Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Gifted Students and the Elite Job Market

Hi everyone!

I'm a current Yale student who went to a pretty normal public high school in the Midwest. Something I've been thinking a lot about recently is the fact that I and a huge proportion of my peers are going into jobs in software engineering, consulting, and quantitative finance, which are sectors I had basically no exposure to in high school.

I have a Substack where I write a lot about social mobility and education, and I wrote a much longer post on this idea there: https://neuralnetworking.substack.com/p/ambition-the-elite-job-market-and

I think it would be great if we had more gifted and ambitious high school students from lower and middle-class backgrounds going into these fields. I'm not sure exactly what the best way to promote this is, but I thought I might reach some of those people here. I'm happy to answer questions about my experience in the software or consulting recruiting process. I also encourage you to read my longer post, which has some explicit suggestions for bright high school students.

Welcome to the forum!

I came from a small industrial city in Canada, across from Port Huron, MI. I had no idea about careers in finance. I was never exposed. But after getting an engineering degree, I found myself as a junior equity analyst at Merrill Lynch, in Toronto for 2 years and then in NYC. It is hard to get exposed to finance, consulting types of careers in the midwest, unless you are in Chicago. But I think with social media, there is so much information. Why don't you make a documentary (Netflix is buying everything these days) about kids that started out in Decora, IA, end up at Yale and then went into ETF structuring?

I don't know that we do want to promote more and more smart kids into consulting or quantitative finance, given all of the areas where their talents could be applied (although not as well compensated).

But probably the first step towards that goal would be to introduce finance into high school curriculums. Real finance, net present value, how to evaluate 2 different spending choices, understanding compound interest, how to read a basic balance sheet, etc.

The ones who feel an affinity for it will, hopefully, intentionally pursue it in college.

As a former strategy consultant and corporate strategist, I'm going to bite and ask why? I'm a firm believer in applying sound business principles to important causes to maximize value for those most in need. Many of my former colleagues agree, and are now leading or in CXO roles in what would traditionally be considered siloed research or R&D-heavy firms.

As a social entrepreneur now, it's *exactly* my consulting background that is allowing me to fill a niche that is not covered by either private or public sectors, or inadequately so, where the least well off have urgent unmet needs. And my quant finance training ensures I have access to capital to maximize my impact, and not get fleeced on term sheets in the process.

I think there is:

a) Considerable room for lots of different professions to be fostered, to the detriment of none

b) Opportunity for high ability students to develop interdisciplinary skills to tackle some of the world's toughest problems

c) A need for the private sector to step up and carry water on the humanitarian issues of the day

A great example of where consultants add value is in the (IMO, impressive) roll-out of vaccines in the US. I think we'd both agree that that is a great use of consulting talent. Making bobbleheads of Pokemon characters and optimizing the sales strategy? Not so much.

there are more engineers that leave the profession for finance since engineering tends not to be highly compensated in the manufacturing and petro chemical sectors. They just didn't know they could, until they were bored and looking around.

And finance is introduced to schools. DECA. This is the most popular business competition and it introduces kids to all aspects of business and finance. It has steamrolled into the most popular EC. So there is not need to introduce finance. They are so equipped now. And probably where they find out about those types of careers. The only problem is that Wall Street really doesn't want business degrees, they want Physics and math PhDs. Speed and algothrims.

Sure, and I want to preface my response by saying that it's not a slight towards finance or consulting industries or an implication that smart people shouldn't pursue those industries.

But there's no shortage of smart people already pursuing those industries. The enrollment rates of top end MBA programs tells us that. Lower end MBA programs were seeing an enrollment decline pre-pandemic. As referenced in this thread, the finance and consulting fields already reach into other industries to recruit smart, talented individuals for their ranks. Interdisciplinary skills are already recruited.

The consulting and finance fields are accomplishing this without the need for additional promotion. The potential compensation has proven to be compelling enough promotion for smart talented individuals in all disciplines.

To speak anecdotally, I know a guy in high finance who majored in English and did his Master's thesis on Shakespeare. His path to the world of finance or consulting wasn't derailed by initially pursuing the literary arts. And I'm sure we all know plenty of stories of people who found their way into finance from other disciplines. I would wager that we know far fewer people who go in the other direction.

So, I don't think we need to promote more and more smart kids into consulting or finance because the consulting and finance industries seem to have developed a strong and nuanced recruiting strategy that already reaches into other disciplines to find talent.

The view from the inside is different, but maybe we're touching different parts of the proverbial elephant. (I will caveat this statement with a disclaimer that I don't practice a finance profession, but have graduate degrees in economics and business.)

