

Secret Handshakes Greet Frat Brothers on Wall Street - danso
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-23/secret-handshakes-greet-frat-brothers-on-wall-street.html

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bdcravens
So a "good ol' boy" system exists in finance. Huge surprise.

I just got off the phone regarding a potential assistance position with
someone I've known for years. When I make programmer hiring recommendations or
decisions, it's generally someone in my circle. Pretty sure this is how most
hiring occurs in SV/SF as well.

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onedev
I don't recommend people to certain jobs unless I am 100% sure they are the
person for the job. I don't like having my name associated w/ people who
reflect poorly per my recommendation.

Alternatively the metric I use is: "If I was starting a company, would I hire
this person?" or "Would I want to work with and trust this person to
deliver?".

I'm friends with many people where this answer is no, but they're still great
_friends_.

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poolpool
Bloomberg just discovered fraternities? Just wait until they find out about
skull and bones.

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mathattack
One of the things to consider is that for many Wall Street jobs, it's tough to
get in, and the hours are awful, but it's not an IQ test. If you hire someone
with 120 IQ instead of 135 at a software firm, you might suffer. For banking
analysts, 120 IQ is enough. This is why other things get considered. And as a
recruiter, if you can help an old friend get in, you score some points in your
community, and you know they'll be loyal for it.

This isn't defending the practice, I'm just explaining it. There are lots of
negative side effects. (Less diversity of thought, gender discrimination, etc)

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hmsimha
Has there been any correlation drawn between IQ and performance in a software
firm?

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mathattack
This is not scientific research, but many folks quote Joel's article on Smart,
Get's Stuff Done.
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000073.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000073.html)

Steve McConnell reported on the 10x phenomenon, but again it's not so rigorous
that it could pass a Physics journal.
[http://www.construx.com/10x_Software_Development/Measuring_P...](http://www.construx.com/10x_Software_Development/Measuring_Productivity_of_Individual_Programmers/)

Now venturing into the realm of survey design... If you were to ask 100
technical programming manager, and 100 banking vice presidents, "Would you be
more likely to hire and promote your intern if they had 10 more IQ points, or
put in 10 more hours per week" you would get a statistically significant
different answer. This is based on a small sample size of personal
observations across both industries. In finance and banking there gets to be a
point where people are "smart enough". There is enough complexity in software
that you can always extract more value from more intelligence.

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yetanotherphd
Billionaire's pressuring universities who make frats go co-ed, and succeeding?
And pressuring them to keep open frats that waterboard pledges?

That kinda puts "brogramming" into perspective. Or at least it would in a sane
world.

