Non-Ivy MBAs in I-Banking

monydad
Mon, 07 Aug 2006 08:25:24 +0000

If they interview there, you have a shot. And if you are “good enough”, in their opinion, you can get in.

The people who are assigned to cover recruiting at particular schools have a vested interest in getting somebody in from them. Or else it looks like they were wasting the firm’s time. So if the firm goes there, that person(s) will probably be lobbying hard for them to take somebody. Or at least some group of these people will make the initial cuts.

It’s just that percentage-wise they find fewer candidates that meet the cut as they go down the B-school pecking order. Some of this is the employers’ own snooty pre-conceived prejudices about that pecking order, but some of it is that the same factors that led to these candidates to get rejected at Wharton et al in the first place makes them look relatively less good compared to some of the people that got in.

Also, as you go down the pecking order, relatively more of the people that do get in are slotted for support areas, or generally less snooty areas. Research, Sales, regional office, back-office, computer support. Increasingly few, percentagewise, make it into the traditional corporate finance generalist positions.

But still, if they interview there, then you have an opportunity to present your case. And then it’s up to you.

I remember discussing one school( rank 10-20 generally, higher in finance) where our recruiting guy was bemoaning the fact that they kept going there for relationship reasons, but weren’t seeing the caliber of people they wanted. He said everyone had limitations of one sort or another. I think he resolved it, at that time, by establishing a minimum 3.7 gpa for people they would even interview. Which was pretty darned high for that school, and far above the thresholds that others had to achieve simply to get interviewed by that firm, at that time. A few people from that school did get hired, for various of these other areas I mentioned, but in over ten years I never saw one hired for the most prestigious line jobs. Likewise very few or none, from the other rank 10-20 B-schools.

People who got in from bschools ranked 10-20 sometimes felt like they had to justify why they “only” went to these schools. I remember a group leader with such background telling me he felt that way.