The fields are generally moving more quant-heavy, yes, but that doesn't imply that all non-traditional backgrounds are of equal value in a professional context. (Not PC, I know, but true.) Wren makes a good point about finance now recruiting heavily from math disciplines. Economics PhDs are also now prioritizing math majors. The interdisciplinary applicability of the quant skills allows for easier transitions between professions.

However, transferable skills do not equal domain-specific knowledge, and the candidates I see without graduate training in more than one field don't cut it when they try to straddle disciplines. The people who really carve out new domains and make a name for themselves are "generally specialists", to put it goofily - multi-domain specialists. So quant becomes a necessary, but not sufficient, qualifier. In other domains I'm not close to, I'm sure there's a new hybrid ideal.


To a very limited degree.

In Canada, which is my experience, strategy consulting and investment banking only recruit for analyst roles from a handful of schools, all with heavy quant and applied learning components embedded within the programming. Outside those programs, pathways into the professions are extremely limited, short of an impressive publishing record, military service, or entrepreneurship. Ditto MBAs to associate roles. Strategy consultancies recruit very few experienced professionals outside the field, save for senior leaders moving firm-side from industry. Operational consultancies do tend to have a more open arms approach where they cover technical implementation.

The US is a little different at the undergrad level, since it doesn't have commerce programs, so it draws from a broader spectrum of fields, increasingly concentrated in quant domains (eng, CS, economics, math, etc.) At the MBA level, the recruitment is pretty uniform across countries, with some joint Phd/MBA, MD/MBA, JD/MBA programs. The firm that I worked at had a similar philosophy of recruiting only from select Ivies in the US.

So even if there is a large pool of candidates seeking access, it translates well below 1-1 into jobs in the field. Make sense?


The reality is that these professions are incubators for talent that then migrates into the general market in 2-5 years, with far more exposure than conventional candidates have to a variety of cultures and problem solving approaches. The lifestyle is punishing and can't be sustained long-term for most who enter. So I would say there is a societal interest in graduates cutting their teeth in challenging environments and applying that rigor and discipline to future work. I'd say the same about military service. A high tide raises all boats.


Bar none, the people working at MBB, PE funds, and ibanks are all whip smart. However, I would argue there is a shortage of exceptionally original candidates in those fields, as evidenced by the proliferation of wickedly hard problems in the world that go unsolved, and cookie cutter decks I saw flying around. It's high-skilled grinding, much like a thoracic surgeon who can perform the same 3 procedures flawlessly day in and day out, but who doesn't pioneer new methods.

I'd love to see business training extended to more joint degree program candidates, as described above, so their discovery/research is carried out with commercialization in mind from the get-go. And if there were an appetite for it, I'd be thrilled to see social work programs combined with commerce undergrads in an expedited format, because the intersection between people and resources is key to so many of our biggest humanitarian challenges.

Either way, really interesting to share perspectives! Thanks so much for pushing back and sharing your thinking. Now your turn - I've talked too much! - which roles do you think we need to expand, Philly?

It's really a question of backward induction and inferring which skills/opportunities are missing at transition points into these fields.

Sadly, my sense is that that happens well within the K-12 span. What we need is outstanding math and language programming, with a lot of wrap-around services in the K-6 age range to ensure low SES students have the opportunity to be exposed to secondary level training that will:

a) Allow them entry to university
b) Allow them entry to elite universities
c) Allow them entry to elite universities in elite fields

well, aquinas, I disagree that US doesn't have commerce programs. There is a s--t load of universities and colleges in the US. And I think it is interesting that the hardest undergrad program to enter is the business program at MIT.

And MBA progams were getting specialized more than 20 years ago. Stern had the best financial structuring. Interesting that they have the PG math program also. That kid, I had written about him, he finished Columbia undergrad physics and math degree before he technically graduated from Hunter high school. He then went on to the math center at NYU. And U of Chicago is known for finance.

Since I spent 7 years as an equity analyst, it is a very fun job. I got to travel around the world in my 20s first class, in private jets sometimes, always a limo waiting. It is a very fun job. I looked at dozens of automobile plants and auto parts and compared automation at Toyota and Audi. But it is a fun job. And that is why people do it. Consulting is arduous for anyone entering right out of school. It is like being an entry level lawyer and you work for 80 hours a week until you burn out. But now everything is changing. So much is automated. And at the end of day, consulting, investment banking, law, you need to get the business. And the more you can network, build relationships, helps. And general knowledge helps. People from the midwest generally have broader understanding of what the country is like, moreso that east coast preppy types.