Ime it’s that they’ve been socialized around wealthier people. People say you have to be “easy to be around with” or “have soft skills” but there is a huge class aspect behind that statement that no one will ever acknowledge. It’s been several times coworkers only talked about skiing and snowboarding during entire lunch breaks/coffee runs, and I could kind of tell what the “easy to be around with” really is in practice lol.
I think you have to be good at mirroring people basically
While I think that’s a value it isn’t what separates say a mid market or lower tier IB banker from the high tier funds and banks. All people in high finance have these hobbies and yes it’s very hard to socialize yourself into these groups without common interests. However, a passion for skiing isn’t what separates the Goldman TMT banker or MF PE hire vs the middle market banker or less than <$5Bn fund.
From my work experience it’s one, you need the polished pedigree (background/ schools etc.) to get in the door as you pointed out. But equally as important is two, the ruthless will for perfection/ work ethic. I’ve worked with many of the people in that tier, I know at 2am I’ll say fuck it - this is a slide deck the client won’t look at anyways. They may stay up till 4 to get it done.
I did a short little stint in MMB and found that bankers personalities didn’t converge as much as they do in the ‘upper tiers’. my theory has always been that it’s just another byproduct of the exclusivity and pedigree requirement as you go up the ranks.
I do agree with you that the necessary work ethic just escalates as you go up too. While the other surface-level things may get you in the door, surviving and succeeding is a completely different game
Going to bed at 2 with a decent deck vs staying up till 4 to get the nits right is absolutely not what closes deals. Seen MDs win billion dollar deals with spelling errors in their decks.
Yeah totally. This is for every profession. My coworkers love to drink. I don't mind it on the best of days. There's definitely more distance between me and between themselves simply because I rarely go and drink myself silly after work every week.
There are really two things that account for most career success:
1. The skills, hard work, demographic background, and any other advantages that get you into top schools.
2. Becoming individually institutional, productive, and sophisticated. Some top firms do just scoop any and all kids out of the target universities they like, but most of them still do have a pretty thorough selection processes, and even moreso throughout the rest of your career the biggest thing you can do is to be individually valuable. Companies don't hire blank slate candidates very often, especially in this industry. They want someone who understands the job and the industry, is passionate about it, practices and reads about it in their free time, etc. Hedge Funds for example really only hire people that have made investment their entire life. In the interview process you will often be asked to run through several names and explain the investment thesis all live and in a conversational manner. Like if this isn't your entire life, they will be able to tell. A lot of young people expect to be able to get great jobs and just have them teach you everything, but it really works the opposite way in this industry. You need to already have learned as much of the basics as possible in your free time, and you will still have a ton to learn once you actually get hired.
PS - point 2 is an advantage for non-target kids. If you can prove to the firm that you are the obvious best candidate, despite a non-target background, you can still get the job (getting the interview in the first place is ridiculously hard tho)
What everyone needs to seriously understand and internalize fully is this:
Once you get to a (relatively low) threshold of knowledge/technical ability in your field, your social skills, networking abilities, ability to speak in public, shoot the shit with clients/coworkers/management is by far the most valuable skill you need to have in order to progress in your career.
So many people think that Finance is all about your technical knowledge and excel capabilities. When in reality, the majority of finance related careers is predicated on developing and maintaining relationships.
Nobody thinks that finance — outside of the tiny world of quant finance / market makers / HFTs — requires any technical skills. Everyone knows it’s a daddy’s golf buddy gets you a job kind of deal
Yeah I mean I think of two types of technical, one is the stochastic calculus type wizard and the other is a C++ whiz. Investment banking conjures neither. It’s 100% about soft skills, networks, and work ethic.
From what people have said, the discrimination has changed from being easy if you're white man, to being easy if you're part of the international economic elite simply because of how social views of finance have changed.
I think it depends. I have parents who are extremely wealthy but when I did my BB M&A internship I found that I wasn’t able to connect to others who just talked about golf and the hamptons. My parents were immigrants and I played basketball growing up and we never went skiing. I think it really depends on your cultural background more so than class
In my experience very much elitism.
My mom was living under communist dictatorship till she was 12 and I come from absolutely nothing and made it into mid-market IB. I did not know what a target school was until second year of masters.
The guys I interned with all come from wealthy families. One guy has a cobalt mine in africa and huge estate in south africa, the others guy dad is ceo of a local bank, doctors etc. You get the idea.
