Saturday, October 07, 2006

Viral Video Backfires on Banking Candidate

An ambititious (to say the least) Yale undergraduate named Aleksey Vayner is a star on Wall Street. But not in the way one might hope. Mr. Vayner created an autobiographical film, starring himself, in which he pontificates on the keys to success while performing powerlifting, skiing acrobatics, tennis, ballroom dancing, and martial arts. It's quite something.

Apparently, the online video took on a viral nature when he included the URL on his PDF'd resume submission to a large investment bank. Bankers began forwarding the resume and video link to their friends, which resulted in Vayner's website crashing (or more likely, him shutting it down).

This incident is reminiscent of Peter Chung, a junior investment banker who sent an unfortunate email to his former colleauges while working on the "buyside" in Asia. Both are startling examples of user naivete about the viral nature of the Internet. And while Mr. Vayner may or may not land the Wall Street job he's gunning for, he has certainly succeeded in achieving Internet infamy.

Here are links to two Internet blogs, IvyGate and DealBreaker, who are now hosting the video.

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