Don't do it.
That is the advice more moms, dads and other adults — including participants in a recent American Banker Analyst Roundtable — are giving young people who consider banking as a career path.
The three panelists, veterans of the financial services industry with varied backgrounds, recommended that the current generation entering the work force should put their talents to use in areas outside finance.
"That level of intellect is a lot better off creating some product and getting some patents rather than building exotic derivatives that will come back in time," said Anton Schutz, president of Mendon Capital Advisors Corp., whose daughter is finishing up her freshman year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
It's not an argument that meets with much resistance these days.
"She would never dream of going in to finance," Schutz said, speaking of his daughter. "Astrophysics? Yes. Building models for Wall Street? No."
Peter Kovalski, managing director at Alpine Woods Capital Investors LLC, says the reputation of the industry has been destroyed for at least a generation.
"I've heard from more than one banker with children in college who said the last thing their kids want to admit is that their father is a banker. And the last thing they or their friends want to be is a banker," he said. "The pool of candidates is going to shrink for a period of time."
And that's not necessarily a bad thing, said Paul Miller, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets.
"There are too many bankers to begin with," he said. "It's a good thing, because there were a lot of people on Wall Street that really weren't doing anything but trading bonds back and forth."
"Slicing and dicing," Schutz interjected.
Miller nodded. "What economic value was really being created?" he said.
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