
A book on the persistence of elites is an unexpected guide to getting a good job - supercanuck
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21651207-book-persistence-elites-unexpected-guide-getting-good-job-how-join
======
lordnacho
This is spot on. There isn't anything inherently difficult about what entry-
level professionals (as defined in the article) get up to. You'll be doing
powerpoint slides or reading documents until you fall asleep, but it's a skill
that many, many more people have than are needed. Basically anyone can bone up
on a few accounting ratios (what is xyz technical term?), read a book about
brainteasers (100 people on an island...ugh), and read the general news (tell
me something interesting?).

So who do you pick? You have all these well-educated, similar people. So of
course you go for the ones you like. You ask them stupid brainteasers and
stock questions (what's your greatest weakness? Where do you see yourself in 5
years?) and just see who will say something you like. They are just as capable
as the ones you don't like. This is also the reason you need to have gone to a
top uni: why bother looking for a skill that everyone has? Nobody ever got
fired for hiring IBM.

Oh, one exception: the children of the powerful. A buddy of mine worked in
investment banking and there were a number of kids whose parents were CEOs of
known firms, or other important people. Those kids are going to be able to do
the job at hand as well as the future job of getting business. It does tighten
the pyramid for the other capable kids, but they know the game.

Contrast that with a job where the skill is roughly as available as the
demand. Where it is possible that the random guy off the street cannot do it
(eg iOS developer). What do you do then? Well, now you can't just show up to
the interview unprepared. You need to spend time asking real, discriminating
questions (How do optionals work in Swift?). You also might need to balance
your opinion about the person's character with your need to have that skill in
house.

~~~
exelius
For entry-level positions, you're absolutely right.

But the authors fail to mention that these firms have turnover approaching 50%
per year for new employees. As a new employee fresh out of college, they work
you like a dog and wait for those who can't hack it to quit. The first two
years are screening for work ethic (though by "work ethic", they mean how much
of your life you're willing to sacrifice to the job).

And likability is the core criteria because not only are these professional
jobs, they are professional _service_ jobs. As in you work directly with
clients. So it's a huge asset to the firm if you're a likable person because
you'll have better client relationships that lead to you selling more work.

I've worked in management consulting for a while and that's just the game.
Executives at large companies almost invariably have consulting backgrounds
themselves, so they know how it works.

~~~
dicroce
I know what a consultant is, and I know what a manager is... But I'm not sure
I know what a "management consultant" is.. You sound like a contractor who
shows up and tells managers better ways to do their jobs? If that is true, why
don't they ask you why they should trust your opinion over their own?

~~~
kyllo
You don't tell them better ways to do their jobs, you tell them what they want
to hear and provide political cover for them to do what they wanted to do
anyway. If you're a CEO and you want to make a change, consultants will sell
you data and benchmarks and best practices to back you up when you need to
sell it to the rest of the execs and the board.

~~~
dicroce
wow.. thats.... genius.

------
qiqing
Consider these paragraphs:

"One candidate in Ms Rivera’s sample passed the interview by adopting the
persona of a successful consultant that he knew at that firm. Even if you do
not go that far, you must at all costs avoid appearing nerdy or eccentric:
there are plenty of jobs with tech companies for those types. The old-
fashioned belief still prevails that playing team sports, especially posh ones
like rowing, makes for a rounded character....

This overwhelming emphasis on style rather than substance may seem an odd way
to select members of the 1%. But those at the top of the consulting,
investment-banking and legal professions know that the most prized possession
in uncertain times is not brainpower, but self-confidence. For all the talk of
the world becoming dominated by a 'cognitive elite', in reality it appears it
is nothing more than a 'confidence elite'."

It would seem that someone with a past in one of these firms who actually had
a good 'fit' there would make a poor fit for most tech startups. [1]

So then I back look at this sentence, "The top ranks of governments and
central banks are sprinkled with Goldman Sachs veterans. Technology firms,
though they are catching up fast, have nothing like the same grip on the
global elite."

Our tide is rising, and they can wait in their confident complacence. They'll
never see it coming.

