What Happened During The Interview?
I was a management consultant at the time, looking to make a transition into money management. The interviewer was a senior money manager at a leading insurance company. He also was a friend, a fellow alumnus of both my college and my MBA program. As president of the college's local alumni club, he had championed my election to its board, despite my being considerably younger than any previous board member in the club's history to that point. Since he agreed to speak to me, I assumed that he was receptive to my planned change of careers. I assumed wrongly.
How Did the Interview Turn Out?
I was astonished when he sternly advised that I was much too old to consider a change of career path. I had just turned 28. Did he really believe this? Or was this some sort of bizarre brush-off? Upon hearing this, it clearly was time to excuse myself and stop wasting my time. Shortly thereafter, I got a great offer from Merrill Lynch, which had no problem with superannuated career changers like myself, though I didn't enter money management with Merrill.
Advice
- While it's always good strategy to use your networks (alumni and otherwise) in job hunting, there are no guarantees that your putative friends will come through for you.
- Some highly-educated people can be astonishingly narrow-minded.
