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'It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know' As Frat Boys Dominate Wall Street
As students vie for 2014 internships, Bloomberg finds a fraternity-based network whose Wall Street alumni guide resumes to the tops of stacks, reveal interview questions with recommended answers, offer applicants secret mottoes and support chapters facing crackdowns. Despite apparent crackdowns on cronyism, nepotism, and fraternism; it seems nothing has changed as "secret handshakes" and the fraternity pipeline helps undergraduates beat odds three times steeper than Princeton University’s record-low acceptance rate... "People like people who are like themselves," notes one recruiter, seemingly proven by the fact that JPMorgan employs 140 Sigma Phi Epsilon members with BofA and Wells Fargo even more.
Conor Hails, head of the University of Pennsylvania’s Sigma Chi chapter, was in a Philadelphia hotel ballroom last month for a Barclays Plc (BARC) recruiting reception. A friend pointed out a banker from their fraternity. Hails, 20, approached with a secret handshake.
“We exchanged a grip, and he said, ‘Every Sigma Chi gets a business card,’” Hails recalled. “We’re trying to create Sigma Chi on Wall Street, a little fraternity on Wall Street.”
As students vie for 2014 internships in an industry where 22-year-olds can make more than $100,000 a year, interviews with three dozen fraternity members showed a network whose Wall Street alumni guide resumes to the tops of stacks, reveal interview questions with recommended answers, offer applicants secret mottoes and support chapters facing crackdowns.
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The fraternity pipeline helps undergraduates beat odds three times steeper than Princeton University’s record-low acceptance rate
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Fraternities retain influence in the face of scrutiny by parents, politicians and police for binge drinking, hazing and at least 60 deaths in the U.S. since 2005.
The largest U.S. banks say they are meritocracies and run diversity programs to shift an industry that once only let women onto the New York Stock Exchange floor as clerks during wartime shortages. Goldman Sachs added 10 women last year to a partnership that had one when CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein was elected to it in 1988.
“There obviously has been much progress since 20 years ago,” said Siegfried von Bonin, head of Dartmouth’s Alpha Delta chapter. “But the reality is that it’s still very much a male-dominated culture.”
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Fraternity members who went to work for Goldman Sachs, Citigroup Inc. (C) and Bank of America Corp. said they were sent back to campus on recruiting trips, where they could tap people from their houses for interviews ahead of other candidates, some more qualified. One said he would sometimes invent endorsements to send to bosses that didn’t mention fraternity connections.
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When alumni don’t reach out, fraternity members know how to find them. Von Bonin, 21, asked two at one of the world’s largest banks for interview advice, he said. They taught him to describe the benefits of the firm’s U.S. growth, fast-paced environment and training program.
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That national fraternity has sent almost 3,000 men into finance, according to resumes on LinkedIn, which shows no other industry employing more than 1,800.
...“People like people who are like themselves,”
...“I wish I did have more networks,” said Emily Hendrix, who plans to graduate in May after three years at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. “It would maybe make finding a job a little easier, a little less stressful.”
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“You tend to think of an institution in a structured way, but it’s actually a big organic entity,” Urwin said. “Driving any kind of change that gets at the culture in an organism is hard because it tends to return to the original form, if you don’t maintain that consistent pressure to drive that change.”
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JPMorgan employs 140 Sigma Phi Epsilon members, according to an article on job preparation in the fraternity’s magazine this year. It shows only Bank of America and Wells Fargo employing more.
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Yes it's true. Amurika is being run from the Animal House.
The Omegas always were a bunch of fags.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFLPn30dvQ
It is not 'who you know'. It is 'who are you willing to blow'.
It's your week in the barrel!
Frat guys hire other frat guys? Thanks Cpt Obvious.
Nah, sociopaths hiring other sociopaths.
"Hey, you're like me!"
