

How Wall Street takes advantage of very confused Ivy League graduates - ilamont
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/wall-street-steps-in-when-ivy-league-fails/2012/02/16/gIQAX2weIR_story.html

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joncooper
This article jibes with my analysis.

I worked in finance (as a proprietary trader) for 6-ish years, including
several years as a VP at Deutsche Bank.

As the article says:

"What Wall Street figured out is that colleges are producing a large number of
very smart, completely confused graduates. Kids who have ample mental
horsepower, an incredible work ethic and no idea what to do next."

I call these folks "try-hards". These folks have knocked down goal after goal
for their whole life, and they are damn good at it. The field of possibility
has been constrained by their parents and their social milieu for years to
reveal a very small set of viable goals at any given time. And they are
talented, motivated, and absolutely crush anything in their way.

In college, these folks need to develop their own superego and internalize
their own constraint set. The low-hanging fruit is right there to grab:
finance, consulting, law, medicine. Each of these is prestigious, pays well,
and has a relatively deterministic process by which one can enter, grow in
responsibility, demonstrate achievement, and increase their pay. It's a no-
brainer.

The paradox of choice is one of the great anxiety-producers of our age for the
professional set. Honestly, it must be refreshing to have such a strong set of
constraints guiding you toward such a bounded set of outcomes.

This is something that people like me[1] have a hard time understanding: for
the try-hard, this outcome is not something to be fought or to be overly
questioned--it's the inevitable, desirable continuation of a lifetime worth of
achievement.

[1] - A hacker from a lower-class background who did not ride the academic
achievement path

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plinkplonk
"I worked in finance (as a proprietary trader) for 6-ish years, including
several years as a VP at Deutsche Bank. - (I am a) hacker from a lower-class
background who did not ride the academic achievement path"

Very interesting. So how _did_ you get to be a wall street trader,( without
the academic credentials)?

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rdouble
Wall Street seems pretty meritocratic in the sense that they will try out
anyone who seems promising and just fire them if they suck. (For anywhere
besides Goldman Sachs and D.E. Shaw, that is.)

I had an easier time getting interviews on Wall Street than in Silicon Valley.
(but the Wall Street interviews were harder)

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joncooper
Depends on role. In sales / trading / research there is way more demand for
jobs than supply, and a lot of talented unemployed people floating around out
there.

For example, here in SF, one PM told me that he was going to interview one
candidate per day for 30 days and then make a decision. For a junior trader /
analyst position. Granted this is a C-list at best town for finance, but that
struck me as indicative of a huge imbalance.

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rdouble
Maybe finance firms are just more together with interview scheduling. I
realize your comment meant there are few positions in finance, but I've never
known any startup sized companies to do something like that, even though
everyone says they are desperate for talent. The interview process is usually
super disorganized, and people just get called in if it's an employee's
girlfriend's roommate or other arbitrary criteria. It's usually like 2-8
people interviewed in a month, not 30.

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AznHisoka
I have no problem with Wall Street recruiting the smartest. Naturally, people
will go to where the money is, and the money usually resides in the industry
that produces the most "value" to society.

What I have a problem with is that Wall Street has already proven it doesn't
provide as much value as it warrants (20% of GDP or so)... but we artificially
pump it back up by bailing out firms. The fall was going to happen, but the
government interfered with things, which irritates me.

It's like spending hours and hours climbing a mountain, then when you reach
the top, a deity increases the mountain twice as high to piss you off.. What
the hell?

~~~
publicus
There is a reason Goldman claims to be doing God's work on Earth...

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ivan_ah
Seeing my analytically minded friends (physicists and mathematicians) go into
banking and finance really pisses me off. I really hate the "it is just a job"
mentality.

You have your life before you. You can do anything you want. Instead they lure
them in with the six-figure salaries.

In fact I have made it my life mission to do something about it, because I
feel that if we cut out the lifeblood (the new recruits) of "the system" then
it will crumble.

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ImprovedSilence
You can do anything you want. But you can do anything you want better, with a
big salary.

~~~
sopooneo
Not if earning the big salary takes so much time that you can't dedicate
yourself to something else. Like being in the lab researching cancer.

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nwj
Not knowing what to do next =/= confused.

The article makes it sound as if Wall Street is preying on or exploiting
hapless, vulnerable graduates. Isn't it possible though that many Ivy Leaguers
take these jobs because they pay well, are high status, and don't foreclose
future career options. And if that's true, it sounds more like a reasonable
exchange rather than a predatory relationship.

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helmut_hed
It's interesting that "Excel" is listed as one of the valuable skills students
learn in their Wall Street internships.