1\.
[http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html)

~~~
lordnacho
Is it a uniquely American thing, this weird school with a caste system based
on football?

I went to international school, and I noticed the kids who were playing the
popularity game tended to be Americans. The ones who liked to say who was in
and who was out. The ones who wanted to be cool, the ones who watched all the
right shows and wore all the right clothes. It was a really strong influence
on the other kids, and it was particularly Americans who'd recently arrived.

Since it was an international school, not everyone bought in.

~~~
jkimmel
I'm not sure if it's uniquely American. I think the secondary school social
system is based in the individualistic culture of American society at large,
and may appear in other countries with a similar individual emphasis.

In many cases, American children (at least in my region of the country,
growing up in the late 1990's & 2000's) are told that they are exceptional at
a young age by their parents/mentor figures. This article sums up the
environment nicely.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wait-but-why/generation-y-
unha...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wait-but-why/generation-y-
unhappy_b_3930620.html)

I think a desire to fulfill this expectation of individualized achievement can
lead adolescents to pursue peer approval as an activity unto itself, the so
called "trying to be cool," you may have observed.

~~~
smil
American culture is not individualistic. It's conformist to the extreme.

------
dba7dba
_MANAGEMENT consultants, investment banks and big law firms are the Holy
Trinity of white-collar careers. They recruit up to a third of the graduates
of the world’s best universities._

I believe the ratio is far higher in English speaking, white countries as they
can freely join Wall Street and the supporting infrastructure.

The ratio is lower in non-English speaking countries like Asia.

Thus we have the strange shift of R&D and manufacturing (especially
manufacturing) to Asia where brightest graduates end up in industries other
than management consultancy, investment banking, and law firms.

Soon the new manufacturing centers will wonder why they have to hire Wall
Street when that can be done elsewhere? Especially like in China.

I know I will get flak for this but the 3 career paths are not good for the
nation, while it may be good for the few who are in the top 1%.

While SpaceX and Tesla and Apple are great, it's not enough.

------
chernevik
I've been hired as an investment banker, and hired as an investment banker,
and I can tell you this is nonsense.

The IB interview process does a very good job of screening candidates for
mastery of basic skills -- if you don't have a very strong grasp of
accounting, valuation, free cashflow, and so on, you will not get an offer.

After passing those competence hurdles, yes, personality and fit questions do
matter.

~~~
dimino
I'm guessing this problem is similar to the one I vaguely recall reading about
regarding Google: Almost everyone who applies has the intellect required to
perform well at Google. That's why intelligence isn't a good criteria for
recruiters at Google to use as a differentiator.

I would guess the same thing applies here (please correct me if I'm wrong,
given your experience) -- almost all the folks who apply will have a fairly
solid grasp on accounting, valuation, etc. (the technical/knowledge parts),
especially if they're coming from Harvard/Stanford/et al.

Therefore, since "knowledge" isn't a very good differentiator (everyone who
gets a resumé on your desk is competent), folks in these prestigious positions
have to filter for something else -- and it seems they've chosen "fit".

~~~
chernevik
Most applicants can't get past the competence checks.

Candidates who could get past the competence checks could get dinged for fit
questions, but there weren't so many of them that we could be terribly choosy.
Maybe Goldman can be. There just aren't that many people who are that smart,
that skilled, and that willing to work that hard.

Now that's entry-level. Who is promoted and succeeds, that's a different
question. Fit questions matter a lot more there. But even then I think the key
skill was the ability to see problems from a client's perspective, and from a
senior banker's. The folks who can execute with those perspectives in mind,
those are the ones who do very well.

Investment banks, at least at the entry levels, are meritocracies. If you can
understand what it means to deliver, and deliver, you'll do well. But that
understanding is trickier than it looks.

Now there is a networking effect to this process. But it's more about getting
information about what skills the banks will be looking for, and where to get
that information, and the standards that they're looking for. This stuff isn't
written down in manuals, you have to extract it from other people. If you
don't know that stuff, you don't know what targets you have to hit.

------
switch007
Alternative title: How to get a professional job.

> The most important quality recruiters are looking for is “fit”

> looking the part is essential.

> Recruiters repeatedly told Ms Rivera that they looked for people who could
> be their friends as well as their colleagues

> Emphasise any similarities that you can find between the two of you.

Really? That seems like standard stuff required for any professional job, not
the ones that might earn you enough cash to be in the "1%".

~~~
dba7dba
> looking the part is essential.

