When this young Finance hopeful put his personal stamp on a cover letter that went out to all of the major firms on Wall Street, he was looking to get noticed. But probably not in this way.
A Bank of America Merrill Lynch director actually forwarded this applicant’s letter to his entire team, not because he was interested in hiring the kid. No, this upper-level manager just wanted to offer drinks “to the first analyst to concisely summarize everything that is wrong” with the applicant’s cover letter.
Here’s a sample from a Business Insider story, which contains a screen grab of the entire letter:
I am unequivocally the most unflaggingly hard worker I know, and I love self-improvement. I have always felt that my time should be spent wisely, so I continuously challenge myself … I decided to redouble my effort by placing out of two classes, taking two honors classes, and holding two part-time jobs. That semester I achieved a 3.93, and in the same time I managed to bench double my bodyweight and do 35 pull-ups.
The letter has already been circulated through more than a dozen major firms including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank — and the story about how these companies have had a good laugh at the kid’s expense has gone viral.
Granted, the pull-up count was a bit much, but we’d like to think the management of these lending giants have more class — not to mention work — than to spend their time making fun of an enthusiastic (and maybe a bit misguided) applicant. What do you think?
