Don’t be cute

Wholeheartedly agree with Jonathan Mendez in yesterday’s Digiday.

Kirk McDonald’s WSJ op-ed reminded me of my abortive attempt to land a finance job in my early 20s. Someone told me I should read the Wall Street Journal and pick up the lingo. I read the C section dutifully for a couple months, but still had no idea what was going on. So in my interview to become a bond trader, when I was asked what most interested me about the bond market, I said “I’m really interested in LIBOR”.  Which I am sure to the interviewer sounded as cute as when I asked my 3-year-old son Alex what he dreamed about last night and he said “a cheese sandwich”.

Cute doesn’t get you the job.  Nor should it.

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