Remember that 4%-6% of the population is sociopathic, people who crave power over others above all else, and who cannot relate or empathize with any other humans (other than those also like themselves). These people naturally gravitate to positions of power, seeking them out, with asymetric stakes in the game. Driving non-sociopaths out (Gresham's Law), changing the system to one that encourages and rewards sociopathic behavior, encouraging other sociopaths. Soon, they are the majority at the top of any hierarchal system. Plato observed and wrote about this tendency 2500 years ago ('The Republic').
That is a great joke.
I scored the winning goal against SigEp in my Division I ALL campus Soccer championship.
I put together a team of ringers, we are not frat boys but just hardcore futballers. I had the Lou Groza award winner, Graham Gano on my team as a keeper. I played soccer since I was 3 and I am 26 now.... and he played on my youth squad. He was simply the best keeper I have ever seen play soccer. Better than many pros.... he is now a pro kicker in the NFL.
I also had a couple guys from Norway that I knew from pickup games and then I recruited some guys from my High School team which was ranked 2nd in Florida for its class size.
Now for the goal. SigEp had more than 300 fans on the sidelines all cheering for them, we had just ourselves. I was playing left wing at the time and all the fans were on my side, taunting me with every pass I received and everytime I dribbled since I was so close, I could hear them verbally curse at me. I ignored it and used it as ammunition.
I received the ball in a lovely 1-2 pass and then sent it back to our central midfielder who made a nice through-pass to me just on the outside of the 18 yard box and I smashed a rocket kick into the top right 90, bouncing off the bottom of the crossbar with such a loud PING, that SigEp from New York could hear it 2300 miles away.
I couldn't even hear my teammates as the crowd was so loud and obnoxious but as soon as the ball made the graceful sound it makes when it spins against the net, they became completely silence. We won that game 2-1.
Remember, they had the refs in their pocket.... fraternities always game every situation to their favor, so the score could have been more, but it was too hard to play against the refs and SigEp, yet we still ended up victorious.
Just thought some of you non-fratties would like to hear this story.
Peace.
What do you call a thousand frat boys at the bottom of the river?
A start.
Mohammed, Jugdish, Sidney, and Clayton agree !
It's run more from here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beit_Aghion
I'm surprised it's not on Rothchild Avenue.
Hate to burst anyone's bubble but Who you know is not exactly just a problem on Wall St.
Does it suck ? Yes.
Is it going to change ? Why don't you ask your congressman how many of his staff were hired from Kennedy School or Stanford. Now suggest to him that you want your staff filled with Utah State part-time duffers. Think he will go for it ? Would you as a executive ? Do you want your butcher to be hiring the guy who qualified him ? Or the meatboy from Costco ?
That's what I thought.
Often, you hire those you know because the program is something you are aware of, for better & worse. Every person you bring into your company is your personal duty and reputation on the line. Moreso in this economy where every. Single. Job is scrutinized for "value add" margin growth. If you bring in a washout, guess who is the next Partner to "retire".
It will get worse as marginal market players are run out of their sectors, not just in finance.
As those companies & corporate branches close out, the feeder universities will be hit hard as lucrative donations/alumni networks become unemployed. Go ask Waterloo or CalTek how the tech frats are doing this year.
As the alum networks close down, the frats will follow. As the United States education bubble to deflates the United States will return to a more normalized 30% blue collar, 14% white collar, rest = other. employment breakdown. As this happens, the frat culture will begin to break down as Frats begin to feed on each other for dollars & pledges. We are already seeing it at the margins in this year's "super Sunday" hiring rounds.
superb post, spot on
Right on amigo - the crony crap is everywhere. It is an infection. Normal business functions are corrupted. I have friends who think they are performing positive functions and none of them want to hear me when I tell them they are in service of a fraud.
you think govt and the media are any different?!
Hard to believe that I joined one back in the early eighties after telling my high school buddies who were going with me to the same college that we would be "goddam independents" !!
What's funny is that for mine.....and I'm sure this is true for most of the old fraternities....it turned out to be a sort of junior league Masonic Lodge. Even our ceremonies were nearly taken verbatim from the Masonic ceremony. The leadership structure, the rites, even the names of the inner positions......all more or less Masonic.
