The vice-chancellor stood on the podium in Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre, her voice echoing towards the carved ceiling: Now go on the market and alter the world. Robes rustled. Cameras clicked. Rows of classmates smiled, clutching levels that will quickly ship them to McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and Clifford Probability: the holy trinity of elite exit plans.
Simon van Teutem clapped, too. However for him, the irony was insufferable.
“I knew where everyone was going,” he mentioned in an interview with Fortune. “Everyone did. Which made it worse—we were all pretending not to see it.”
Profession paths for the elite have certainly consolidated over the past half-century. Within the Nineteen Seventies, one in 20 Harvard graduates went into careers of the likes of finance or consulting. Twenty years later, that jumped to 1 in 4. Final yr, half of Harvard graduates took jobs in finance, consulting, or Large Tech. Salaries have equally soared: Information from the senior exit survey for the category of 2024 reveals 40% of employed graduates accepted first-year salaries exceeding $110,000, and amongst these coming into consulting or funding banking, almost three-quarters crossed that threshold.
Months after that ceremony, van Teutem obtained two of these sorts of provides: a job at McKinsey or Morgan Stanley. As a substitute, at 22, he turned each down and spent three years working with Dutch information outlet De Correspondent writing a e-book concerning the refined gravitational pull that makes such choices really feel inevitable.
Van Teutem took on the undertaking after watching the status treadmill siphon proficient, inventive children into trivial work—after which shut the door behind them. Everybody at all times says they’re doing their banking job simply to get their foot within the door, he famous, however they at all times find yourself staying.
“These firms cracked the psychological code of the insecure overachiever,” van Teutem mentioned, “and then built a self-reinforcing system.”
Why does everybody go into consulting?
The e-book The Bermuda Triangle of Expertise grew out of private frustration. A longtime nerd who was fascinated by economics and politics, he had arrived at Oxford as an undergraduate in 2018 decided, in his phrases, “to do something good with my talents and privileges.”
Inside two years he was interning at BNP Paribas after which Morgan Stanley, falling asleep at his desk engaged on mergers and acquisitions with the depth of “saving babies from a burning house.”
His discomfort wasn’t with the work itself; he isn’t one of many Gen Zers who thinks all firms are “evil,” he insisted. “I just thought that the work was fairly trivial or mundane.”
At McKinsey, the place he interned subsequent, the work appeared extra polished however no much less hole.
“I was surrounded by rocket scientists who could build really cool stuff,” he mentioned, “but they were just building simple Excel models or reverse-engineering toward conclusions we already wanted.”
He declined the full-time provides and as an alternative started interviewing the individuals who hadn’t. Over three years, he spoke with 212 bankers, consultants, and company attorneys—from interns to companions—to grasp how so many high-achieving graduates drift into jobs they privately despise. The injury, he concluded, wasn’t villainy, and even greed, however misplaced potential: “The real harm is in the opportunity cost.”
Cash, he discovered, wasn’t the magnet, a minimum of not at first.
“In the initial pull, most elite graduates don’t decide based on salary,” he mentioned. “It’s the illusion of infinite choice, and the social status.”
At Oxford, that phantasm was all over the place. Banks and consultancies dominated profession gala’s; governments and NGOs appeared as afterthoughts. He remembers his first brush with the system: BNP Paribas internet hosting a dinner at a tremendous restaurant in Oxford for “top students.” He utilized as a result of he was broke and wished a free meal and ended up interning there.
“It’s a game we’re trained to play,” he mentioned. “You’re hardwired that way. You’re always looking for the next level, the Harvard after Harvard, the Oxford after Oxford.”
By the point many graduates notice that there isn’t any gold star on the finish—that the following stage is just larger pay and longer slide decks—it’s already too late. Most individuals imagine they will go away the company world after two or three years to comply with their desires, however only a few truly do.
“At least I can buy my children a house”
He tells the story of “Hunter McCoy,” a pseudonym for a person who as soon as wished to work in politics or at a assume tank, as an example the purpose. McCoy imagined a future profession in advocacy. Contemporary out of college, McCoy joined a white-shoe regulation agency and instructed himself he’d keep two, perhaps three years, simply lengthy sufficient to repay his pupil loans. He even had a reputation for the end line: his “f–k you number.” That was the sum that will purchase him freedom to pursue coverage work.
However freedom, it turned out, was a shifting goal. Dwelling in an costly metropolis, surrounded by colleagues who billed 100 hours every week and ordered cabs residence at midnight, McCoy was at all times the poorest man within the room. Every bonus, every new title pushed his quantity slightly larger.
The lure tightened slowly. First got here the mortgage, then the renovations, then the quiet creep of what has been known as “lifestyle inflation.” You purchase a pleasant condo, you need a good kitchen. For those who purchase the kitchen, you need the knife set that goes with it. Each new consolation demanded one other improve, one other late night time on the workplace to maintain all of it intact.
