Starting late last year, the American economy started down a tortuous path which saw the closure of many large companies. Most famously, Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, and numerous other large financial institutions merged to survive. While all of this was happening on Wall Street, I was sitting in class at The Wharton School. If you thought the scenes you saw on the news were bad, trust me when I say being a senior at Wharton was among the largest amplifiers to the situation.
Around October is typically when full time OCR (on campus recruiting) occurs at Penn. Almost everyone I knew was dropping their resume for at least 100 jobs in the fear of not being offered any first round interviews. Unfortunately, they were worried with good reason. Companies were not giving out full time offers to their summer interns, when in the past this was essentially guaranteed. Other firms who had posted job listings were simply cancelling their interviews; Lehman Brothers was of course on that list. A last group of firms had shown up to give interviews, but when asked whether they intended to hire many plainly said ‘no.’ To the dismay of many, this included companies like Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and Goldman Sachs, among others. The favorites in previous years were simply not willing to hire arguably the countries best in Finance.
Simply stating these facts is not enough to explain how worried some of my peers got when they found out no one was hiring or that they did not get that one second round interview that existed. People started applying to numerous boutique banks and other financial services companies. While in the past most people would have had offers rather early in the OCR process, this year many of my friends and housemates did not have jobs late into November, when most of OCR was done. To give perspective, these include students pursuing dual degrees/majors with GPAs over 3.7, a resume to be proud of. Some of my friends started looking into applying to graduate school. During this time and energy consuming process we were still dealing with classes and the infamous Wharton curve which dictates: 30% As, 40% Bs, and 30% Cs and lower. A few of my classmates would go back straight after class to drop resumes till the midnight deadline, then study for a few hours before getting back to fixing cover letters for the next day.
With all of the ‘correction’ that was taking place in the economy many began to wonder what it is they actually wanted to do with their lives. It is difficult to claim that in high school one knew that one’s calling was the exotic derivates desk on the trading floor. Most Ivy League students come into college with idealistic goals of helping the world in one way or another. This economic turmoil made many remember their original life-long goals. Others discovered or realized what it is they really wanted to do. So in the middle of the mayhem on Wall Street, students at Penn were slowly starting to take the time to think about what they really wanted to do. Eventually, by the end of the semester most of my peers had been offered jobs that they were happy with for the moment and accepted those offers. However, thanks to the time they took to think about their goals and ambitions, many have already started preparing for the next step they want to take. Many of my friends realized they wanted to pursue graduate degrees of various sorts and are now taking the time to study for the GRE/ GMAT/ LSAT. Another friend is learning how to cook so that he can eventually open his own restaurant. The list goes on…
So while many of us who have just graduated had to deal with the stress of finding a job last year, I think it is safe to say that the time we got to think over our lives was invaluable. In a better economy it may have been too easy to give up on our dreams to take the high paying Finance jobs on Wall Street. So be optimistic that there weren’t that many buyers, for those who wanted to sell their souls!
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