Are they looking for workers for actors/models?

~~~
WalterBright
The full quote is: "Staff in professional-services firms spend most of their
time dealing with clients; so looking the part is essential."

Which makes perfect sense in any industry where you'll be dealing with
customers and clients.

Ever watch a successful politician on the campaign trail? They dress to match
the particular audience they'll be talking to.

------
davidhunter
'Hang on their every word. And flatter their self-image as “the best of the
best” and the most jet-lagged of the jet-lagged.'

No thanks.

~~~
cgio
Actually, no don't do it. I am interviewing for vacationers lately and many
people seem to be doing that. It may work with some interviewers, but for me
it looks very acted, kind of creepy and in any case irrelevant. If you want a
tip for management consulting interviews, act like if you are ready to work,
discuss your thought process, ask questions where you don't know something,
say something that demonstrates imagination, knowledge or creativity and maybe
even act a little by getting on the whiteboard as you would in a meeting. If
you got the interview you are halfway there, I am assuming HR has already
filtered for the best. The interviewer past me will assume even more.

~~~
Ecio78
This is more or less what happened when I was hired for my current (tech job):
I was asked about a real life problem by the interviewer (my soon-to-be
colleague/manager) and I explained how I would have dealt with it (my thought
process etc..). I asked question when I didn't know something, and I also
wrote an email few hours/one day later confirming my interest for the company
and adding a couple of things that could have not been clear during the
interview about my skills. And when I went there for the second interview, as
I had studied a bit more on their real problem, I had the opportunity to add
few more thoughts on it.

------
rayiner
> Whether in consulting, investment banking or the law, firms use revenue-
> generating staff rather than human-resources people to decide who has the
> right stuff.

This is one of the positive aspects of professional services recruiting that I
think other companies should emulate. It's crazy that engineers have to get
through non-engineer filters to get hired.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
The takeaway is not that HR is involved, but that engineers are not seen as
"revenue generating."

To rather too much corporate management, engineering is a blue collar job. It
happens to require computers instead of metal and power tools, but it's still
not "revenue generating" in the strategic, legal, or financial-industries
sense.

Obviously not all management is like this. But there's still a whiff of
working-with-your-hands contempt for engineers from many people who work
primarily with money and power. And the cultural differences, and differences
in motivation, shouldn't be underestimated.

~~~
tptacek
Well, whatever managers think of engineering, they surely don't think HR is
revenue-generating; HR is practically the definition of "overhead".

------
Procrastes
> For all the talk of the world becoming dominated by a “cognitive elite”, in
> reality it appears it is nothing more than a “confidence elite”.

They don't call it a "confidence game" for nothing.

------
ianstallings
I'm half convinced that telling everyone you only hire the _elite_ is actually
to convince everyone working for you that they are _elite_ and in turn will
perform better. IMHO it's the same reason that Google has those crazy
interviews and claim they only hire the best. It's motivational bullshit.

------
neuro_imager
Although, I have my suspicions that this article is designed as click-bait, I
will add my 5c:

"Those at the top of the consulting, investment-banking and legal professions
know that the most prized possession in uncertain times is not brainpower, but
self-confidence."

"The most important quality recruiters are looking for is “fit”: they would
sooner choose an easy-going person with a second-class mind than a Mark
Zuckerberg-type genius who rubs people up the wrong way."

This is exactly why these industries are ripe for disruption. Unfortunately,
medicine/healthcare operates like this also to a large degree. The world will
be in infinitely better place when this changes and second rate poseurs are
replaced by legitimately competent and valuable alternatives.

------
manigandham
These consulting companies aren't the only "good" jobs around. What a strange
article.

~~~
vinceguidry
It was referencing a strange book, which profiled a strange world.

------
Shivetya
either that or get into politics. between the power that writing laws and
regulations, to enforcing them, you can gain a lot of support. then to top it
off with a generous retirement that many public servants get you could have
just a great time.

I do tire of the idea of that only people who excel in business comprise the
one percent, far too often those who write the laws do nearly as well
economically

------
chrisdbaldwin
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

------
dropit_sphere
Clickbait for engineers?

~~~
somedangedname
10 job hunting tricks that the elites don't want you to know! You won't
believe number 3!

------
umutisik
What about having the necessary knowledge and skills, having good grades and
good recommendation letters?

