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How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

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Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#41

Post by chimeracoder »

nymph wrote: post #19
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…

BTW: the point about drug testing applies to the handful of cool, geeky, "Agile" companies that adhere to this ridiculous practice, too. In fact, a certain company by the name of Pivotal Labs comes to mind. So -- anyone from Pivotal reading this? You're more than welcome to share your true thoughts about your employer's urine fetish, here and now -- safely and anonymously! On the off chance that upper management migh…

This is the first that I've heard of Pivotal Labs requiring drug testing.

That makes me really sad - I thought the tech industry was free of this incredibly invasive, offensive, and counterproductive[0] practice.

Do you know any other tech companies that have these policies (particularly startups)? I wonder if this is an outlier or just a commonplace practice I've been unaware of.

[0] Because not all drugs remain detectable for the same amount of time, drug tests simply encourage use of drugs that are tougher to detect (if you use cocaine, amphetamines, DMT, or heroin on a Friday, it will all be gone from your system by Monday). Marijuana sits at the far other end of the spectrum - depending on the means of testing, it can be detectable weeks after use.

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#42

Post by dba7dba »

chimeracoder wrote: post #40
dba7dba wrote: post #38

Wall Street is NOT building up America but is instead weakening America by causing a Great Brain Drain from every other vital industry. It is a cancer that's eating away America. Because America is losing the brightest kids who could've really shined and played vital leadership roles in other industries, I feel American industries are falling behind. Some quotes from the article that you should remember: 1. "so many…

> when you can enter Wall Street and live in NYC (great city but really only for the super rich) This is a common misconception, but not true. It's not true on an absolute scale (many people in NYC survive on what are modest salaries elsewhere) or on a COLA-adjusted scale (NYC has a salary-adjusted lower cost-of-living than many other "cheaper" cities). > and start making 6-7 figure salary/bonus almost from the begin…

> Even when you factor end-of-year bonuses into the equation, an entry-level I-banking job pays about as much as Google or Facebook would pay an engineer.

Problem is programmers entering Google/Facebook are most often programmers who studied CS in college. Many graduates entering Wall Street are science(physics,math,chemistry) and engineering (non-CS engineering) majors.

I wouldn't mind not having enough programmers working for google/facebook but I do mind losing science/engineering graduates to finance jobs when instead they could be learning the ropes in other vital industries.

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#43

Post by rayiner »

dba7dba wrote: post #38

Wall Street is NOT building up America but is instead weakening America by causing a Great Brain Drain from every other vital industry. It is a cancer that's eating away America. Because America is losing the brightest kids who could've really shined and played vital leadership roles in other industries, I feel American industries are falling behind. Some quotes from the article that you should remember: 1. "so many…

Ivy-league grads go into finance because it's an industry that really values their particular pedigree, and is willing to pay for it. Engineering, on the other hand, really doesn't. Engineering companies aren't paying $200k bonuses to kids just a few years out of an Ivy-league school. Indeed, it's pretty hard to set yourself apart, as an engineer, in a way that allows you to earn even twice as much as another engineer of a comparable level of experience.

Thus, the complaint that Ivy-league grads flock to banks is confused. If the banks are correct that Ivy-league grads are the best and the brightest, to the point where it's justifiable to almost not recruit at all outside a small set of "target schools," then the young kids are quite justified in going into an industry that appreciates their qualifications in a way science and engineering don't. On the other hand, if the banks are wrong about ivy-league grads being so much better than everyone else, then nothing much is lost that they go into banking!

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#44

Post by idsmct »

dba7dba wrote: post #38

Wall Street is NOT building up America but is instead weakening America by causing a Great Brain Drain from every other vital industry. It is a cancer that's eating away America. Because America is losing the brightest kids who could've really shined and played vital leadership roles in other industries, I feel American industries are falling behind. Some quotes from the article that you should remember: 1. "so many…

I'm from the UK and going to be doing an internship at an investment bank this summer, I do Comp Sci at university. Here are some of my thoughts and motivations.

Banks recruit ALOT of people and have offices across the country, they are very accommodating to your needs.

Applying for a bank seems much less intimidating than applying to a big tech company. The view is that only the very best even have a shot at interviewing at a company like Google/Amazon/Facebook, this puts people off.

Banks are at every school actively recruiting.

Banks host events like hackathons and advertise them. Amazon also do this in our area to be fair to them, but that one is usually after the academic year. Banks host theirs round about November time, and competing can allow you to skip portions of the interview process.

The offices are stunning and the entire place (Canary Wharf) has a feeling of being important when you're a kid in jeans who has never had a real job, and lots of important looking people are walking about in their expensive suits.

