A while back, then-CEO of Microsoft Bill Gates liked to say his firm competed with Goldman Sachs for top students coming out of the top schools. Both companies coveted and recruited the high-performers coming out of Harvard, MIT and the likes. Now, the competition seems to have extended to IT workers.

Financial firms are bent on luring more technical talent away from Silicon Valley and top technology companies, according to the Wall Street Journal. To that end, they're learning to play by Silicon Valley workplace rules, the kind pioneered by Google.

For example, Chopper Trading offers "shuffleboard, pool, Ping-Pong or videogames in the firm's 3,000-square-foot game and exercise room. At night, after U.S. markets close, they have access to tickets to a skybox at Chicago Bulls basketball games, Blackhawks hockey matches or the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, organized paintball trips and company dinners." Says the CEO, "We have virtually no turnover."

High-frequency trading firms are among the most aggressive hirers right now. The battle rages across the gamut, for experienced hands as well as fresh graduates.

One issue that financial firms face is questions about their social utility. "I've had people in interviews ask me point-blank what the social value is that we're adding," says one Wall Street executive.

But in the end, money talks; a lot of idealistic folks can be induced to take a job on Wall Street. This holds true for IT workers as well as science graduate students. Whether they will be happy on Wall Street is a different question. Not all have enjoyed the experience. Consider this former physics PhD candidate at Berkeley, who went to work for Goldman Sachs as a quant.

For more:
- here's the WSJ article

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