Stop Stealing My Jobs

Before we left for Winter Break we had a final Corporate Finance meeting. And yes, I assure you it is as nerdy as you think it is. The guy who ran the meeting was a second-year MBA who volunteered his time to shepherd the MBA1s through the recruiting process. He said that when we came back to school we'd be able to feel tension in the air that wasn't there previously. This tension, he said, was caused by everyone freaking out about recruiting. His advice: Go to school, get your business done, and then get out. This isn't going to be particularly hard for me because that's how I operate anyway. You'll never find me in the lobby passed out in front of my laptop with my iPod and a half-eaten burrito. I prefer to do that in the privacy of my own apartment, thank you very much.

For the past three days I've basically been searching the Michigan job board, eating pretzels and hummus, and going to the gym. I've ventured out of my apartment exactly once each day. One day I decided to pick up my coursepacks at the library, which meant I had to walk to school. What I saw as I walked in was what I expected...a lot of foreign students sitting at tables, passed out in front of their computers. But I was surprised when I went into the library and saw a couple of my close friends studying up for their banking interviews. I wasn't so much surprised that they were actually studying, but it was kind of weird to see four friends in the library and not anyone else in there. Shouldn't they be watching youtube or crushing beer cans on their head? Anything, but being the only four people in the libes, you know? And then I got to thinking that different people are going to handle the next few weeks (recruiting) in different ways. So I decided to making sweeping generalization and lump people into groups...

1. The Oh Just Shut Ups
"Oh, woe is me, I have three interviews a week for the next three weeks. Everyone wants to interview me. Feel bad for me because I'm so damn smart that everyone is dying to talk to me and take me out to fancy dinners". Somebody get me my violin. I'm not saying they're bad people, but I am saying that they know they're smart, I know they're smart, so just be smart and shut up about it. The Oh Just Shut Ups talk about recruiting non-stop, whether they're at a bar or in the cafeteria. They get five offers and then have the chutzpah to bitch about choosing.

2. The Voodoo Doll Keepers
So quiet these ones are. They'll get all the interviews and not say a word. You know they keep voodoo dolls that bear uncanny resemblances to you, and when you cramp up in the middle of the night you wonder whether it's dehydration or a pin prick from 5 blocks away. These folks will be wearing a suit for the next three weeks and you'll debate whether they sleep in that suit, or whether they even sleep at all. You always see them in the lobby with the Wall Street Journal, watching everyone all shifty-eyed like. They'll take a crap in your backpack and then walk away, and then they'll get the job you wanted. These lads and lasses scare the shit out of me.




3. ChickenHeads
Hey Ladies...how many Chanel jackets do you have? You gotta go change before your next interview because you wore the same top back at the first meet-and-greet in September? Really? That was like four months ago. I'm pretty sure nobody will notice. These are the students who run around like chickens without their damn heads. You know EVERYTHING about what's going with their recruiting process, and you don't give a shit either. You know they have a small salad dressing stain on their shirt, but you don't want to upset them so you just keep it to yourself. ChickenHeads end up getting jobs, but they also end up crying at some point in the next three weeks. You offer them a shoulder to cry on, especially if they're cute, which for the most part eliminates a solid portion of the woman I go to school with. Zing.

4. The Hunt-and-Peckers
Similar to your mother's typing technique, the hunt-and-peckers seek out a company and peck away. You might hear them say "Oh, I'm totally feeling the Yum! Brands internship. Did you see what they did in the market yesterday? I've made some really good connections there, and I think I can really see myself there". They've gone to every one of the company's events and they know the names of the recruiters' kids. You go up to a hunt-and-pecker and say, "Bro, how come I didn't see you at the Yum! Brands dinner last night?" Then you watch them freak out, and you just laugh to yourself because the Yum! Brands didn't host a dinner last night. They end up getting the job though.

5. The Easter Eggers
These morons like to put all of their eggs in one or two or three baskets. They sit at their desks dreaming of getting a job at a company that hires 2 people worldwide per summer. And then these people escape reality by writing in their blogs instead of reading their boring-ass accounting coursepack, and they'll come home after playing basketball and melt some of that swiss cheese on the hamburger they made last night. They have Accounting at 8:00a tomorrow morning and they are really really not looking forward to it. They also have to do their laundry sometime in the next two days. Hi Mom.

6. The James Bonders
The James Bonders are smooth operators. They call them James Bonders because every time they have an interview they kill it. They're confident and look super sharp in their suits and have full windsor knots so big that it makes Michael Irvin look like Ragged Dick (pre-riches, of course). These folks get the job. They also date undergrads.

I could go on, but the moral of the story is you have to find a happy medium somewhere, and not let all these crazy people rain on your parade, or ruffle your feathers, or pee in your canteen. You feel me? If/When I get a job, believe you me, I'm going to light this whole blog on fiyah, and you will see the flames all the way from NYC. I'm gonna go find me a chickenhead now. Nighty night.