They pay very very well.

One other motivation that is personal to me but slightly different. I don't really want to work in banking. I want to run my own business, but I'm not ready to do that yet. I feel if I work at a company like Google that I'll never want to leave, and that's not how I want my life to be. So a bank is a great option. It's good money, I'll learn a lot, and it's a respected name, and I will never be so happy with my field of work as to never want to leave.

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#45

Post by dba7dba »

jcnnghm wrote: post #11

Goldman Sachs 2011 net income was $162,913 per employee. Average pay was $367,057. It's harder to get data on Google, but it looks like the mid-career median salary is $141,000. Google's Gross Profit (Total Revenue less Cost of Revenue) was $24.7B in 2011, and GS's was $24.5B. At the same time, Google had 32,467 employees to GS's 35,700. Yet, the Google net income was $9.7B compared to $4.4B on the GS side. The diffe…

Google's success doesn't and won't carry America's economy. And most of google's top paid employees are programmers.

It's the success of companies that design/make things that will carry America's economy. And these companies are losing their top prospects to Wall Street. Not a good trend.

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#46

Post by wil421 »

dba7dba wrote: post #38

Wall Street is NOT building up America but is instead weakening America by causing a Great Brain Drain from every other vital industry. It is a cancer that's eating away America. Because America is losing the brightest kids who could've really shined and played vital leadership roles in other industries, I feel American industries are falling behind. Some quotes from the article that you should remember: 1. "so many…

>These are kids really really smart, socially adjusted (enough to be accepted by Ivy League), and hard working. If they entered science/medicine/engineering/etc, they would've added great positive impact.

IMHO I believe the kids the banks are stealing from science/medicine/engineering/etc, are not kids that would truly follow those paths. Personally once I found IT I didnt want to leave and nothing was going to deter me from it. Not even a big salary from another industry (I'd take a fat IT salary though).

Sometimes these kids are so smart they just choose a smart degree with no hopes of pursing a career in that field. I lived next to a very smart and talented guy getting his MBA at Emory. He was some sort of risk accessor for a company but imagine my surprise when I learned he had a Mechanical Engineering BS, he told me he never wanted to do Engineering he thought it was a good degree to have instead of a straight Business Major.

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#47

Post by genericresponse »

dba7dba wrote: post #38

Wall Street is NOT building up America but is instead weakening America by causing a Great Brain Drain from every other vital industry. It is a cancer that's eating away America. Because America is losing the brightest kids who could've really shined and played vital leadership roles in other industries, I feel American industries are falling behind. Some quotes from the article that you should remember: 1. "so many…

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.

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#48

Post by jnbiche »

nymph wrote: post #19
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…

BTW: the point about drug testing applies to the handful of cool, geeky, "Agile" companies that adhere to this ridiculous practice, too. In fact, a certain company by the name of Pivotal Labs comes to mind. So -- anyone from Pivotal reading this? You're more than welcome to share your true thoughts about your employer's urine fetish, here and now -- safely and anonymously! On the off chance that upper management migh…

Well, scratch Pivotal Labs off my list of potential employers. Interesting to hear this is common practice among "Agile" companies.

Can anyone confirm this trend?

Re: How Wall Street recruits so many Ivy League grads

#49

Post by dba7dba »

idsmct wrote: post #44
dba7dba wrote: post #38

Wall Street is NOT building up America but is instead weakening America by causing a Great Brain Drain from every other vital industry. It is a cancer that's eating away America. Because America is losing the brightest kids who could've really shined and played vital leadership roles in other industries, I feel American industries are falling behind. Some quotes from the article that you should remember: 1. "so many…

I'm from the UK and going to be doing an internship at an investment bank this summer, I do Comp Sci at university. Here are some of my thoughts and motivations. Banks recruit ALOT of people and have offices across the country, they are very accommodating to your needs. Applying for a bank seems much less intimidating than applying to a big tech company. The view is that only the very best even have a shot at intervi…

When I say other economies, I meant places like China/Japan/SKorea. Their top science/engineering graduates have NO choice but to enter science/engineering fields. I think a lot of it is due to language/culture.

Please stop bringing up Google/Amazon/Facebook. These are not the true engines of a nation's economy. The true engines imo are companies like GM/Boeing/Tesla who design and make things at cheap enough cost to be competitive. And these companies are losing top prospects to Wall Street.

You are wrong about people working at Google not wanting to leave. Many of those people want to and do leave to start something on their own. But again, I don't really care about such 'high' tech companies. I'm worried about other industries like medicine/science/engineering in America losing the competitive edge due to top young prospects joining in Wall Street instead.

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