It’s no secret how demanding top-tier internships and full-time positions are in finance. Doesn’t matter if its investment banking, consulting, or asset management, colleges are pumping out record numbers of highly qualified (on paper at least) candidates who have checked every box when it comes to the traditional hiring process. Their resumes seemed to be packed with every conceivable accomplishment possible.

So how do you stack the odds in your favor? Maybe you went to a no-name school and even with a stellar academic record and resume, you won’t have a chance to get noticed among the flood of applicants and resumes. Maybe you went to a well-known school but don’t have the padded resume and GPA to compete with the top-notch candidates out of Harvard and Yale. Finally, what if you are a top-notch candidate from an ivy league school, but want a spot at the absolute best-of-the-best hedge fund or private equity shop. How do you stand out among in that competition?

Bad Advice

Before we talk about solutions, let’s examine all the popular advice that is bullshit. Most advice is vague anecdotes that everyone already knows and is already applying. You can’t take the same advice and expect different results. When I searched for how to land a job in investing banking, I found more of the same repetitive and useless advice:

1. Get a good GPA

2. Get some leadership experience

3. Network

4. Have patience

5. Work hard

6. etc, etc, etc

Thesis

Ok, so what should you actually do to grab attention and land that job? I have a simple thesis behind my claims. The war for talent has become ultra-competitive but also more meritocratic. Meaning, there are more fantastic graduates who are seeking the best jobs. However, companies are beginning to realize that top-tier schools, GPAs, and spotless resumes probably don’t correlate well with long-term employee success. I believe the world is moving so quickly to a meritocracy, where your ability is judged not on paper (degrees & resumes) but on what value you have actually delivered the world. What do I mean by value provide to the world? Well, have you helped solve someone’s problem or made their life easier? Here are a few finance examples:

1. Have a you produced an in-depth initiation report on a sector/industry/company? Companies and analysts are always looking for new ideas and new angles of thought. If you deliver that, you have provided a great service that will possibly lead to someone making money or forgoing a loss because of your work. That’s value delivered to the world.
2. Have you built a published record of contrarian viewpoints on popular companies? Again, contrarian and differentiated analysis leads to investment success. Hedge funds and investment banks will pay up for that skill. Notice this has nothing to do with your resume or school you went to. It’s completely in your control. No one expects your thoughts to be perfect and every idea to workout. Get over your fear of perfectionism. It’s hard to do (I struggle with it all the time) but trust me and take a chance.

The Two Steps

If you trust and follow my logic, here is my guide of how you should build your “system” to establish yourself as a provider of value. There are really only two steps:

1. Create good work.

Step one was briefly mentioned above but we will go into more step by step detail.

1. Show good work.

Steps two and three involve showing your work to the world. There are two ways you should do this. Build a website/blog and build relationships to share your work.