“High income stimulates high expenses,” van Teutem mentioned. “And high expenses breed more high expenses.”
By his mid-forties, McCoy was nonetheless in the identical agency, nonetheless telling himself he would go away quickly. However the years had calcified into guilt.
“Because I never saw my children, because I was always working so hard, I told myself no, I want to continue for a few more years,” McCoy instructed van Teutem. “Because then at least I can buy my children a house in return for me missing out on so much.”
The saddest half, he mentioned, was McCoy’s uncertainty about what would stay if he ever walked away.
“He told me he wasn’t sure his wife would stay with him,” van Teutem mentioned quietly. “This was the life she’d signed up for.”
The confession struck him as each uncooked and deeply tragic, a glimpse of how ambition hardens into captivity.
“It made me happy I didn’t go into it,” he mentioned. “Because you think you can trust yourself with these decisions. But you may not be the same person three years later.”
The lengthy shadow of Reagan, Thatcher, and the Large Three
What van Teutem describes, nevertheless, is a part of a systemwide phenomenon that’s been a long time within the making.
That explosive development of what researchers name “career funneling,” the place college students give attention to solely two or three industries which might be socially deemed prestigious sufficient to work in, runs in tandem with the flip towards financialization and deregulation that Western economies took within the second half of the twentieth century. The neoliberal revolution, pushed by former President Ronald Reagan in the US and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the UK, expanded capital markets sufficient to create entire new industries out of manipulating monetary devices; thus, exploding the finance business. On the identical time, governments and firms started outsourcing experience to non-public companies below the banner of market effectivity, giving delivery to the fashionable consulting business. (The final of right this moment’s Large Three consulting companies was based as lately as 1973.)
As these companies captured an ever higher share of the nation’s income, they grew to become synonymous with meritocracy itself: unique, data-driven, and ostensibly apolitical. They provided graduates not simply jobs, however a way of belonging and identification.
There’s one other quieter lure right here, too: The price of dwelling within the large cities has by no means been larger. In cities like New York and London—the gravitational facilities of worldwide finance—dwelling comfortably has develop into a luxurious good. A 2025 SmartAsset examine discovered a single grownup in New York now wants about $136,000 a yr to reside comfortably. In London, a single particular person wants round £3,000 to £3,500 a month simply to cowl fundamental dwelling, transportation, and housing bills, and monetary advisors now say a £60,000 wage merely buys relative consolation—the flexibility to avoid wasting and never reside paycheck to paycheck—an quantity that solely 4% of British graduates count on to make popping out of college.
What number of early-career jobs pay greater than $136K or £60K a yr? If a 22-year-old comes out of faculty with the pure want to discover the massive metropolis, à la Associates or Intercourse within the Metropolis, however doesn’t have the cushion of parental assist, they must be throughout the slim band of roles that clear the edge. Meaning many careers start by chasing a wage stage moderately than pursuing mission-driven work.
Tips on how to escape the golden handcuffs
Van Teutem doesn’t assume the answer lies in ethical awakening a lot as in design.
“You can gear institutions toward change or toward risk-taking,” he mentioned. His favourite instance is Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley accelerator that since its founding in 2004 has turned a number of dozen nerds with concepts into corporations now value roughly $800 billion—“more than the Belgian economy,” he famous.
YC labored as a result of it decreased the price of danger: small checks, quick suggestions, and a tradition that made failure survivable.
“In Europe,” he added, “we do a really bad job at that.”
Governments, he argues, can do the identical. Within the Nineteen Eighties, Singapore started competing immediately with companies for prime graduates, providing early job provides and finally linking senior civil service pay to non-public sector salaries. Controversial, positive, however it constructed a state that might preserve its greatest expertise.
The nonprofit world has realized comparable classes. Train First within the U.Okay. and Train for America copied consulting’s recruitment ways—selective cohorts, “leadership program” branding, quick duty—to lure elite college students into school rooms as an alternative of boardrooms.
“They use the exact tricks from McKinsey and Morgan Stanley,” van Teutem mentioned, “not as charity, but as a springboard.”
Materials pressures nonetheless distort these selections. Within the U.S., unemployment is hovering for current school grads because the labor market slackens.
He hopes that universities and employers copy the YC mannequin: decrease the draw back, increase the status of attempting.
“We’ve made risk-taking a privilege,” he mentioned. “That’s the real problem.”
A model of this story was revealed on Fortune.com on Oct. 26, 2025.
Extra on Gen-Z within the workforce:
- Gen-Z is dealing with a ‘readiness paradox’ that’s crippling them at work and on dates
- BoFA is asking, ‘Dude, the place’s my job?’
- Jensen Huang says six-figure-jobs are about to open up for Gen-Z due to knowledge facilities
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
