People who say they're in finance but aren't

Does anyone here get annoyed when someone says they're in finance just because they work at a financial firm but does something completely unrelated to the industry?

I worked with another HR intern during my time at the PE firm. Once my summer internship came to an end, they wanted to extend my internship but I gave up the opportunity to the other girl who didn't even say thanks. Long story short, she now works full time in HR at a HF but claims that she works in finance and that her industry is Investment Management; and above all else "plans" to form her own HF with a friend who works at an IB. Before I found this out, I actually wanted to see if she'd like to hang out with some other intern friends and I but left me on read....

Just bothers me that they feel like they need to say things like that and behave that way.

 

So this is the type of crap that HR people worry about - no wonder it takes forever for anything to get done as soon as it's passed to y'all.

But to answer your question, yes she does work in finance, does it matter if she's actually in HR? no not really. People really need to stop getting hung up on titles and technicalities.

"A guy gets on the MTA here in L.A. and dies. Think anybody'll notice?" - Vincent
 

Think of it like this... There are two ways to view Finance... as a sector and as a field. When I say sector, I'm talking about companies in financial services, insurance, investment management, sales and trading, etc. These are companies whose core business is derived by providing financial services, be it traditional IB functions, AM/IM, wealth management, or insurance. When I say finance as a field, I'm talking about any sort of financial analysis predicated on the understanding of how a business works and analysis of the business' financial performance. So, the guy doing CorpFin at an F500 works in finance as a field, while your colleague, the HR rep works in Finance as a sector. If you view it like that, then you can always dig deeper and ask what do you do in finance to determine where they fall.

 
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Everyone is a member of multiple groups. If someone asks me where I'm from, I can say Cleveland, or I can say Ohio, or I can say America. All would be true.

When people have multiple groups they can choose from, they choose the one that makes them look best. Often this means choosing the group that you are at the bottom of. This is why Cornell kids often talk about being in the Ivy League but Harvard kids just say they go to Harvard.

Its why every MBA grad has their own definition of the top tier of business schools, which always features their school at the bottom. Wharton people say the top tier is "HSW", Columbia people say "M7", Tuck people say top 10, and I can guarantee you that whoever's ranked 25th talks about the virtues of going to a Top 25 MBA program.

Its why every college football player says "I play football" while every college tennis player says "I'm an athlete".

And its also why every hedge funder says he works at a hedge fund, every PE person says he works in private equity, every IBD person says they're a banker, and every back office person says they work in finance.

It's the way of the world. Not changing any time soon. Personally I find it amusing when people really stretch it; I once knew a compliance guy at a mutual fund who would tell most people he works in compliance, but would switch it to investment management when talking to girls he wants to take home.

 

This is spot on. At my business school which is a top 5 school - see what I am doing here lol - a girl at networking events would often tell people that she worked in PE. Technically she was correct as she had been employed at one but wouldn't disclose upright that she'd been doing some back-office stuff here. Of course, that would have taken the wind out of her sail...

 
lleekyungsie805:
Does anyone here get annoyed when someone says they're in finance just because they work at a financial firm but does something completely unrelated to the industry?

Not really, I honestly couldn't care less. It's likely a projection of their insecurities and/or inferiority complex that leads them to want to impress people through such behavior. As I said... Who. Cares.

 

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"Now you's can't leave." -Sonny LoSpecchio
 

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