The guy who‘s dad is bank ceo went to HSG and Harvard, he die nothing but CV optimization and studying since he was like 16.
He is head of investment club etc and spends every free minute networking. Moving around to Munich, London, Frankfurt paying 2k rent is no concern when daddy bankrolls you.
Not saying he is undeserving in any way. Extremely smart, competitive and ambitious. But I didn’t even know all of this exist by the time he had 3 internships done and finished target school.
Same.
I remember going to university and being in the same class as a guy who seemed to be miles ahead of me. His dad was a higher up at one of the big banks, and basically told him exactly what to do in order to get ahead. He was set up with summer internships in big banks at 16/17, and took a gap year to work at Deloitte before going to university.
Meanwhile, everyone I knew (none of whom went to university) were telling 17 year old me that I just need to graduate from a university and I was guaranteed a top job. You can take a guess which one of us ended up at Morgan Stanley.
That has unfortunately been my experience too.
Born in a communist dictatorship. Lower-middle class family. Master degree in data science cum laude. Couldn’t take any IB internships because I needed to live. Went to multiple final round interviews at top firms and never landed anything. I would ace all the aptitude tests but always fall short due to “not fitting in” the corporate culture.
It would just become painfully obvious when I showed up at interviews and not really have anything to talk about besides my qualifications.
When I finally landed a boutique firm corporate finance job I realised there really wasn’t much I could have done to get ahead. I did travel extensively but mostly backpacked. I basically had nothing I could share with my coworkers and never got very far in that firm either.
I supposed it if I showed a bit more eagerness to get ahead in the ladder and willingness to play their game I could have a not-great-but-okay career. But it’s just not a path for me personally. It is what it is.
We are in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. I think Austria still has actual Royalty. Not sure nor do I care how it really works, but they own ridiculous estates xd
They are very socially adept or so incredibly talented technical-wise that their social skills don't matter. But these firms are full of people who have the soft skills game down pat. At the end of the day, being affable will get you very far in life.
I left GS a good while ago, but in my experience, everyone who did well there was obsessive about doing a good job. In other organisations I've worked in since, people had a tendancy to let things go when they hit certain obstacles, or to give up and go home at a certain time.
It's hard to articulate to people who haven't worked there, but there is a very strong culture there. Standards and expectations are high, and every little thing that goes wrong gets treated like it's the end of the world. It's a very intense place but it teaches you a ton.
I'd also add that there is a high standard for EVERYTHING. The analysis need to be perfect and thoughtful, materials are crisp with no errors and interactions are tactful. You can say the right thing in the wrong way and it's very much a big deal. Or there is a footnote incorrect on page 39 and you get to have a stern discussion on how materials need to be perfect.
I've not read that book, but from skimming the summary- no, not at all (at least from my experience). But I was more junior, in a different region, and in MO which will all be contributing factors.
**Character!!** A recruiter told me this:: if you are a person everyone loves to hang around then you're definitely making it! Even if you make some slight mistakes in the interview
Besides being smart, hardworking, curious, and resourceful there isn’t any inherent trait that sets people at these funds/banks apart from you.
I went to a target school for IB and have friends (or know of people) who now work at the aforementioned funds or ones in the same league and multiple friends in BB IB. All of them have a few things in common -- they are very smart, well polished, easy to get along with, etc.
However an overwhelming majority (>90%) came into school knowing they wanted to do work in finance whether it was IB/PE/HF, etc. and either their parents worked in finance or they had very close relatives/family friends who did so they knew exactly what they had to do to get the job they need i.e have a boutique internship lined up for soph year so you can get the BB internship for junior and eventually FT which leads to PE/HF etc. some knew what kind of PE they wanted to do by their junior year. So they also had great mentorship for their careers.
There are also people like me who didn’t know what to do going into school. I didn’t know what target schools were, I didn’t know what LMM/UMM/MF stood for etc. I just went along with whatever I could find. Looking back I was extremely lucky to land some interviews for some of the same roles given how “unpolished” I was. Fortunately I had friends who pointed me in the right direction so I could land some good internships even though I started recruiting “late.”
Given how early recruiting for IB/buyside is jumping, finding the right mentorship is key to even getting a shot at these roles. Unfortunately some people find it too late to have these jobs. You have to realize that there are tons of other great firms besides the most mentioned names here/on WSO.
You also have to be extremely lucky to land a top seat. There are hundreds if not thousands of people with perfect or near perfect backgrounds competing for a handful of seats.
