The College Fix

U-T San Diego columnist Matthew Hall tells the tale of a San Diego State senior and job seeker who is all the rage on Wall Street right now:

Forget “Greed is good.” Wall Street’s new mantra? “Humility is hot.”

You can thank San Diego State University senior Matthew Ross for this.

Not in person, though. The former three-sport star at Placer High School in Auburn is suddenly SDSU’s most sought-after student, but he is rejecting interview requests as some employers do — out of hand. Known for hard work, he’s working harder than ever to lay low.

The 22-year-old finance major set tongues wagging worldwide (recently) when he turned Wall Street green, not with cash flow but with envy. And all he did was email the New York financial advisory firm Duff & Phelps a direct, understated, summer internship-seeking letter.

“I won’t waste your time inflating my credentials, throwing around exaggerated job titles or feeding you a line of crap about how my past experiences and skill set align perfectly for an investment banking internship,” Ross wrote to a broker he’d met briefly last summer. “The truth is, I have no unbelievably special skills or genius eccentricities, but I do have a near perfect G.P.A. and will work hard for you.”

That work, he wrote, could be “fetching coffee, shining shoes or picking up laundry,” all of which he would do “for next to nothing.”

Ross also wrote that he is “aware it is highly unusual for undergraduates from average universities like SDSU to intern at Duff & Phelps,” but that he hoped the firm “might make an exception.”

Enamored analysts and news outlets helped his letter go viral in days.

“Kid Sends Perfectly Blunt Cover Letter For Wall Street Internship, And Now Tons Of People Are Trying To Hire Him,” gushed the first headline, in Business Insider, which shared Ross’ letter anonymously.

… (Soon after) crews from the biggest morning talk shows had staked out Ross’ apartment in San Diego and his parents’ home in Northern California. And by Friday, the dean of the San Diego State college of business administration had fielded a dozen media phone calls, including mine.

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