How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads • Hacker News Board

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#101

Post by aianus » Sat, May 17, 2014, 4:09 AM UTC

dba7dba wrote: post #54

genericresponse wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to spend a lot of time working on each point within your post. However I do think you discount the value that finance brings. Access to capital and efficient distribution of capital are tremendously powerful. Describing what finance does as just pushing paper is like describing the startup community as just writing useless code.

And I want to make it clear I don't consider Facebook/Google/Twitter as vital as GM/Boeing/Tesla/SpaceX. I don't care if Facebook/Google/Twitter don't end up with top brains. But I am concerned GM/Boeing/Tesla/SpaceX are not getting the top brains as much as they should.

GM, Boeing, Tesla, none of these companies would exist without the financial industry. There would be no such thing as large enterprise because no one person or institution can take on that much risk other than the government and we've seen what happens with centrally planned economies.

So, yeah, finance is more vital than any other business.

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#102

Post by antiterra » Sat, May 17, 2014, 4:20 AM UTC

nymph wrote: post #12

It's like so obvious, if you've spent any time at all working for one of these places. Or heck, even interviewing with them. Here's what it all boils down to: aside the quants, the genuinely alpha traders, and few other wonky actuarial types, most of the grunts (you know: the "analysts"... and the vast majority of the IT types) don't seem to be there, or to have any other propelling motive in life, other than: (1) th…

I was a grunt developer at 'one of these places,' and my experience was in complete contrast to your description. I was never in any way required to 'supplicate' my superiors. My input was evaluated on content and how well I argued, not on my lack of seniority.

My colleagues were lively, extremely competent and collaborative. They were far from bland office drones who only got excited at March Madness brackets or whatever the stereotype is.

A lot of them definitely read HN, and that brings me to the most memorable frustration, which was the inability to respond to comments about what it was like to work at the company.

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#103

Post by mahyarm » Sat, May 17, 2014, 4:58 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #93

rayiner wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google and Facebook generate more than $1 million of revenue per employee, quite comparable to Goldman and substantially above Morgan Stanley. The money is there, at least in tech, just more of it goes to shareholders and less to compensating employees. Why do banks pay out so much more of their revenues out in compensation? Because investment banks are service businesses and not product businesses. Their product is…

Top Google engineers can make millions in stock grants. Even if you're not the best of the best, get promoted a couple times and you get a very respectable salary and stock grants that (in this market) add up very quickly. I know at least a couple mid/late-20s engineers that are like "Yeah, I'll stick it out for another 5-10 years and then move to Portland or Seattle and retire."

I hear stories of people in google never getting a promotion in 7 years as a software engineer. Or getting frustrated with promotions because everyone is overqualified for their position with PhDs and so on for positions such as a sales manager and so on. How does one become a top google engineer in their mid/late 20?

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#104

Post by patio11 » Sat, May 17, 2014, 5:38 AM UTC

There exist several organizations which have the general template: Hello, academic high achiever. You've spent your entire life in a series of meritocratic competitions. You're socialized to seek the validation of decisionmakers above you, by hewing exactly to their published rubrics. This is gives you a powerful sense of self-worth, brings you status with your peers, and makes your parents feel like you've finally made it.

And now you're graduating from undergrad. And there's a wild, crazy world out there. And many processes in it are not judged by meritocratic competitions.

#%(& that noise. Come do our program. It's like everything you've ever done in life, except this time you'll be paid. Here's the application form, format for the essay, and description of the interview.

For a certain psychograph of young people, surrogate teachers at surrogate schools offering surrogate classes after surrogate admissions processes are incredibly compelling. (I rush to say that I fit this to the nines after graduation. My first job was an academic appointment and my second used exactly the above playbook to sell a job opportunity I would never have had any interest in as a quasi-study abroad option.)

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#105

Post by ProAm » Sat, May 17, 2014, 6:17 AM UTC

hnnewguy wrote: post #80

w4 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Quants aside, the concepts that are used (take, for example, "mezzanine capital") are mostly buzzwords used to give a professional air to really very simple processes/ideas. This is incredibly accurate. Aside from the guys who come out of MIT and Caltech to do quantitative analysis, almost everything on Wall Street is smoke and mirrors hiding what are incredibly simple ideas. Even a lot of the ostensibly esoteric a…

> "almost everything on Wall Street is smoke and mirrors hiding what are incredibly simple ideas" Because Google, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram and Farmville are complex ideas? Nearly every good idea looks "simple" in hindsight. That's what makes it a good idea.

These all started simply, I promise you

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#106

Post by the_watcher » Sat, May 17, 2014, 6:57 AM UTC

The HN title of this leaves out a key adjective: How Wall Street recruits so many insecure Ivy League grads.

Insecure is an important one, without it, I clicked thinking that the "how" should be obvious, and the the right question is "why."

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#107

Post by the_watcher » Sat, May 17, 2014, 7:01 AM UTC

The people who stick around Wall Street are the people who fit the stereotype. The others are people like my brother, who went to Stanford, wanted to learn something, and had a passing interest in finance. They paid him well enough to set him up to be able to take a pay cut (on a total comp basis, not hourly) for a better lifestyle, and gave him a ton of really valuable training. After 2 years, he moved on to private wealth management, and loves it. He may not be a stereotypical example, but he didn't go to Wall Street in a risk averse move. He went because it let him learn while being paid well.

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#108

Post by the_watcher » Sat, May 17, 2014, 7:04 AM UTC

Also, working for TFA in the Mississippi Delta after living in LA, NYC, or SF, you can easily save a ton of money simply because staples and housing cost so much less (my roommate at UCLA did Mississippi Delta, and while he probably could have made more somewhere else, his savings after 2 years were pretty impressive - although that may have been a skill unique to him).

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#109

Post by the_watcher » Sat, May 17, 2014, 7:06 AM UTC

>> A lot of kids graduated with a degree in sociology or English literature and feel they don't know any skills that will help them get a job.

PoliSci major here. You don't have any skills you learned in school that can help you get a job. However, if you went to a good school, you should at least be able to demonstrate that you can learn fast, which is one of the more useful skills out there. A lot of jobs require skills that simply aren't taught in school, so being self motivated and a quick study can be more valuable than anything.

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#110

Post by the_watcher » Sat, May 17, 2014, 7:11 AM UTC

Last comment: I majored in PoliSci. If I went back and did it all again, I'd recommend consulting (good pay, exposure to a lot of verticals). Banking would be tempting purely for the pay. I may not have worked banking hours, but I didn't come near a banking paycheck (my hours divided by stereotypical banking hours > my salary divided by a standard banking salary). Wall Street pays better than anywhere else for the background of their recruits, and the difference is so stark that unless you are a big firm consultant, the economically smart decision is banking.

That said, I'm happy where I am now, working on growth and customer acquisition at a really cool YC company, where I actually want to work all the time. I wouldn't be here had I chased banking dollars.