Reply to What's the appeal of working on Wall Street?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Money. Nothing else. [/quote]

no - it isn't the money to most people at target schools (except for perhaps Wharton). At non-targets or semi-targets, yes it is the money, but not to kids at targets.

I can tell by your answer you didn't go to a target school where all the firms recruit for front office jobs.

The main appeal is the exit options and career path flexibility.

What i mean is this:

Imagine that you are a young bright HYPS or Williams grad at age 21/22 who majored in a social science or some other kind of soft major and come junior or senior year you don't really know what to do. You have a few interests but don't want to really box yourself in and you dont want to go grad school yet because you don't know where you want to take your career.

"Wall Street" at target schools swoop in and present a very structured and clear recruiting path that appeals to kids who already conquered such a path by getting into target schools.

Wall Street (it is changing slightly now but in the past) also presents itself as something for UG's to do for 2 or 3 years so they can get 'work experience' on their resume from a top firm, gain analytical skills, provides opportunities for you to show others you can work in high pressure situations, but most importantly without a long term commitment.

Industry and government knows that wall street has done some of the 'screening' for them already so after your 2-3 year stint at a firm, you leave all the aforementioned experience but also with the flexibility of knowing industry firms want you to staff some of their 'high profile' teams that more closely report to the c-suite.

when you look at job descriptions for teams that do interesting firm-wide work at a top company, a lot of them ask for "2-4 years IB or top strategy consulting experience" even if its everything from cpg to auto oems to appareal to whatever sector you want to name.

Real examples:

cute princeton history grad, dreams of working in fashion -> JPM IB analyst -> after two years applies and has offers for great paying jobs doing strategy and corp development at three well known fashion and luxury brand houses. She would've had a much harder time breaking into the industry without going to JPM first or if she did go out of UG would've been stuck on a different career track in the industry and not a more 'accelerated' track without the ib experience.

Top LAC grad, wants to work in sports -> IB analyst at top firm -> after 2 years joins Nike corp strategy and development, uses that as a platform to join an elite team at Nike that does their cutting edge demand creation work.

I can go on and on but that's the appeal of wall street (and consulting) to students at targets.

Wall street is a quasi 'finishing school' where you get paid to attend.

the actual work as an IB analyst and associate is fucking boring and tedious.

Trading is a different animal - kids that go into trading, do it for the money and interest in markets. [/quote]

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