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Jennifer Dziura writes Bullish, a career column, for The Grindstone on Fridays and Bullish Life, a life coaching column, for our sister site TheGloss on Tuesdays.
This recruiting season, an NYU student wrote a “laughable” cover letter for J.P. Morgan. According to Yahoo! Finance:
Since Thursday, February 2, when a Bank of America Merrill Lynch director forwarded the cover letter out to his entire team, offering drinks “to the first analyst to concisely summarize everything that is wrong with” the note, it has passed through more than a dozen firms.
Here it is:
I think I can guess what is wrong with this note:
- The writer brags about his bench press.
- He left a job because “the work was too easy.”
- He can “perform basic office functions with terrifying efficiency.” (Terrifying!)
- It contains the sentence, “Please realize that I am not a braggart or conceited,” which much like a t-shirt that says “Sexy” in rhinestones, usually indicates a lack of self-awareness on the part of the speaker or wearer.
This is not an appropriate letter for an investment banking job.
I, however, rather like the letter. I want to know this guy. I would strongly consider hiring him. (I’m pretty sure it’s a dude, since few women can bench double their bodyweight.)
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I don’t know. Sure, the guy seems ballsy, but also so out of touch with what other people are like that he would probably be a nightmare to work with. Also, do we really want more sociopaths in finance?
72 days ago
[...] I loved this article on how a resume will only get you so far (and the guy who gave it his all and pissed Wall Street off) – enlightening must read. [...]
He also forgot to ‘find and replace’ Morgan Stanley (where I assume he also applied) with J.P. Morgan (where this letter was intended to be read)…
If I was a hiring manager, I would have brought this person in out of curiosity alone! At least for a cocktail. Hey, maybe Manhattan Storage will hire him!
“I hope to augment my CHARACTER by diligently working for the professionals at Morgan Stanley . . .”
This is why the banking industry found the letter so amusing. They didn’t know what the word character meant.
95 days ago
[...] More » [...]