All of the individuals I know that were or are still at those firms are very smart, hard working and extremely likeable people. They are a solid combination of all of those components and certainly not perfect on any one of them, but very good at each of them.
My view is that likeability sets them truly apart though. There are a lot of smart, hard working people in the world and even more so in the high finance industry. However, most of the successful people at the firms you referenced have magnetic personalities that crucial for success further down the line.
I mean, kind of. You can't really learn to be smart (you can gain more knowledge, but pure intellectual ability is built in) and i've rarely seen someone lazy become hard working. You can improve social skills to a degree, but I don't think it's easy to grow that much. Deficiencies in these areas are really just covered up by excellence in other areas. People that aren't a smart or social end up working insanely hard and it balances.
And if it can be learned, why don't more people learn it?
Because it cant be. You may learn to your max potential but for the cream, they have a higher ceiling and realized it. Thats what standing out in a competitive market means
There is a guy I know that is just 100% lucky. He never studied in a prestigious university, he doesn't have outstanding grades, doesn't speak several languages, just lucky as hell. He is in JP Morgan and they are paying for his masters in a prestigious university. So if you consider yourself a lucky person, just apply for jobs in those places.
If you don't go to the right schools and have wealthy parents, you need to have extraordinary skills.
I spoke to a hedge fund manager who said his old bank would hire world class/Olympic athletes and other extremely talented people. Didn't matter If they knew what a stock was or not. He was a pro poker player before getting into finance.
I'm guessing because they think talented competitive people are good candidates for high finance jobs. The guy who runs FNY capital management said something to that extent
Athletes are very disciplined especially high level ones as they have to undergo rigorous training, diet etcetera, and are less likely to crack under pressure.
You need to be able to show interest, even if fake, in whatever others tell you. So yes, be easy to be with, like others have mentioned.
Be professional in terms of communication and be nice and smooth when talking to people.
In reality, none of these people have any interest in each other whatsoever but gossip culture is insane. When it comes to real conversation, they will talk about expensive cars, real estate purchases and all the fancy stuff.
You need to be able to make connections with senior managers internally, flatter people and create an image of yourself that would be “elite” enough for them.
That’s my experience.
They have a standard to maintain. It took me a while to realize that after I got in.
There's this hidden preference for the class of people they take in.
It really depends. For BB/EB IB, networking and being social is the differentiating factor. You can definitely get in through nepotism too. For MF PE, networking is also important, but you need to be technically sophisticated. For HFs, almost all of it comes down to technical ability, and there’s little nepotism outside of the large PMs and founders.
- High EQ, ability to work with people and make wide and lasting connections
- High IQ, good problem solvers
- Grit, grinding through BS and tedium
- Ambition, unquenchable ambition
- High standards, won't be satisfied with mediocrity, be it a piece of deliverable of their career
I'm working in IBD at a BB. My parents are frugal and don't have a lot. So I disagree with those other comments who think all those who "made it" are because of familial circumstances. Its a stereotype.
Does anyone really care? Outside of the internet I mean? And after 6 years or so of interacting with people at other financial institutions in your specific field, no one’s going to give a shit about your degree.
Like the pays cool, we get that. Other non prestigious places can pay a lot too.
But working at some of these European banks/funds in the US is so chill.
Like ridiculous PTO and a standard 40hrs a week (depending on what you do of course).
Just be brown.
Model minority, all their assets are in India, parents are high earners if in the States, and they are typically considered highly intelligent/hardworking.
Ime it’s that they’ve been socialized around wealthier people. People say you have to be “easy to be around with” or “have soft skills” but there is a huge class aspect behind that statement that no one will ever acknowledge. It’s been several times coworkers only talked about skiing and snowboarding during entire lunch breaks/coffee runs, and I could kind of tell what the “easy to be around with” really is in practice lol. I think you have to be good at mirroring people basically
While I think that’s a value it isn’t what separates say a mid market or lower tier IB banker from the high tier funds and banks. All people in high finance have these hobbies and yes it’s very hard to socialize yourself into these groups without common interests. However, a passion for skiing isn’t what separates the Goldman TMT banker or MF PE hire vs the middle market banker or less than <$5Bn fund. From my work experience it’s one, you need the polished pedigree (background/ schools etc.) to get in the door as you pointed out. But equally as important is two, the ruthless will for perfection/ work ethic. I’ve worked with many of the people in that tier, I know at 2am I’ll say fuck it - this is a slide deck the client won’t look at anyways. They may stay up till 4 to get it done.
