What JPMorgan's most senior staff learned from their first jobs (JPM)

Thomson Reuters

Everybody starts somewhere.

JPMorgan recently published a series of candid interviews with top executives about what they learned from their first jobs.

Long before they started putting together big trades or running huge divisions, they were washing paint brushes and making ice-cream cones.

It serves as a reminder to up-and-coming Wall Street pros that every great career develops from relatively humble origins.

Have a look at some of JPMorgan executives' first jobs here — and have a listen here:

"I worked as a ward assistant at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. There was one ward assistant per ward in the hospital, and my job was to sterilize equipment, ensure the treatment rooms were in order, to serve meals to the patients, to monitor visiting time. It was sort of an endless list of tasks that were required every day … no matter how difficult the task or even boring the task might be, take the approach that ... something can be learned from everything that you're given."

"My first job that was not in the family business — I was 16 and I was a security guard at a condominium at the Seaside. I worked in my father's business for about 40 hours during the week, and then I worked another 36 to 38 hours from Friday night till early Sunday morning."

"I was working for my grandfather in his house-painting business. I became an apprentice, and I started at the lowest rung, which was washing brushes. You didn't get to go on to the job until you passed that first test. The next test was painting closets. If you had graduated beyond painting closets but you screwed up a ceiling, you went back to painting closets. My grandfather told me something that I've carried with me throughout my life, which is, 'Say what you'll do, and do as you say.' Basically, your word is your bond. It's all about character and integrity."

"I was working primarily as a cashier at a family-owned farm stand in New Jersey, where I grew up, and they employed a few middle-school and high-school children to help them with the farm, so I was one of them. The biggest thing that I learned was just being able to respond really quickly to change. Things moved pretty quickly, and it was a very small staff, so we could have a pretty quiet atmosphere that then would suddenly get really busy, and you would find yourself helping one another and just moving around quickly, trying to service the customers. I can recall one instance where, because it was family-owned, the family had to go off for a family event, and I literally found myself manning the bakery for an entire afternoon. I had no experience doing this, but the ability to think on my feet, work as a team, and quickly learn — those are lessons that I've taken with me throughout my career."

"My first paid job was waiting tables at a small restaurant in Perth. If the front of house and back of house weren't working efficiently, then it was painfully obvious to our customers that we weren't getting on. So what I found was — and carried this forward — was as things get busy, it's really important to communicate."

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