| Topic Name: |
Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO) |
| Message Name: |
AT LAST |
| Date Posted: |
02/11/2001 |
| In Reply To: |
after working in an investment banking intern last summer, i realized that the seo program is just a big sham. most of the interns in the program were minority students from places like harvard, yale or mit - not the most unpriviledged lot. from what i had heard, the seo program was designed to let underrepresented minorties with little or no chance of breaking into wall street or consulting to experience that world. most of the people i met were spoiled brats who got in because they went to great schools and the smarts to get in through the normal route anyway. |
| Message: |
A POST ABOUT THE VERY CONTROVERSIAL SEO...
I am what you would call a minority student at an Ivy League school and I sincerely believe that SEO is a terrible program that preys on the insecurities and fears of HR at the large banks and consulting firms.
It is a program that is MUCH easier to get into than trying to get an internship the "normal" way, and SEO strongarms the banks and consulting firms to giving many more fulltime offers to their interns.
SEO also receives upwards of $20000 for each intern they "recruit", because they are ostensibly a "talent headhunter."
Though I knew it would be an easier route to get a full time job, I purposely avoided SEO. I believe there is a stigma attached to the program - I believe that most people here realize that the SEO program kids had to jump fewer hoops to get into this program - and have unfairly played the race card in getting their internships.
The program will continue to grow - preying again on the incessant fear that the pitch of large investment banking and consulting firms will not appear PC (I mean, who doesn't want to be an SEO firm? What would be implied by a firm that refuses to be in SEO? Even McKinsey, which for such a long time had no BA intern program, has been a part of SEO.)
I FIRMLY believe the program displaces normal recruiting procedures which is much more discriminating towards finding the best talent - and marginalizes the students who choose to opt for the SEO program, marginalizes SEO itself, and marginalizes those who have obtained these hard internships in more "normal" fashions.
Many many minorities (myself included) have gotten these internships without resorting to this CHEAT program which subsidizes its own program by extorting fees from these banks and consulting firms.
|
|
