17. Recruiting

17. Recruiting

I remember back in my college days, bread only cost a nickel and the beer flowed like water. There’s nothing investment bankers like more than reminiscing about college, back when we were happy and out drinking until 3am instead of doing financial models all night. Since we work seven days a week usually it is tough to make it back to college to relive our glory days. One perk of working in a big investment bank is that the banks need to recruit the next batch of eager, bright young minds to beat down into a tired, sorry state. In order to connect with the college students, investment banks send analysts and higher ups up to the schools to recruit and to interview students for internships and full-time jobs. And in a good market we would even hire some of these people! Instead, we just interview to show them we are still around and one day will hire again.

In the fall when they needed people to go up and talk to students about life as an investment banking analyst, I was the first one to email back and volunteer my services. Fiiiine, I’ll schlep all the way to my alma mater and talk to kids for two hours about a job I’d only been doing for a month. I’m sure I could provide a lot of insight. The real perk of recruiting is getting to go back to school and see old friends and enjoy the nightlife again. Yeah, I may have worn a suit, had students kissing my ass thinking I could get them jobs, and got beers before beautiful girls, but otherwise it was just like being back there as a student….

While in college I may have been a dork who worked my ass off to land a top investment banking job, now I am a hot shot making more money than the hunks in college, and can afford a date better than the local pizza shop. Oh, life in the fast lane has its perks…. In reality, the girls now look at me like I’m some 30 year old who is way past his prime and a sleezeball for hanging out in college frats. Oh well. Even though I can drink even less than I could a year ago, at least I’m not one of the college seniors still fighting for a job and going out into a more unstable workforce. I plan to wear my investment banking analyst job as a badge of pride as I recruit and will continue to try to woo more students to work with me (and do my work). You can take the kid out of college, but you can’t take college pride out of me.