Left it when I graduated......and never looked back. Don't keep up with any of my "brothers" anymore.
"It's a BIG CLUB......and I ain't in it."
Similar to Yale and Skull and Bones ?
Perhaps.
Kappa Sigma was mine. AEKDB.....bitchez !
Sigma Chi and Sigma Phi get memberships in major banking houses and on Wall Street.
For my part, as a former Teke, I am but one secret handshake away from 25% off bongs and two for one on tie-dyed Grateful Dead t-shirts.
Eat your heart out, losers!
Oh, my nuts are shriveling, now!
fratboydorks
Rice University did not have (nor does it currently I believe) fraternities.
Oh, but I am not in the 1% nor on Wall St.
Not like Hard work or being smart ever paid off...
Apparently Carlin was right. It's one big club, or tribe. Who knew!
I have an ouiji board, and the ghost of Frances_sawyer upvoted you....
Hahaha, good one! Please send him my regards.
Free Francis_Sawyer!
EDIT: Hahaha looks like the club is out in full force.
I know nothing, nothing!
I'm not buying it. Tijuana donkies know WAAAAY more than you're admitting!!!
LOL I am on the floor rolling with laughter, you guys are great
Only when you've been to a Donkey show, have you seen the meaning of life. That, and a donkey's dick....
It's a big club, and you're not in it.
Woe unto thee, Wall Street! And woe unto thee, Hamptons!
For if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.
And thou, New York, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.
Two problems with your interpretation, although I agree with your general idea of judgement day,
the mighty works of the Messiah have not been seen lately, although he chased the money-changers out of the Jerusalem Temple courtyard,
and NYC is the New Jerusalem.
As a current resident of NY, I would not call it the "New Jerusalem" by a long shot. It is no holy land.
The Old Jerusalem in reality was not so holy either, but in name only.
This.Explains.Everything.
This explains a lot since the frat boys are nothing but a bunch of d-bags who have to cheat to get thru skool.
I saw a study years ago that said the desire to succeed was so strong that MBA candidates were more likely to cheat than any other level of education. And yet we're amazed that this type of psychopathic scum keeps floating to the top of the cesspool.
Higher education certainly doesn't mean a higher level of human. Actually quite the opposite.
I would submit that pre-med students are more likely to "push the margins" on their ethics than MBA candidates... my anecdotal experience, anyway
You'd be mind warped at how much cheating goes on at the University level.
Everything from recycled tests to grade inflation to plagerism to chicks getting geeks to do their homework to screwing the professor to pass the class to calling in bomb scares to escape taking finals.
If you thought the FED was inflating the USD wait until you see the inflated test scores at any university or college.
Even the stupidest can graduate from a university or college with a 2.0.
Went to a top tier engineering school. The frat boys had their test files, work studies working for profs and all kinds of other games going on. The rest of us actually had to study and learn somethign. Kind of frightening to think that the guy who designed the bridge you're driving over may not have actually known what they were doing (Thank God for PE exams).
The frats then (and still) had a horrid rep for date rapes and worse. One of my kids friends who went to the same school refused to let a female friend visit him ther for that reason. Most of the frats were alcoholics or stoners - with only a very few exceptions (the equivilant of tri-Lambda in Revenge of the Nerds). Seems like the same frats have the same reps no matter where they are. Sig Eps were real asses. And you really do have to wonder about all the homoerotic stuff in their hazing and initiations.......
We have some pretty brilliant kids - who avoided the traditional 'prestige' schools where the only real work is in getting in. For many places THAT is what requires the effort. Once you're in it's guaranteed 'A's' Oldest went to a midwest school where they wear t-shirts that say 'If I wanted an A I'd go to Harvard' The MIT types seem to feel the same about the school down the street too. Funny but the top kids in our local suburban HS are NOT the ones going to the Ivies - thsoe further down the rankings with'connections' seem to be the ones getting in - not the National Merit/top of the class types. Thert esre a HUGE number of kids going to the second tier 'NOT needs blind' schools where it DOES matter if you're willing to pay full freight.....Williams, Skidmore and others DO take finances into account.
