<p>So you can bet they’ll see more and more letters like this one.</p>
<p>That actually struck me as more of a BS cover letter than usual… like a frat boy who wants a favor, and charmingly admits it in an attempt to wheedle his way into a job. A “you know my uncle, and I really don’t have anything else to recommend me” letter.</p>
<p>I think it simply shows how full of --it the Wall streeters are, why else would they be so shocked by his simple directness about not having much to offer. sheesh</p>
<p>my own kids sound like this kid, and I don’t think it’s unusual or even very special to have some basic humility</p>
<p>Surprised that the CC sleuths here have not yet figured out which “average” university the kid attends. Looks like four or five letters.</p>
<p>The writer shows a better than average level of empathy for the reader. I thought the uncle reference was juvenile, and I agree with others that I would want to make sure this isn’t just some clever kid but someone who is ready to work especially on boring stuff that I don’t want to do myself. Finally, the headline to this article and ultimately this thread is hyperbolic.</p>
<p>What surprises me is the fact that a cover letter gets circulated as evidenced by the chain of emails below. So both the terrific and the awful cover letters get circulated throughout various Wall Street firms? Interesting…</p>
<p>I clicked on the link expecting to be wowed. I wasn’t.</p>
<p>So many haters on this thread. Impressed or not, the kid’s letter is all over Wall St. and he’s probably going to graduate into a job paying him about $130-150k all in his first year. </p>
<p>The weakness of his cover letter is “crapp” and the last paragraph where he talks about accounting and law school. Summer internships on Wall St. are extremely competitive to even land and for most end in job offers at the big ones (not more schooling). </p>
<p>The impressive part is that he’s brutally honest. They get applications from so many cookie-cutter Harvard/Princeton/Yale/Wharton/Columbia/blah/blah schools, decent GPA, investment club participation, etc. and they all act like it’s actually relevant to Wall St. Sure, it shows interest, but does it mean you’re more prepared or have more value to add than a kid who didn’t do these things? No, not at all. And he points that out by saying he’s just another college kid, except this one’s not pretending to have something to offer like everyone else does. </p>
<p>Investment banking analysts learn everything on the job, and he understands that.</p>
<p>So he’s less boring than everyone else going into that field.</p>
<p>What else is amazing is that no one noticed the grammatical error in the first paragraph: “I just wanted thank you…”</p>
<p>Starting to think this is a fake. The fact that it even “went viral” doesn’t add up based on what I read, either in the letter itself or the reaction from the BSDs of Wall Street.</p>
<p>Not a fake. The letter went viral because one of the recipients sent it to Business Insider. It was a hit because it wasn’t the usual obnoxious bragfest. This piece identifies the writer:</p>
<p>[Brutally</a> Honest Cover Letter Lands College Student Wall Street Internship CBS Sacramento](<a href=“http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2013/01/17/brutally-honest-cover-letter-lands-auburn-man-wall-street-internship/]Brutally”>Brutally Honest Cover Letter Lands College Student Wall Street Internship - CBS Sacramento)</p>
<p>I would add that the fact that this writer noted he had met the recipient the summer before, having been introduced by so and so at Smith and Wollensky’s (or whereever it was) is not boasting or shmoozing-it was pure and simple aiding the reader’s recollection. Regardless of who had introduced them and where they had been introduced, it was logical to have made the reference. </p>
<p>As for why this letter got so much notice, I don’t think job applications or college applications are always met by audiences looking for the best hard skills. They are being read by humans, from humans. That would explain why a college applicant might get accepted to some really strong programs and turned down at expected safeties (which happens all the time). Humans on humans. Can’t ignore that fact of life.</p>
<p>I agree that this letter writer has likely written his way in to an eventual high paying career on Wall Street.</p>
<p>The letter is dated 1/14 and by 1/17 the CBS affiliate in Sacramento is reporting the SDSU kid got he internship? Just like that?</p>
<p>The SD Union Tribune reports this:
Alex Wolfe, communications head of Duff & Phelps, confirmed Thursday his firm talked to Ross this week and hopes to meet him in person next week. In light of the scrutiny the financial services industry has been under lately, “his letter really resonated,” Wolfe said. “It broke through the clutter as authentic and refreshing… nearly every comment in the email chain was effusive in its praise, and this is a tough crowd. We’re grateful and flattered he reached out to us.”</p>
<p>Does anyone think we should wait to see how this settles? Anyone smell PR?</p>
<p>I wasn’t impressed by the letter either and if it left such an impression, it left me wondering what sorts of crapp does regularly flood the offices of these Wall Streeters.</p>
<p>I am not sure this letter is about grammar. I am assuming it is something different from the regular applications at Wall street. Also, the recipient probably loves the idea that his job is so valued that the writer would even consider fetching coffee and shining shoes.</p>
<p>Wow, what a truly inspiring letter that anyone could write. Slightly very disappointed.</p>
<p>The un-blacked out letter is online. But, note this kid already had a wealth mgt internship at Merrill Lynch. And the supposed near perfect gpa.</p>
<p>I don’t get it. Is it supposed to be admirable because of the shining shoes and coffee fetching part? Assuming the guy doesn’t go to an elite school, wouldn’t that just be a natural approach to take? “Hey I don’t go to Harvard but boy howdy will I fetch you a good cup of coffee! Pleeeeease?” </p>
<p>Yeah, I really don’t get it.</p>
<p>The bar, once again, appears to be set quite low to impress on Wall Street. If it’s not a hoax, it just illustrates how entrenched they are in their own status quo than anything truly remarkable. He pledged. He cracked some jokes. The Brotherhood of mostly ex-jocks laughed and agreed he belongs in their fraternity. Some things never change.</p>
<p>It’s not a mystery why they just kept pushing and pushing the limits until they collapsed the foundations of our economy. Very straightforward, in-the-box thinking, illustrated by the response to this letter. They’re not nearly as tough a crowd to impress as they like to think they are.</p>
<p>The missed “to” would have had it in my recycling before I could even get to the good part. How is that lack of attention to detail in half a page going to play out when he misses a decimal or forgets a zero or misspells a major client’s name? Nice use of “crapp”, though, if it was to get through the filters.</p>
<p>^Yes, yes, yes. Exactly what I have been trying to communicate…but you said it far better.</p>