Jeffrey Chiang, I Salute You

Kristy Wen — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:47:10 +0000

It’s almost comforting to know that even in this uncertain job market, you can’t have it as bad as this fool who’s dug his own grave at the age of 21.

Enter Jeffrey Chiang.

The entire story is over here at Dealbreakers, so I’ll just give you the quick and dirty. Jeffrey Chiang is the prime example of what to do if you want to see your potential career go up in flames after dousing it with a hefty amount of gasoline. So Jeffrey Chiang was interviewing for Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he was asked if he had received any other offers so far. He claimed that he was currently in his second round of interviews for Morgan Stanley. Lucky for Jeffrey, a BoA-ML associate had a buddy over at Morgan Stanley, whom he contacted about Jeffrey’s prospects. Apparently, he only had a phone interview with Morgan Stanley, at which time he claimed to have gotten an offer from BoA-ML. He was even so nice as to forward the “offer” over to Morgan Stanley, which was then forwarded to the associate at BoA-ML. After performing a bit of recon and finding out that the letter was a fake, the story was forwarded to the rest of Wall Street and has found its way onto the rest of the internet.

As mentioned in the Dealbreaker story, it’s really kind of sad that he didn’t even pull off the scam well. It’s one thing if you successfully sell the Eiffel Tower; it’s another if you spell “America” incorrectly in your fake job offer email. Over the past 24 hours, Chiang’s been erasing all traces of himself on the internet – his Facebook and LinkedIn have disappeared (although you can still see them with the lovely Google Cache). Everyone’s been saying that he has no hope on Wall Street after this stunt, but honestly, he’s screwed for any company or corporation that uses any kind of social media.

Here is the delightful string of emails that started it all:

From: Jeffrey Chiang
To: [Morgan Stanley]
Subject: FW: Bank of America Merrill Lynch Interviews

From: [Fake Bank of America ML Recruiter]
To: Jeffrey Chiang
Subject RE: Bank of America Merrill Lynch Interviews

Hi Jeff,

Everyone was very impressed with your interviews today. We are excited
to formally extend to you an offer to join Bank of Ameria [sic]
Merrill Lynch as an analyst next summer. You should be getting
documentation in the mail to sign very shortly. If you have any
further questions please feel free to email me. Again, congratulations
and we look forward to having you join us next year.

——————————

From: [Morgan Stanley]
To: [Bank of America ML]
Subject: FW: Bank of America Merrill Lynch Interviews

This is what Jeffrey sent Morgan Stanley to prove he received an offer
from your firm. Given you told me you dinged him, should I assume this
is fake? If so, that’s unbelievable and his school should be notified,
he shouldn’t get a job anywhere on Wall Street.

——————————

From: [Bank of America ML]
To: [Lehman Brothers], [UBS]
Subject: FW: Jeffrey Chiang

I don’t know if this guy has come up on your radar screens in terms of
analyst recruits, but you need to be warned about him. I should have
been tipped off by the fact that he ran a “5k marathon” on his resume.
I just figured something got lost in translation.

I interviewed him on campus, and while he was pretty weird/intense, he
seemed like somebody who would crank and potentially make for a good
analyst, so we waved him in for an office visit.

Things started going bad for him when I got a call from our HR
department about him during our Superday. In making his travel
arrangements with our travel agent, he had apparently made a big stink
about needing to stay at the Four Seasons and blow up on the travel
person. It was apparently bad enough that she went to the trouble to
inform our HR department.

Our Superday reviews on him were pretty mixed, nonetheless. He had
spent a summer at Gulfstar, so I did a bit of checking on him there,
and it became clear that they were also very unimpressed with the way
that he carried himself. So, we dinged him, but that is not where the
story ends.

He had told one of the associates in our office that he was in the
second round of interviews for MS’s Palo Alto office. Well, our
associate happened to mention this to his friend that works in the MS
Palo Alto office and the associate at MS said that Jeff had had only
had a phone interview but had indicated that he had an offer from
BAML. When the MS team asked him to send proof of his offer, he
manufactured the email below and forwarded to the MS team.

We have notified UT of this joker’s behavior, but needless to say,
this guy shouldn’t be able to get a job at McDonalds after a stunt
like this.

[Source: Dealbreaker]

since wen - by Kristy Wen » Jobs

Jeffrey Chiang, I Salute You