying you "want to work here bc I want to make money," is like being that dbag at a party who after midnight corrects someone when they say "yo tonight's pregame got me lit no more beers for this guy" with the "don't you mean yesterday's pregame" line. It's factually correct, but fuck you, you vapid little shit. (All credit to John Mulaney)
1) Senior management is often filled with bros who were competitive athletes themselves and people tend to gravitate to those who have shared similar experiences
2) Talking about sports is an easy conversation starter
3) People tend to admire elite athletes in general (think about the local jock who the girls throw themselves at)
4) People assume that if you played high-level sports, you're disciplined and driven
5) Because of the halo effect, people subconsciously associate other positive qualities with fit, attractive people (which many elite athletes are)
There are some valid points here. I get that people hire other people who are like them. I get the culture thing. But it seems to me being a top level athlete is much more about being a genetic anomaly than anything else. Michael Phelps has arms tht are 2 feet longer than they should be. Ryan Lochte will always be an also ran no matter how much heart he has. But what about the idea that someone is willing to throw people in wheelchairs down a flight of stairs if need be to make money...shouldn't that be worth more in some circles than just being born freakishly large? Because pretty much thats where im at.
The popular media always says the Street is full of sociopaths...so were the fuck do I sign up? Seriously, what is the best way for a guy with 0 conscience and a CFA to make $500k a year? Im not asking for the world...I just want to live like a white person that understands Finance.
Agree on the genetics point. From what I’ve read, statistically better looking people are more successful in general, and athletes are usually built or at least fit/slim. This is hyper magnified in IB where it’s so competitive to get in, a personable kid with a cool athletics hook might get an edge over a normal, smart but non-remarkable person if they both nail technicals.
Culture is so varied firm to firm. Join a frat in college and live that lifestyle to fit in with some of the athletic/fratty groups, but there’s plenty of smart/quant type groups with fewer athlete types as well.
Sterotype for this website and many on Wall Street is incredibly obnoxious, money-grubbing geeks...pretty much on point IMHO...thus athletes improve the pool...significantly I might add.
How about you take your 9 bananas and shove them up your ass....
Ok...so for many, many years the margins were so fat that just being a tall good looking lunk in a nice suit with a firm handshake was enough. But as the stakes have increased, as returns matter more, as fees get squashed, at some point sheer desire to do what it takes should win out over subconscious biases. In fact, I would expect people in the business to be sophisticated and self aware enough to overcome these.
Don't get me wrong....presentation of a premium product or service IS important. I die a little bit inside when I meet someone in the business who is well paid and still wears a brown belt with black shoes. But Jesus H Christ I don't see a correlation between chasing a ball around and being smart enough to do fundamental, macro, and cyclical timing overlays to a complicated investment.
Also....i dont want to sound anti gay but much of the sports thing just seems like latent homosexuality to me.
I do however LOVE automobiles...but i didnt have $25k to build and race a car for several seasons as a kid.....
You sound like a bitter nerd.
There is a part of me thats nerd, thats for sure. But i also bench 280 and can fight better than average. I love the gym and love being strong but just never saw the point of chasing a ball around like some sort of fucking Golden Retriever.
I also come from a meager background so there was zero guidance. The goal was "just figure out how to get a job on wall st.". No banker uncles, no professionals in the family,first gen to go to college; so no one told me that chasing a ball like a moron would pay dividends.
I mean track and field, weightlifting, crossfit, are all an "athletic background". I think what is prized is the participation in competition, performing under pressure and shit like that. But also significantly, its important to connect with others on shit outside of work and money. If people like you, your career gets easier.
I'll start off with the fact that as a kid there was nothing more I wanted to do than be outside playing a sport... it could literally be anything with a ball and I would spend hours playing with friends / random people. I was fortunate enough to be pretty decent at many of the athletic activities I picked up and ended up playing a D1 sport at a decently good academic / athletic school (i.e., Stanford, Notre Dame, Duke, Virginia, etc.). That being said, I honestly recognize how unimportant sports are in the grand scheme of things. I may continue to love playing sports, but I only do so because I consider them my hobbies - I place a greater emphasis on intellectual capability and social awareness than the ability to play a sport.