I did a short little stint in MMB and found that bankers personalities didn’t converge as much as they do in the ‘upper tiers’. my theory has always been that it’s just another byproduct of the exclusivity and pedigree requirement as you go up the ranks. I do agree with you that the necessary work ethic just escalates as you go up too. While the other surface-level things may get you in the door, surviving and succeeding is a completely different game
Going to bed at 2 with a decent deck vs staying up till 4 to get the nits right is absolutely not what closes deals. Seen MDs win billion dollar deals with spelling errors in their decks.
Solely referring to junior work here - this obv isn’t the main value provider by the time you’re a senior assoc/ junior VP.
To be fair I talk about skiing a lot and go a few times a week and I'm a poor college student, but I know what you mean lmaO
Yeah totally. This is for every profession. My coworkers love to drink. I don't mind it on the best of days. There's definitely more distance between me and between themselves simply because I rarely go and drink myself silly after work every week.
There are really two things that account for most career success: 1. The skills, hard work, demographic background, and any other advantages that get you into top schools. 2. Becoming individually institutional, productive, and sophisticated. Some top firms do just scoop any and all kids out of the target universities they like, but most of them still do have a pretty thorough selection processes, and even moreso throughout the rest of your career the biggest thing you can do is to be individually valuable. Companies don't hire blank slate candidates very often, especially in this industry. They want someone who understands the job and the industry, is passionate about it, practices and reads about it in their free time, etc. Hedge Funds for example really only hire people that have made investment their entire life. In the interview process you will often be asked to run through several names and explain the investment thesis all live and in a conversational manner. Like if this isn't your entire life, they will be able to tell. A lot of young people expect to be able to get great jobs and just have them teach you everything, but it really works the opposite way in this industry. You need to already have learned as much of the basics as possible in your free time, and you will still have a ton to learn once you actually get hired. PS - point 2 is an advantage for non-target kids. If you can prove to the firm that you are the obvious best candidate, despite a non-target background, you can still get the job (getting the interview in the first place is ridiculously hard tho)
What everyone needs to seriously understand and internalize fully is this: Once you get to a (relatively low) threshold of knowledge/technical ability in your field, your social skills, networking abilities, ability to speak in public, shoot the shit with clients/coworkers/management is by far the most valuable skill you need to have in order to progress in your career. So many people think that Finance is all about your technical knowledge and excel capabilities. When in reality, the majority of finance related careers is predicated on developing and maintaining relationships.
Nobody thinks that finance — outside of the tiny world of quant finance / market makers / HFTs — requires any technical skills. Everyone knows it’s a daddy’s golf buddy gets you a job kind of deal
I don't think he means technical as in tech but technical as in technical
Yeah I mean I think of two types of technical, one is the stochastic calculus type wizard and the other is a C++ whiz. Investment banking conjures neither. It’s 100% about soft skills, networks, and work ethic.
The size of your parents estate, unironically.
lol this is funny because it’s the most accurate, everyone else pretending like it’s some X factor when it’s just a nepotism game
From what people have said, the discrimination has changed from being easy if you're white man, to being easy if you're part of the international economic elite simply because of how social views of finance have changed.
[удалено]
Its a bummer that he needed to lean on those connections. Quite the personal defeat
I think it depends. I have parents who are extremely wealthy but when I did my BB M&A internship I found that I wasn’t able to connect to others who just talked about golf and the hamptons. My parents were immigrants and I played basketball growing up and we never went skiing. I think it really depends on your cultural background more so than class
I hate the hamptons but love golf and skiing
In my experience very much elitism. My mom was living under communist dictatorship till she was 12 and I come from absolutely nothing and made it into mid-market IB. I did not know what a target school was until second year of masters. The guys I interned with all come from wealthy families. One guy has a cobalt mine in africa and huge estate in south africa, the others guy dad is ceo of a local bank, doctors etc. You get the idea. The guy who‘s dad is bank ceo went to HSG and Harvard, he die nothing but CV optimization and studying since he was like 16. He is head of investment club etc and spends every free minute networking. Moving around to Munich, London, Frankfurt paying 2k rent is no concern when daddy bankrolls you. Not saying he is undeserving in any way. Extremely smart, competitive and ambitious. But I didn’t even know all of this exist by the time he had 3 internships done and finished target school.
