savageinfidel

Lately I've been talking to a lot of students who have concerns about how the current job market will affect their careers. So, I decided to revisit a forthcoming article in the Journal of Finance article by Paul Oyer of Standford titled: The Making Of A Banker: Macroeconomic Shocks, Career Choice, and Lifetime Income. He studies a group of Stanford MBA graduates from the 60s. Here's the abstract: I show that stock market shocks have important and lasting effects on the careers of MBAs. Stock market conditions while MBA students are in school have a large effect on whether they go directly to Wall Street upon graduation. Further, starting on Wall Street immediately upon graduation causes a person to be more likely to work there later and to earn, on average, substantially more money. The empirical results suggest that investment bankers are largely "made" by circumstance rather than "born" to work on Wall Street. In the introduction he says: I estimat...

I was recently reading Mergers & Inquisitions (one of my regular reads), and saw this a mention of the blog titled Investment Banking Resumes . It's written by Anna Maria D'Souza. Here's her profile: I am a headhunter and have nine years of experience in recruiting senior investment bankers. I have a mission to help young people to start and build an investment banking career. If you're considering a career in investment banking, the site looks like it'll be well worth your time. A lot of the site is very "inside baseball", with information on compensation packages of star performers. But there are also a lot of useful tips on resume writing, cover letters, etc... It'll be added to my blogroll the next time I Update

I've been a long-time reader of Mergers and Inquisitions (at least, I've read it since its start). The guy who writes it ("The Inquisitor") has a couple of years experience in investment banking, but left the industry a while ago to pursue other interests. He writes most often on the process of getting a job in investment banking, what the life of a low-level investment banking scut-puppy is like, and so on. He's funny, seems to know his stuff, writes well, and links to this blog, so I couldn't ask for more. A student of mine is going today to visit an alumni at a major investment bank. The alum is an Managing Director at the firm and has taken the student under his wing. He invited the student to spend the day at the bank, and is having him squired around by a couple of mid-level folks to help the student learn more about the firm and hone his pitch for when he gets his internship interview. As part of his preparation, I had the student read al...