The vast majority of the Ivy Leaguers I have worked with are preening dumb asses. Only two (out of a sample of ~250) were what I would consider educated. The rest were experts at pretending.
The recent example for me was when a new hire (Harvard MBA) was assigned to my team as a QA manager. At the first project meeting he explained to us he was going to "make our project a winner". The guy talked for five minutes and didn't say anything of substance. The lead developer asked him what was the last project he worked on. After another impressive amount of bullshitting, he finally had to admit this was his first project.
I spent a month working with him to get him up to a productive level. Once he kind of got up to speed and could get work done, he confided to me I hurt his feelings because I didn't trust him to make independent decisions (on big, project level things - not day to day stuff). I told him to listen and learn, mouth shut/ears open, listen to the experienced team members and follow their lead. Apparently I also mentioned he should stop acting like a pussy because later the little fucker turned me in to HR.
Sadly, the grads from non-Ivy schools are not much better. Their one saving grace is they don't think they know everything and will actually work to learn new skills.
From the mouth of babes: Bloomturd!
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aw7s9m0BmcBo
It is true that frat boys are a bunch of fags. I only joined to make connections. I swear, no man touched my ass.
I guess that's theoretically true if they wore a condom.
How is this news? Nepotism is nothing new. You think it's bad on "Wall Street" then you should see the construction industry.
Or Hollyweird.
The Construction industry being trade unions (Carpenters, Electric, etc.) I would guess. It is not still unheard of for someone to make it into those unions. I know someone who was a total fuck up who would have made it in to one of those unions had he not fucked it up.
Good, when the ship sinks all the "Frat Rats" can go down together. It also makes them easier to round up for the upcoming hangings.
great bedtime story... it happened in 2008-09 but the coup led by Hank prevailed... they won
So if it didn't 'go down' then, how does it go down later? And if it does, who really goes down? The sheep will be the bagholders.
I hope you're wrong for our sake. This circus is starting to feel more and more like 1987 every day.
"The largest U.S. banks say they are meritocracies and run diversity programs." Or, the best and brightest are passed over for the connected and the affirmatively chosen by gender and race. They all think alike, so that none thinks at all. They just take.
Fuck all the frat boys. I hated them in college in the late 60s. Mostly drunk morons.
that's alright, that's ok, you're gonna work for us someday...
First time ZH post here. The egos on this block are out of control.
Welcome, this is fight club! Since it's your first time you have to fight.
I'm assuming the block you're referring to is Wall Street? I couldn't agree with you more, the egos are out of control.
was my comment that bad that it needed to be deleted?
Fight on Fonzannoon! That's what reposting is for.
Oh yeah. Sorry, context was needed. ZH crew is awesome. Wall Street egos...
yuppies, uneducated free loaders sucking on the teet of the corrupt,
Problem: Frat Boys Dominate Wall Street
Solution: Kill them ALL.
Kill them all is not always the solution.
How bout we hang them by the scrotum from their ivory towers.
Too drawn out. Kill them all. Quick and easy. If killing them all is not a solution, let's make sure. How do we make sure? Kill them all.
It's worth a try and it's better than any other "solution" I'm seeing proposed. So once again, let me repeat. Kill them all. On sight. Without mercy. Kill them ALL. Brutally. Publicly. Mercilessly. ALL OF THEM.
super-glue some new retro jordans on their feet and drop 'em in da hood .....
+1 for originality :)
By the way, do not wait for them to get to Wall Street to kill them. Kill them in the fucking cradle. Let's face it...we can see them coming. Be efficient.
Everyone knows that Fraternities are all about maintaining a pipeline straight to particular businesses and organizations. It has always been that way, and always will be. Why else do you think people will endure horrific hazings to become a member of the select elite frats? Because they want to get the big bucks later in life, that's why.
All the more reason to KILL THEM ALL.
Secret handshakes won't help them much when they're being dragged through the streets Mussolini style.
