Every Spring at my college in Massachusetts, the big investment banks in New York would send two people to interview candidates from the graduating senior class for entry-level positions. These jobs were considered the most prestigious opportunities available to graduating seniors, so there was quite a bit of excitement during "interview season". When I was a senior, it seemed like half my classmates desperately wanted the opportunity to work around the clock as analysts at Morgan Stanley or Deutsche Bank. The banks were unlikely to hire more than 2 people from any college class, so this increased the anxiety level to fever pitch. More than 25% of my classmates queued up for the two dozen interview slots. This frenzy created its own momentum. It was irresistible. Despite my lack of qualifications, I queued up, too.

Usually the banks sent at least one graduate of my college along for the interview. After one set of interviews were over, my friends and I caught up in the campus pub with a recent grad who, as a newly-minted banker, had conducted a full day set of interviews for his firm. After a full day of interviews with nervous 21 year olds, he needed a beer. We bought a pitcher and sat down with him and asked him how the day went.

He laughed with dark mirth. "This is an impossible task. We get a stack of 200 resumes from you hosers. Every resume looks exactly the same. Your career counselor doesn't realize it, but we actually have work to do in our office, so we don't have 10 hours to sort through 200 resumes."

"So how do you decided who to interview?" I asked.

"Varsity sports." He replied.

We were thunderstruck. "You've got to be kidding. You don't screen by major or concentration or grades?"

"Nope. You guys are all over-achievers. Everybody who applies for this job has terrific grades, top of the class. They're all the same. Besides, good grades don't tell us anything about how you will perform. The only reliable indicator that a candidate is capable of working the hours we need, at the level of performance we require, under ridiculously stressful conditions, is varsity sports. Especially team sports. Anybody who has dealt with a full course load AND got good grades AND has played on a team is capable of succeeding at an investment bank. Team players keep their egos in check, they never let down the team, and they keep on going until the final whistle. So we take the giant stack of resumes, sort out all the ones that don't have any team sports, and then we interview the few that remain. We always get terrific people."

Teamwork is a more reliable indicator of performance in a company than any solo achievement.