I do recognize that playing a sport or appearing athletic can make it easier to connect with certain individuals in the business world, but I still like to believe (perhaps naively) that street smarts, intellectual curiosity and overall being a good person are more important. Neither of my parents were particularly athletic as kids and didn't really have a concept of organized competitions - I just happened to be born a certain way and I was fortunate enough to try out different things as a kid. I could have just as easily been born differently with an interest in piano or chess or [insert whatever other activity here].
My 2 cents - find what you are good at or interested in and try to highlight those aspects that make you unique.
Here's what I like:
For hundreds, if not thousands of years all one had to do to get ahead financially was accumulate cash, build relationships with banks, and sit back for about 7 or so years and wait for the inevitable recession. Then one swoops in with cash and credit and snaps up distressed assets and shows the rubes what time it is.
I managed to do this a little bit during the last recession and it was really quite satisfying....but then came QE infinity to fuck the whole thing up. $50 billion valuations for companies that will never make a penny, the worlds richest man runs a company that makes a profit in 6 quarters out of 20 years of its existence, etc etc you get the idea. Its as if every time I get close the rules fucking change and I'm sick of it.
Why can't we juat have a good old fashioned fucking recession; then I can go buy 50 investment properties, and Ill never have to complain about anything ever again? Fucking bullshit....
From what my interviewers told me, they said that they were impressed by how I could wake up at 4.30am for practice, go to classes by 9, and then study and intern/explore my interests (investment club/pitches/competition
They were just impressed by how I still had the energy and time to do so much after waking up early to workout a lot and do that 5x a week sometimes 2x a day.
Other than that probably because it shows the ability to work in a team?
Don’t see any other reason why it would be given some importance. Do feel like some people hype it up a lot though. I mean I chose to do sports so I know what I was going into and wouldn’t mind not getting any extra consideration just because I did sports
I think sports, especially at a higher level, teaches you to manage pressure, stress, anxiety, fear, and pain.
You also learn goal setting, time management, teamwork, working with bad teammates, how to deal with external forces beyond your control like coaches, parents, owners, scouts, environments etc.
If you actually analyze it, sports for most people has nothing really to do with a ball or a goal.
so you're upset because you never wanted to play sports and your positions have gone against you since 2009? this seems like a reasonable response.
don't hate jocks for being successful, this is capitalism at its finest. it's like why do actors make money? they provide entertainment, just like athletes. but yeah, ditto to everyone else who said it's tough balancing, I'd rather have someone with a 3.5GPA who played varsity sports and had a part time job than someone with a 4.0 and the personality of a stapler. hustle is always in demand.
as for your folio, stay diversified and patient, your time will come.
Its not "hate"....im just calling BS. I love my cat but that little fucker has maybe a 25IQ and he can play catch...he loves to fetch actually. What does that have to do with being able to understand the economics of spreads, macro risk, markets, etc etc? It doesn't.....so I'm calling bullshit on it's usefulness specifically in the area of assessing what kind of ventures will be RAROC profitable in the long term.
Yet here I am making garbage truck driver money....
am I claiming that athletes have a higher IQ or understanding of complex concepts? fuck no. what I am claiming is that intellect is a poor predictor of success. intellect + grit/hard work/hustle is an unbeatable combo. if you have someone who can demonstrate both (like the athlete I mentioned above), why would that be a bad thing?
what I'm saying is that someone's ability to be organized, work hard, and balance various priorities is a desirable quality. athletes who excel in school have obviously proved that they have this quality, therefore making them desirable candidates for hire in many different jobs.
I guess I'm unclear where you're coming from
Why are you so salty dude? You def got cut from some teams back in highschool. I wasn't a college athlete but I can at least admire the amount of effort it takes to be a student athlete. It takes a ton of dedication and shows MANY qualities that banks find attractive, for a reason. If it was just "chasing a ball" then any dumbass like you could do it, right?
