Defending the Indefensible career

Think about the typical post-Princeton job, and what comes to mind? A lack of postgraduate options. The need to make money. The financial rewards of investment banking and consulting. Images of Gordon Gekko. Wasting one's talent. Selling out.

"Beware the trap set forth by recruiters from the financial world." So goes the plea to Princeton seniors on these pages and in other campus publications.

The argument is disappointing on two counts. First, it's generally set forth as coherently as the first paragraph of this piece — fragmented, emotional, and full of ill-conceived analogies. Which is to say, there is a great deal of truth hinted at — but rarely developed — in a typical anti-finance tirade.

The Princeton Spectator exemplified this unfortunate tendency in a recent editorial regarding postgraduate financial work. After intelligently arguing that Princeton seniors should avoid brashly jumping into investment banking and management consulting, the author(s) slipped in a twisted analogy between investment bankers and multimillionaire Wall Street tycoons. Well, one tycoon in particular, from the one Wall Street we all remember: the infamous Michael Douglas character, Gordon Gekko, amassing riches through disregard for basic insider trading laws. The Spectator then built on this caricature to cast aspersions on Princeton graduates pursuing positions in the financial sector.

The comparison is quite revealing, not of the nature of financial analyst positions, but of the presuppositions of critics — even those as informed as the Spectator. To wit:

Gekko was a criminal; Princeton graduates aren't.

Gekko made millions for lunch; analysts, if they eat lunch, will make $12 to $15 per hour given their workweeks.

Gekko personally bought and sold commanding shares in companies; if fortunate, Princeton graduates working at investment banks will input figures into an Excel spreadsheet, which will then be reviewed by associates, under the supervision of vice-presidents, for final approval by managing directors, who will then discuss them with clients whose personal worth is one-tenth of the fictional assets Gekko had.

Those who do pursue financial positions, in my experience, recognize these sacrifices and risks. They press on for two or three years because they are intent on putting in the necessary hours and doing the work — some of it grunt work, to be sure — that will help them to sharpen dramatically their understanding of financial markets.

That isn't the whole story, of course. The lure of money is the 800-pound gorilla in the living room — we all see it, and we know its role in the process is nontrivial. Hence the permanence of the phrase "selling out" in Princeton vocabulary.

Herein lies the second problem with the general argument advanced against taking jobs in finance: Even in its most thoughtful forms, it is generally dismissive of the serious post-Princeton economic realities confronting many seniors. "Sellout" is very much an Ivy League term: Very rarely will students at other colleges ridicule graduates who have found well-paying, demanding financial positions.

And that's exactly what the phrase "selling out" misses. It is at once too specific and too broad. It exonerates swarms of other seniors who seek professional degrees and non-financial careers in the private sector, influenced in no small measure by the almighty dollar.

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I won't bother skirting the issue: Time and again, the difference between those who scoff at banking-consulting sellouts is that only one of these groups has internalized the significance of money in society. Paying back college loans, taking care of family, paying rent, taxes, savings for the mediumand longterm — is striving for this sort of financial self-reliance really that awful? Critics might do well to draw a distinction between those who consider money a good in itself and those who recognize the fundamental importance of financial security in America.

Seniors concerned with this security are rightly skeptical of claims that bountiful opportunities lie outside the corporate world. What exactly are all those "options" out there that Morgan Stanley and Bain are hiding from Princetonians? Sure, seniors can do public service or work at nonprofits — that is, if they want to live at the poverty line, i.e. mooch off parents, for a few years. (Teach for America seems to be an exception to this general rule, along with a few others. Even with those, don't plan on paying off college loans or building up savings.) I don't for a second want to diminish the value of these projects — those who can do it, by all means do — but honest career counselors will tell you that the typical Princeton student doing Project 55 is pretty darn wealthy. Somehow, the moral high ground is lacking.

For fear of underselling the foes of finance, it's worth emphasizing that there are excellent reasons not to consider it — lack of interest, bad hours, better longterm opportunities elsewhere, a desire to work with and for the underprivileged, and so on. Fair enough. But why make such a big deal out of people who find these points unpersuasive? So they have a different path in mind. Settle down, killer.

Backing up a few steps, I should mention that, three years ago, I didn't know a thing about investment banking or management consulting, nor did I have the slightest desire to enter either field. These two facts were related.

Ignorance fueled greater ignorance. Seniors who regularly passed on the conventional wisdom about greed and intellectual bankruptcy infusing Wall Street also declined to go into greater detail on these claims. Current seniors who have internalized this rhetoric pass these claims on to their protégés, and so on, ad nauseam. (A hint to freshmen: before believing the hype, ask these people to define "investment banking.")

Only after working at a bank for a summer do I have a fair understanding of what goes on in that arena. It's not all that bad. And if it were the path to becoming the next Gordon Gekko, trust me, many more seniors would be doing it.

Brad Simmons is a politics major from San Jose, Calif. He can be reached as bmsimmon@princeton.edu.