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

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.