WTF 125K Sign On
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Career Resources
That's an outlier. Looking at the rest, the mean and mendian are in the low and mid 20's. That one guy was probably someone with a shit load of expereince and good contacts that gave him/her a sweetheart deal.
The median is 20k so half the sign on bonuses were under 20k
other guaranteed comp: 300K
my oh my.
Not all MBA students are 25year olds. It's possible he/she is quite senior, and decided to do an MBA for some reason ...
there's always outliers like this, and they'll almost always very senior people that decided to deviate for an MBA briefly. Their sign-on/other comp/base pay usually fits their seniority level perfectly.
At very good schools there are usually some extreme cases, especially in HF & PE recruiting. Check out Wharton’s career report
http://mbacareers.wharton.upenn.edu/report/funccomp_2.cfm
2 guys got over $400K salaries and someone got a $100K bonus.
Do NOT make overall decisions on the program’s quality based on outlier stats. These guys could have been incredibly well connected sons of royalty/dictators/presidents/execs in foreign countries. I’m sure a PE firm would pay out the ass for the son of Hong Kong’s richest man if they wanted to do business over there.
They could also be PhDs or phenomenal intellects or entrepreneurs who basically wasted their time going to B-School.
why does investment banking seem like the least lucrative among all the finance jobs?
these numbers are definitely outliers, but not entirely uncommon among superstars going into HF or PE. i've heard stories of guys from HBS and wharton getting guaranteed first-year packages of $500K from top buyside firms. don't know which firms they were, but my guess is places like soros, paulson, cerberus, etc.
There are always outliers. I know a guy who turned down a 300k sign-on out of undergrad from a top hf
i don't believe you!
there are no hedge funds, not even de shaw or citadel, that offer a $300K sign-on for kids straight out of college.
Lovely to hear.
I do know people who made seven figures their second year and know of one guy who retired at 26 and bought a huge mansion on Lake Michigan. Naturally, you can't do this if you're working at a hedge fund or investment bank.
Why? Oh and he could be right. I've heard that if HF's really want you that badly they'll pay big $.
what qualifications could a college kid have that warrant a 300k sign on? i'm sure there were 1000+ kids of comparable qualifications that would have taken the job for a 10k sign-on
college kids=commodities
Exactly. There is absolutely no reason for a hedge fund to pay that much to an undergrad because someone of comparable qualifications and intelligence will gladly take the job for a much lower pay. Now it's a totally different story for experienced hires and those coming out of elite grad schools.
absolutely no reason why any company in any field would want someone straight out of undergrad and give them that much money. (athletes being the exception of course)
That sir, is a tremendous amount of hookers and blow.
Also, that is entirely speculation on my part.
Regards
let me guess - he was a drexel alumn too?
Good for you
300k for an undergrad? I don't believe this. No one is worth this much (with exception to the post that gave the son of richest dude in HK going to PE) and even then I dont think they would give above 100k
uh...well the facebook founder was just a college kid, too. Anything is possible if you are good at what you do.
Who said if you are only 22 years old, you can't be as good as the 40 year old veteran.
Terrible logic my friend. Zuckerberg had a brilliant idea and a good business plan to implement that idea; that's totally and completely different than a marketable skill applicable to employers.
Good at what you do? College kids are in college so they can go find something to do. How the hell can they be good at something they don't do?
While I will agree that the guy's logic was a bit off so is yours. There are kids all over this country (and surely others) that are starting businesses while still in high school. Many college students have investment portfolios and some even trade. Couple that with programming skills and "a brilliant idea and a good business plan to implement that idea" then you potentially have someone that can be worth a lot of money in certain industries...especially hedge funds.
Regards
On the Wharton guys who go the 400K comp, they are not outliers.
There are at least 5 firms that I know that recruit on campus and pay out a base of 400K to MBA graduates. You don't need to be royalty or anything like that to get this, you just need to go through 3 rounds of interviews.
BUT, those 5 firms do not pay out year end bonuses, hence the high base. It it not a typical pay structure but happens at a couple of PE funds such as Apax for example.
As for the 100K sign-on, not an outlier either. It happens at a couple of firms and includes things such as relocation expenses, "tuition reimbursment" and some other things that they lump in the sign on. It's a kind of guaranteed bonus for the whole year, not really a sign-on per se
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