On a more serious note, though, it's one of the few true achievements one can show at an early age. It's a sort of track-record that proves that you can work hard and all that jazz.
So....what if I told.you while those other kids were running around chasing a ball In was actually running a a football betting operation at 16? This was before the internet so child entrepreneurship was a much different game. I would think that, objectively, in a rational world, that would show more 'hustle'....yet somehow this doesn't feel appropriate to bring up in a bank interview.
The fact that you think your cat has an IQ of 25 leads me to believe that your IQ is likely not higher than 110.
Because, there are no cat IQ tests, and if there were, 100 would be the average. You can't compare the intelligence of a cat to a human through an IQ test because our IQ test is a quotient of how we relate to the rest of society.
If there was a real cat IQ test, to have a cat IQ of 25 would mean that most of your cat's peers were smarter than him. A cat IQ of 25 would severely limit any type of learning or normal function and I highly doubt the neural processes are this low for your feline as it is statistically unlikely.
Well now you might be on to something. Maybe I'm just not that smart. When I was small my mom told me I was smart, but maybe she was just lying to me to build up my confidence. Also I grew up in Philly. People in Philly are just fucking stupid. So maybe I was smart relative to them, but in finance im just not smart enough to make it. This is a whole angle that I have given some consideration to...but when i ask people I know if I am retarded they insist I'm not. Maybe they are just being polite. I guess I'll never really know. Because if i were smart, and I do so value accumulating wealth, I would have simply been more successful at it.
In general, athletes on TEAM sports are most desirable for several reasons:
Individual sports are great too, but team sports require team work which is really important in the workplace. Not just banking but basically any industry.
Definitely.
When I was 16 I stole (again, I was poor) a copy of Burton Malkiel's 'Randon Walk Down Wall St." and read it cover to cover. I have wanted it. Always have. But that's clearly not enough. No one has ever seemed to give a fuck. But if i was 6'2" with 20 less iQ points..... grrrrrr.....
Athletes know how to push themselves to the limit in times of great need. Athletes work well with others, thrive in a team atmosphere, and typically build up their teammates and peers with encouragement as well as bashing on them, which is all part of a healthy and fruitful relationship with others to produce target-oriented results.
Because, when you look at the booknerd who got a 4.0 and did no activities, you think, "will this guy have what it takes when the project goes off the rails and he has to pull and all nighter alone to submit to me for a morning deadline to the client?" Questionable. Athlete? He knows when its time to take one for the team and when shit needs to get done. Hard work does produce results with the right amount of talent.
I will always look favorably on successful and motivated athletes as well as veterans.
But again...i said this before....fundamentally, running around chasing a ball has never, ever, ever held my attention even for a moment. I like skiing, i love the gym, i love everything automotive/motorcycle/ aircraft/ boat and can talk engines for hours. But chasing a ball is just so ......stupid. It is...and again, if a guy tells you he tried to start a hedge fund (which i did, but apparently you are not allowed to put on a resume /talk about) and i tell you I have successfully invested my own money as a real estate investor after the Crisis (just removed a tenant this month and getting ready to sell a property now) NO ONE GIVES A FUCK....AND THAT IS REAL. But chasing a ball around somehow trumps that. Its fucking maddening.
Have a snickers.
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You speak with a lot of "I". These elite opportunities are looking for team players who create value for the team. It's one thing to have intelligence and even capability. It's another to have those and either be a team leader or an active team member. When "I" comes across to loudly, most hiring managers tune out because they don't see how that benefits them.
That's what a lot of kids don't get. It's not about you and what you can do. It's about how THEY perceive your skills benefiting THEM. You get to be one of them in 20 years. Until then, you need to fit in to their world or go start something on your own. It's really that simple.
(the ball chasers fit into their world quite nicely - will follow instructions, accept criticism without getting hurt feelings, work their butts off, celebrate team victories, run through a brick wall, etc. As long as they are smart and capable enough, that's all that is necessary)
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