Alpha Deltas

Fraternity inboxes help show why. One of the recruiting e- mails to Dartmouth’s Alpha Delta arrived last month from an alumnus working in a unit of Wells Fargo & Co., the largest U.S. mortgage lender.

The e-mail, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg News, was his best chance at reaching the college’s top men for next year’s analyst class in a San Francisco office that has had Dartmouth grads for eight straight years and Alpha Deltas for four, he wrote. Students could e-mail their resumes to him directly, he added, and they’d go to the top of the pile.

Fraternity members who went to work for Goldman Sachs, Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. said they were sent back to campus on recruiting trips, where they could tap people from their houses for interviews ahead of other candidates, some more qualified. One said he would sometimes invent endorsements to send to bosses that didn’t mention fraternity connections.

Spokesmen for the three banks, Barclays, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo declined to comment.

Secret Motto

When alumni don’t reach out, fraternity members know how to find them. Von Bonin, 21, asked two at one of the world’s largest banks for interview advice, he said. They taught him to describe the benefits of the firm’s U.S. growth, fast-paced environment and training program.

“They really gave me valuable advice,” said von Bonin, who got the internship this year. A job offer came later.

Students and graduates on Wall Street said they didn’t see much wrong with a fraternity path to finance. Even applicants with the right handshake need to show drive, dedication and diligence, they said, and many kinds of groups foster bankers, just as houses spawn surgeons and senators.

The network sometimes works so well that it can help accidentally. Jeff Librot, a former head of the University of Delaware’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter, wasn’t looking to use its connections when he applied for a Bank of Montreal equities internship, he said. A banker there sent him an e-mail with the frat’s secret motto, “Phi Alpha.” Librot was picked.