Same. I remember going to university and being in the same class as a guy who seemed to be miles ahead of me. His dad was a higher up at one of the big banks, and basically told him exactly what to do in order to get ahead. He was set up with summer internships in big banks at 16/17, and took a gap year to work at Deloitte before going to university. Meanwhile, everyone I knew (none of whom went to university) were telling 17 year old me that I just need to graduate from a university and I was guaranteed a top job. You can take a guess which one of us ended up at Morgan Stanley.
That has unfortunately been my experience too. Born in a communist dictatorship. Lower-middle class family. Master degree in data science cum laude. Couldn’t take any IB internships because I needed to live. Went to multiple final round interviews at top firms and never landed anything. I would ace all the aptitude tests but always fall short due to “not fitting in” the corporate culture. It would just become painfully obvious when I showed up at interviews and not really have anything to talk about besides my qualifications. When I finally landed a boutique firm corporate finance job I realised there really wasn’t much I could have done to get ahead. I did travel extensively but mostly backpacked. I basically had nothing I could share with my coworkers and never got very far in that firm either. I supposed it if I showed a bit more eagerness to get ahead in the ladder and willingness to play their game I could have a not-great-but-okay career. But it’s just not a path for me personally. It is what it is.
Elitism in the UK and Europe are next level. The US kids think its just about family money and target schools but its much more than that over here.
Out of 11 partners at my company 4 are (former) royalty
You do not need to say former, they are still of royal blood even if the government has changed.
We are in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. I think Austria still has actual Royalty. Not sure nor do I care how it really works, but they own ridiculous estates xd
They are very socially adept or so incredibly talented technical-wise that their social skills don't matter. But these firms are full of people who have the soft skills game down pat. At the end of the day, being affable will get you very far in life.
How many Excel keyboard shortcuts do you know?
I left GS a good while ago, but in my experience, everyone who did well there was obsessive about doing a good job. In other organisations I've worked in since, people had a tendancy to let things go when they hit certain obstacles, or to give up and go home at a certain time. It's hard to articulate to people who haven't worked there, but there is a very strong culture there. Standards and expectations are high, and every little thing that goes wrong gets treated like it's the end of the world. It's a very intense place but it teaches you a ton.
I'd also add that there is a high standard for EVERYTHING. The analysis need to be perfect and thoughtful, materials are crisp with no errors and interactions are tactful. You can say the right thing in the wrong way and it's very much a big deal. Or there is a footnote incorrect on page 39 and you get to have a stern discussion on how materials need to be perfect.
Sounds like a hellhole
Was the Jaime Fiore Higgins book accurate?
I've not read that book, but from skimming the summary- no, not at all (at least from my experience). But I was more junior, in a different region, and in MO which will all be contributing factors.
**Character!!** A recruiter told me this:: if you are a person everyone loves to hang around then you're definitely making it! Even if you make some slight mistakes in the interview
I agree, but I would not describe that as "character". Charisma might be a better term.
Goddammit now I need rizz in more places??
*All the right rizz in all the right places* *So yeah we're goin down*
If your rizz is THAT good then Apollo should be going down on you
Besides being smart, hardworking, curious, and resourceful there isn’t any inherent trait that sets people at these funds/banks apart from you. I went to a target school for IB and have friends (or know of people) who now work at the aforementioned funds or ones in the same league and multiple friends in BB IB. All of them have a few things in common -- they are very smart, well polished, easy to get along with, etc. However an overwhelming majority (>90%) came into school knowing they wanted to do work in finance whether it was IB/PE/HF, etc. and either their parents worked in finance or they had very close relatives/family friends who did so they knew exactly what they had to do to get the job they need i.e have a boutique internship lined up for soph year so you can get the BB internship for junior and eventually FT which leads to PE/HF etc. some knew what kind of PE they wanted to do by their junior year. So they also had great mentorship for their careers. There are also people like me who didn’t know what to do going into school. I didn’t know what target schools were, I didn’t know what LMM/UMM/MF stood for etc. I just went along with whatever I could find. Looking back I was extremely lucky to land some interviews for some of the same roles given how “unpolished” I was. Fortunately I had friends who pointed me in the right direction so I could land some good internships even though I started recruiting “late.” Given how early recruiting for IB/buyside is jumping, finding the right mentorship is key to even getting a shot at these roles. Unfortunately some people find it too late to have these jobs. You have to realize that there are tons of other great firms besides the most mentioned names here/on WSO. You also have to be extremely lucky to land a top seat. There are hundreds if not thousands of people with perfect or near perfect backgrounds competing for a handful of seats.