Wall Street is already dead, they just don't know it yet. We'll have to carry them a few more rounds before they finally drop.
TARP 2 within five years, IMHO.
...and these organizations dare to claim that they engage in "merit-based" hiring.
Let me see. Life is unfair? This upsetting situation began in 2008? I’m guessing it started far earlier.
The actual “unfair advantage” begins at birth. With parents. What’s their IQ? What’s their physical appearance? In what nation and at what time in history do they do the nasty?
There aren’t too many students at Harvard whose parents had 75 IQs. There aren’t too many short, fat and slow point guards in the NBA. There aren’t too many butt ugly $10 million/year fashion models. In fact, for all of the above, replace “not many” with “none”.
On the other hand, I know of at least one non-legacy, non "tribe", public high school nobody, who went to “those schools” (undergrad, grad school), never joined a frat, and ended up grossly overpaid (for the value added society, albeit not his employers, who got a heck of a return on their “investment”) on Wall Street. The only explanation is “accident of birth”. Oh, and his highest paid colleagues came from similar non-legacy, non-frat stock.
While Wall Street---or any business or social endeavor, ALL of which rely to some extent on nepotism/favoritism--doesn’t have an exemplary record in terms of creating equal opportunity, what they do absolutely dwarfs what gods or nature itself offer in terms of equal opportunity. In an odd sort of way, many believe we should hold individual members of society to a higher standard than god. Maybe we should hold to this higher standard, but let’s not forget that a great deal of what is possible and what will be is determined at the zygote stage of existence. Whose fault is that?
Aren't we glad that the Obama Administration always selects people on merit, rather than on cronyism or "jobs for bundlers". How else do you think they amassed such talent.
BTW: GW was a frat boy.
Did anyone happen to see who DeBlasio selected for his Deputy Mayor of Housing? She is a Goldman alum. NYers can now be as happy with him as they are with Obama..lol.
You wouldn't call your Country a Cunt, so please don't call a Fraternity a Frat.
"But the reality is that it’s still very much a Jewish-dominated culture.”
Wait...You're telling me that all those New Yorkers who believe their primary occupation is explaining how busy they are, how long they've worked today, how important what they're doing is to the bottom line, all the while putting in about 1 hour of actual work while leeching off of those less accustomed to marketing the real work they do are taking over managerial positions at companies built on an almost pure confidence game, that sell entirely fictitious commodities and whose real cash cow is connections to a bloated confiscatory government would hire those like them rather than actual proven talent? Get the fuck out of here.
It's no different anywhere else. I work in CPG, an office of 90 people. A full 30% (me included) come from one University and all from the same program. We've all had the same profs (he taught for 35 years) and the same courses.
The reason is simple; Our VP's are close with the profs and funnel openings to the University career office, because it's cheaper and faster than open recruitment on a board
I worked at one of these banks mentioned in the article.
The Managing Director was very clear that all inbound resumes in the applicant pool were first to be divided into two piles:
The first for Ivy League (from which I came), and the second for all other schools.
The second pile was to be summarily scrapped, but only after everyone mocked the pool.
Then within the former would the resumes be ranked (by prep school, fraternity, etc.). Actual qualifications had little to nothing to do with hiring.
I quit for better non-finance fields shortly after (to mockery by the group).
Six months later every single one of them were unemployed.
And when you are part of the skull and bones you get to bomb countries to pieces!
Get a grip ZHers. You're missing the biggest benefit of being in a frat - quality sorority poontang whose daddy has a 5,000 acre plantation outside of Indianola Mississippi. Or Des Moines for that matter. A KD or Kappa in Tuscaloosa is going to be attracted to a SAE or Deke, and not a GDI 99% of the time.
I always think of a friend who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks who got a football scholarship to Wofford, joined a frat and became a phenominally successful industrial property RE investor. He now splits his time between homes in Charleston (SOB, of course), Palm Beach & Linville NC. His rationale? "I figured you had to be around money to get to the other side of the tracks." He also has a pretty attractive daughter on ESPN who will marry someone just like her father.