Morning Coffee: The two year course that can still land you a job paying $200k. Weird job interview reminiscences

Investment banks aren't supposed to be as interested in hiring MBAs now as they used to be. If the latest employment figures from Harvard Business School are anything to go by, they're not. However, other types of financial services employer have picked up the baton.

Poets and Quants reports that a mere 5% of Harvard's graduating MBAs went into investment banks this year. However, 31% went into the financial services industry in total - up from 28% last year.

If Harvard MBAs aren't going into M&A, what are they doing? Try venture capital, private equity and other buyout funds, which together accounted for 18% of the graduating glass. Hedge funds accounted for a further 6%.. And miscellaneous finance activities made up the remainder.

What makes finance so appealing at Harvard given its general uncoolness? It might just be the money. Poets and Quants points out that the MBAs who went into hedge funds and investment managers earned the highest median pay packages of nearly $200k. VC and private equity funds paid the ex-students a median of $175k.

By comparison, the tech industry paid them a median of $130k and coincidentally the percentage of Harvard MBAs going into tech firms was at its lowest level for five years. Similarly, start-ups proved less popular with Harvard MBAs this year than last. Has the tech hiring bubble burst? Or are heavily indebted Harvard students simply going for money first of all?

Separately, if you interview with Vanguard it may be weird. Financial News spoke to departing chief executive and (Wharton) MBA Bill McNabb who says it was certainly weird when he interviewed there. "In classic Vanguard style I had 20 to 25 interviews to get my first job and for the last interview I ended up in Mr Bogle’s [the founder's] office. He looked at my résumé, looked at me and said: ‘You’re a pretty ambitious young fella aren’t you, so I don’t know why you’ve come here," recalled McNabb. He then went home and told his wife he'd had the "strangest interview," but took the job anyway.

Meanwhile:

Reasons to work for a European bank on Wall Street. i) They still want to hire you. ii) They will pay you 30% more. (Bloomberg)

MiFID II hiring panic is upon us. There are four times as many MiFID II jobs at the end of October this year than last. (Financial Times) 

One London law firm is so desperate to secure space in Frankfurt that it signed an office lease five years before the office is even finished. (Bloomberg)  

Greenhill says it doesn't have a problem with retention, so how come 44% of its MDs left in the last five years? (Gadfly) 

Goldman Sachs won't be trading options on exchanges in the US any more. (Fox) 

Blockchain energy trading platform is here. (Reuters) 

Freaky Swiss intelligence consultant Jean-Charles Brisard, has seemingly been posing as a Wall Street reporter to extract money from short sellers. Could this be a job for you? (Wall Street Journal) 

The difference between narcissism and high self esteem. (Scientific American)  

If you’re not accepted at work, you’re twice as likely to die. (BBC)

If someone’s rude to you in the morning, you’ll notice people being rude to you all day long. (BPS)

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