George Eliot, Silas Marner, 1861
Bond brokerage boutique" the firms weren't hiring, interview. laying off brokers, and Steve, a junior college finance instructor in South Florida, desperately wanted to be a broker.
Excitement gripped him as he walked in. Telephones ringing. Rows of desks jammed together. Men in telephone headsets hunched over, dialing, talking, fingers flying over keyboards, computer monitors changing like kaleidoscopes. Yes! Not the classroom theory he'd been teaching, the real thing! Action! The brokerage business!
Steve's enthusiasm retreated somewhat when he met Wally, a principal of the firm. Short, thin to the point of anorexia and a chain smoker, he wore an expensive plaid suit, pink shirt, gold bracelets and more rings than anyone could fit on ten fingers - a street-tough, intimidating, trans planted New Yorker. They clashed instantly.
Wally closed the door to his glassed-in office and ostentatiously blew smoke at the No Smoking sign. Steve felt like he'd asphyxiate. After ten hostile minutes, Wally ended the interview. "Nah, kid, you're not the type I want. I need a hustler. You got too much education and you never sold anything."
"I don't see how an education in finance hurts in selling financial instruments," Steve objected.
That only drew a look of disgust from Wally. "Yeah, sure. You can find your own way out, cantcha?"
A week later, Steve read that stress interviews were common on Wall Street and thought, okay, why not? What's to lose? He called Wally and said he really wanted to work there.
"Great," Wally enthused, to Steve's astonishment. "Come in Monday, and we'll fix ya up."
Monday came and Steve got a desk almost in the hallway by the copy and fax machines. Associates who sold the most bonds got desks by the windows. The less you sold, the farther from the windows you sat. The last row was called "Death Row" because the next step was out the door, and all new sales associates started there. At least it was convenient to the bathroom.
The staff included a recovered drug addict and an active alcoholic. Total sales by every associate were posted daily on a giant chalk board. Communication was by screaming, motivation by intimidation.
Periodically, Wally brought the associates into his office for an oral math test, figuring percentages and interest rates quickly in their heads. A wrong answer brought screams or pens and paper clips thrown at your head.
Steve hated it all. But what bothered him most was selling only high- risk, high-commission bonds to retirees. The customer's financial needs didn't matter, only the size of the commission.
Steve never did get off Death Row, and finally quit after three months. He went to work for his father selling kitchen cabinets. His father yelled sometimes too, but at least the cabinets and the relationship were solid.
Sometimes a stress interview is, in fact, an interviewer's tool to assess your behavior in high-pressure situations.
And at other times it's a preview of what the job will be like.
