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"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 backgroun

"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)?

ImprovedSilence 15y ago
I went to a large state school, and I have several friends who ended up at investment banks in NYC. You Don't have to be an ivy league rockstar to get in, just a decent education from a reputable school, show a work ethic and decent social skills. Banks hire tons of people every year, lots burn out after the first year or two (either because of the 12 hr days, or they didn't make the "up" in "up or out"), so the bank hires more next year.
- joncooper 15y ago
  Yep, didn't mean to imply otherwise. It does vary a lot between disciplines, though. There are a lot of successful people in support roles: technology, "back office" (operations, settlements, legal), human resources, etc., from many backgrounds. Sales, research, trading, transactional M&A, wealth management and capital markets desks have a higher percentage of Ivy/prep school folks, especially for folks in the ~VP - younger MD range. Re: try-hard-ism: For example, Goldman derivatives trading struck me at one point as being made up of the lacrosse team captains from each Ivy. A lot of the older folks are "Brooklyn smart" whereas the younger folks are mostly "MIT smart" or "MBA smart". I had an interview with a private equity firm who told me re: their analyst program: "We hire only 24 year olds who went to private school, then an Ivy, then did a two-year program at a top tier investment bank. We find that if everyone we hire is the same person, it's easy for them to work together, and for us to work with them. We took a risk one time and hired someone with a different profile once, and it didn't work out." (Basically verbatim.)
rdouble 15y ago
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)
- joncooper 15y ago
  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.
  - rdouble 15y ago
    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.
- joncooper 15y ago
  Both D.E. Shaw and Goldman are happy to interview you once you've authenticated by working at another firm first. And both of them are pretty fair once you get the interview IMO.

ImprovedSilence 15y ago

I went to a large state school, and I have several friends who ended up at investment banks in NYC. You Don't have to be an ivy league rockstar to get in, just a decent education from a reputable school, show a work ethic and decent social skills. Banks hire tons of people every year, lots burn out after the first year or two (either because of the 12 hr days, or they didn't make the "up" in "up or out"), so the bank hires more next year.

joncooper 15y ago
Yep, didn't mean to imply otherwise. It does vary a lot between disciplines, though. There are a lot of successful people in support roles: technology, "back office" (operations, settlements, legal), human resources, etc., from many backgrounds. Sales, research, trading, transactional M&A, wealth management and capital markets desks have a higher percentage of Ivy/prep school folks, especially for folks in the ~VP - younger MD range. Re: try-hard-ism: For example, Goldman derivatives trading struck me at one point as being made up of the lacrosse team captains from each Ivy. A lot of the older folks are "Brooklyn smart" whereas the younger folks are mostly "MIT smart" or "MBA smart". I had an interview with a private equity firm who told me re: their analyst program: "We hire only 24 year olds who went to private school, then an Ivy, then did a two-year program at a top tier investment bank. We find that if everyone we hire is the same person, it's easy for them to work together, and for us to work with them. We took a risk one time and hired someone with a different profile once, and it didn't work out." (Basically verbatim.)

rdouble 15y ago

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)

joncooper 15y ago
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.
- rdouble 15y ago
  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.
joncooper 15y ago
Both D.E. Shaw and Goldman are happy to interview you once you've authenticated by working at another firm first. And both of them are pretty fair once you get the interview IMO.