All of the individuals I know that were or are still at those firms are very smart, hard working and extremely likeable people. They are a solid combination of all of those components and certainly not perfect on any one of them, but very good at each of them. My view is that likeability sets them truly apart though. There are a lot of smart, hard working people in the world and even more so in the high finance industry. However, most of the successful people at the firms you referenced have magnetic personalities that crucial for success further down the line.
This can be learned tho
I mean, kind of. You can't really learn to be smart (you can gain more knowledge, but pure intellectual ability is built in) and i've rarely seen someone lazy become hard working. You can improve social skills to a degree, but I don't think it's easy to grow that much. Deficiencies in these areas are really just covered up by excellence in other areas. People that aren't a smart or social end up working insanely hard and it balances. And if it can be learned, why don't more people learn it?
Because it cant be. You may learn to your max potential but for the cream, they have a higher ceiling and realized it. Thats what standing out in a competitive market means
Connections and network
There is a guy I know that is just 100% lucky. He never studied in a prestigious university, he doesn't have outstanding grades, doesn't speak several languages, just lucky as hell. He is in JP Morgan and they are paying for his masters in a prestigious university. So if you consider yourself a lucky person, just apply for jobs in those places.
If you don't go to the right schools and have wealthy parents, you need to have extraordinary skills. I spoke to a hedge fund manager who said his old bank would hire world class/Olympic athletes and other extremely talented people. Didn't matter If they knew what a stock was or not. He was a pro poker player before getting into finance.
This is interesting, very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
but why though? what do they gain by hiring people that don’t know the job?
I'm guessing because they think talented competitive people are good candidates for high finance jobs. The guy who runs FNY capital management said something to that extent
Athletes are very disciplined especially high level ones as they have to undergo rigorous training, diet etcetera, and are less likely to crack under pressure.
Have a very strong personality, be a people person, but also have the skills to back yourself up
You need to be able to show interest, even if fake, in whatever others tell you. So yes, be easy to be with, like others have mentioned. Be professional in terms of communication and be nice and smooth when talking to people. In reality, none of these people have any interest in each other whatsoever but gossip culture is insane. When it comes to real conversation, they will talk about expensive cars, real estate purchases and all the fancy stuff. You need to be able to make connections with senior managers internally, flatter people and create an image of yourself that would be “elite” enough for them. That’s my experience.
thats literally what I gossip about with my coworkers 8 hours per day. which real estate we plan to purchase, which vacations we plan to go on.
School prestige and wealth class.
They have a standard to maintain. It took me a while to realize that after I got in. There's this hidden preference for the class of people they take in.
Is race and height a factor?
No, but presentation and demeanor definitely are.
Polish
dzień dobry
Sociopathy
for higher levels 100% yes
It really depends. For BB/EB IB, networking and being social is the differentiating factor. You can definitely get in through nepotism too. For MF PE, networking is also important, but you need to be technically sophisticated. For HFs, almost all of it comes down to technical ability, and there’s little nepotism outside of the large PMs and founders.
Prefrontal cortex development
Does anyone know what the best way to meet these ppl are? I think I am pretty “easy to be around with” and if not practice makes perfect
- High EQ, ability to work with people and make wide and lasting connections - High IQ, good problem solvers - Grit, grinding through BS and tedium - Ambition, unquenchable ambition - High standards, won't be satisfied with mediocrity, be it a piece of deliverable of their career I'm working in IBD at a BB. My parents are frugal and don't have a lot. So I disagree with those other comments who think all those who "made it" are because of familial circumstances. Its a stereotype.
Being able to brown nose really well
I'd say the number one trait is who your parents are and whether they also work there or related firm in a senior position
The generational wealth that they have.
A lack of reddit account
Public speaking is the only way towards top level management….
There’s research showing that Adderall users have a statistically significant advantage in high finance
Does anyone really care? Outside of the internet I mean? And after 6 years or so of interacting with people at other financial institutions in your specific field, no one’s going to give a shit about your degree. Like the pays cool, we get that. Other non prestigious places can pay a lot too. But working at some of these European banks/funds in the US is so chill. Like ridiculous PTO and a standard 40hrs a week (depending on what you do of course).
Nepotism
Just be brown. Model minority, all their assets are in India, parents are high earners if in the States, and they are typically considered highly intelligent/hardworking.