On company presentations
In the first year of the MBA, as the hiring season began, companies would come to campus on a daily basis and give presentations about who they were and whom they were looking to hire.
Most of these sessions were fairly informative, if predictably glib and polished. Some of the presentations were marred by the extreme arrogance of the speakers, as they swaggered around asking people if they really felt worthy enough to work in banking. Others were so alike it was uncanny; some of the consultancies in particular could almost have used the same set of slides. And a few presentations were remarkably poor. You had the feeling that the hapless speakers had been tasked with a last-minute assignment: “Hey, Michael turned in sick today. Could you help us do a company presentation at a business school? It’s in 20 minutes. Yeah, HR has some old generic slides you can use. Go dazzle them, boy. Oh, and don’t mention that you only started working here last week.”
Some of the company presentations became unintentionally humorous. My favorite example was Deutsche Bank’s. Near the end of their presentation, the speaker said that they would now show a new video that conveyed the spirit of Deutsche Bank. However, while the bank’s HR people were beaming with corporate spirit, the bankers that accompagnied them had a slightly wary look on their faces.
Then, the video started, showing a close-up shot of something black that scurried around. More than one; there were lots of them. They were busy. The sound went ‘taca-taca-taca-taca-taca’. Gradually, the camera zoomed out, and you saw what the black things were.
They were ants.
Little, scurrying, insignificant, completely identical ants.
Forming the letters ‘Deutsche Bank’.
It was outright bizarre; nobody knew how to react when it ended. Somebody started a half-hearted round of clapping as people exchanged incredulous looks. The bankers were stonefaced, fidgeting with their pens or staring meticulously into the distance. HR was one big smile of clueless pride.
The great thing was, you could vividly imagine the warm glow that must have been spreading in the room when the video was first presented to the top management at Deutsche Bank. Words like ‘unity’, ‘dedication’, and ‘together we’re strong’ spinning through the air. Eyes brimming with corporate pathos. Much nodding of heads, possible promotion in line for the project manager. Yet to everybody else, the video said, in no uncertain terms, “We see you as expendable little worker drones. Resistance is futile; now come join us.”
I’m not sure how many applications Deutsche Bank received that year.
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