Career guidance and College Kids: It never ends.....does it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The interview is changing rapidly - in real time. By the end of the summer, “case interviews” will be materially different.

Kids need to stay on their toes and be aggressive.

“Spoke with a hedge fund PM who is actively involved in new analyst recruiting for the firm

Number of case study submissions that are clearly done with AI have 10x over the past few months

Kids are dumb enough to leave in em-dashes all throughout the write up. The excel contains comments and formulas that were clearly put together by Claude

Some kids even leaving in Pyxl, which is the Claude python program for excel, as the original author of the file. Dead giveaways, one after another

His fund is moving to an exclusively in person case study model

Seems like the days of remote interviewing and hiring through Zoom is essentially over, thanks to AI

Large firms were already transitioning to this model and now the smaller funds have picked up the same”

From x

My team has been hiring for a tech role and we learned from HR that testing centers (the places where you might take the GMAT) have been expanding their services to provide secure/no-AI spaces for online interviews and skills testing.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for all of this feedback. Wow lots of comments here to go through.

I appreciate all the suggestions and while I know the kids have used some of them I will suggest some of the others.

I think the key is recognizing that the first job may not be a pathway to anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This board helped me immensely with the college process for my oldest kids, so I'm turning to it once again. One at Ivy (soph) and one at a private T20 (freshman). My youngest is still 2 years away from applying. But I'm not here for college admissions advice.

The older ones are having a hard time with career/job search and career path planning. Or at least I feel they are, when I see everyone around them getting summer IB jobs lined up for a year from now! I don't think the oldest wants to do the banking/consulting route because hasn't gone the IB interview route (though, through connections, has a summer internship in private equity, so they can decide if they do want a different but related path). That DC seems not to know exactly what they want. I think they want a "dream" job or a passion job - but haven't nailed that down (what it looks like, what field, etc.) Major is econ + environmental science.

Younger DC is driven but has no freshman internship yet. Has a research opportunity remotely for 15 hrs/week and likely will work retail/restaurant. Also doesn't want the lifestyle of banking/consulting, but not sure what other business roles make sense (perhaps a management trainee program at a company - does that still exist). Are there internal roles to interview for at banks or consulting firms? Major is similar to organizational studies + English. Very strong writer and communicator.

Is there a career counselor or coach who can help with this soul-searching? I feel like they should have done this before heading to college, and they don't see a clear career path. I also feel like I've failed them in some ways when everyone has this clear-cut path and knows where they want to be in 5, 10, 15, and 30 years. Meanwhile, I've had the same career for 25 years (and I think my kids don't want that). Sorry, just venting here.

They've both used their career services at college, but the services aren't really focused on soul-searching and career mapping. More about resume reviews and interview tips. If anyone has any advice, a website, or help with guidance, that would be great. Or if you also are in the same boat, please commiserate. Be gentle with your critiques, please.

to OP: Hopefully their schools offer a LAC-like environment where they can take a wide breath of coursework. Having had a very similar kid at an LAC, this non-direction phase was NOT easy to watch happen, but it’s entirely natural for the many kids who don’t have there One Path line up from HS on.

To my surprise as my kid is grading from their LAC, it does now appear that have maybe not that One Thing, but least a Few Things they will be pursuing in more depth. And it did feel like it took forever! And that’s OK!

Take a breath! Their job partly imo right now is to learn how to be 19, then be 20, etc. I know this runs counter to some more typical, career-focused advice, but I’ve see it play out in real time over the past 4 years.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

^ their (too late for spellcheck!)

[Anonymous]

^graduating, not grading

[Anonymous]

I am at an Investment Bank and I love it but I got there kinda of randomly and I can't imagine having gone through the normal path - grueling. It's bananas how many college kids think they want that path. Most will change their mind in a few years. I would tell your kid there are 3 groups at these ivies (I went to HYP and see a lot of the kids coming through now). 1) kids who truly know what they want to do - pre-med and or history professor or prosecutor and some others; 2) a larger group of kids who say they know what they want to do but a pretty much just making it up - I want to be an Ibanker or a consultant and I have a fancy summer internship. They aren't that likely to stick with it but they sound confident and assured now; and 3) the group of kids who really admit they don't know what they want. The trick for group #3 (which is what I was) is to NOT be intimidated by group #2. Just bc they sound like they know what they want doesn't mean they do. If I could have a dollar for everyone hour I stressed about feeling behind bc of their confidence, i could have skipped finance altogether and retired And if you had told me then that I would be the one asked to speak at all the reunion panels, well no one would have believed that. And of course others succeeded in big tech and in industries which barely existed at the time, so who knows. Private equity can be a kinder path if your kid is into finance, so sounds all going swimmingly. But they are not supposed to know now and you certainly haven't failed them.