Why does Goldman Sachs prefer hiring varsity college athletes?
The most important thing that you need in a bank is the ability to work other people. If you can’t work with other people, then you are useless. This means the ability to both take orders from the coach, the ability to communicate with other people, and the ability to try not to get on other people’s nerves.
The thing about team sports that you don’t get with other efforts is that you are team graded. It doesn’t matter how good you are, if you can’t work with other people you fail. If it turns out that you are the only smart guy on the team, and everyone else are losers, then you have to figure out how to deal with that situation.
I don’t know of *ANY* successful traders and bankers who are lone wolf types. This is not an industry which people who can’t work with other people can survive for very long. The other thing is that people move from firm to firm a lot, but personal relationships matter a lot.
Also, it’s important that it is a team sport. Football will help you. Archery won’t.
.. I would argue that, in general, intelligent athletes bring countless intangibles to the table that your average student does not. If you went to an elite school, remember all those kids who had anxiety about staying up to date with classes, or who fail to turn things in on time, get blindsided by tests they didn’t prepare for, etc.? That rarely, if ever, happens to athletes. They have incredible time and stress management skills embedded from middle/high school on. They get work done under stress. And they don’t have panic attacks about not finishing a paper on time. Even if they procrastinate, it still gets done.