"I am leaving my buy-side job and am fed-up with the nepotism"

I'm taking some time out from my career in financial services. After nearly a decade working in investment management for some of the top firms in the industry, I need a break. I also need to get away from the hypocrisy that surrounds the issue of nepotism.

Every financial services firm will say that it's not nepotistic. In my experience, every firm is. It's not overt. The nepotism is always secret. But it's real. 

The last firm I worked for was one of the biggest in the industry. Even so, management would regularly bring in graduate analysts to the team who hadn't been through the typical hiring process. No one really knew how they'd circumvented it, but we'd arrive in the office one day and there would be a son, daughter, nephew or godchild of someone important in the firm. I arrived one morning and a relative of the founder was sitting next to me at the desk, having been given a full-time job. That was the first I knew.

It's not just relatives of senior employees. We'd also employ the sons and daughters of key clients. Another graduate I worked with was the son of the CEO at a client firm. His dad knew our senior management team.

It creates a very difficult situation. Everyone knows the junior employee is there because of nepotism, but no one can say anything. The nepo-hire has to be treated very carefully and must not be seen to screw-up. If you're slightly more senior, you'are on the line for making sure that everything goes smoothly while they get privileges like lower workload and use of the corporate card. Part of my role was usually ensuring that these hires didn't have too much to do. 

Naturally, the firm never admitted to this. Instead, it told clients that it had a rigorous and meritocratic hiring process. Clients liked this - until it came to asking for the rules to be changed for their own offspring. The firm was happy to oblige. 

Photo by Jeffrey Grospe on Unsplash

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