Non EU Students trying for IB Placements in London.

Hi All,
I have managed to get admission in WHU, HSG/St Gallen, SSE, ESCP and EDHEC. Some with scholarship, I choose EU countries as I wanted to travel more and learn a new EU language. Do IB BB's in London hire non-eu students from these Uni's? I have found a few alumni on linkedIn but seems really rare. I have interned at SWF in the Middle East too.
Thanks in advance

 

Banks in London really prefer you to know a European language. If you're part of a coverage team, A LOT of your deals will be non-UK deals so knowing a European language definitely helps. The universities in London are absolutely crowded with non-EU students (mostly Chinese & Indian) and from what I've seen they often have a very difficult time recruiting in London. 

 

yea makes sense, I'm half-descent with French I think I would be able to get native fluency by the end of the MSc (3 yr with 1 yr experience), my main target is Paris. Im looking for London as back-up.

 

chipperchipper:

yea makes sense, I'm half-descent with French I think I would be able to get native fluency by the end of the MSc (3 yr with 1 yr experience), my main target is Paris. Im looking for London as back-up.

then my advice would be to go with ESCP(my guess is it's the MiM and not MFin) because it has good placement in London and you're gonna be able to live in two different countries so you'll have the possibility to learn to a pretty good level two different languages

 

In that case go ESCP for sure. WHU and HSG are very DACH-focused. Sure, there are people who go to London as well but very very DACH-focused. I'm from Sweden so got good insights into SSE. Together with CBS, it's the best school in the Nordics. However, recruiting is very concentrated to Stockholm and you can forget about a career in Stockholm unless you are 100% fluent in a Nordic language. Placement in the UK from SSE is very limited and pretty difficult because SSE is not really a target for London. I would say it's a tier-3 target for London. 

 

It may help to be realistic here - very difficult to balance learning a language in 2 years or so while at the same time getting good grades, pursuing gruelling internships and maintaining your ECs record.

London is a hit or miss - I don’t know how “hard” the 2023 recruiting season was but despite making it to 3 ACs and nearly being amazing on technicals (product specific group which I’ve a deep interest in and had done some 3-4 live mandates with significant involvement during my internships), I still got dinged. Even though bankers in previous rounds said they’d push for me internally and other bla bla

 

Yep, that is quite true I guess. A majority of the alumni I spoke to said It has just been pure luck, as they have seen candidates with lesser qualifications and interpersonal skills get through. Quite uncanny. 

 

There are countries where people speak French natively (in North Africa, i.e.) and people are considered "non-EU".

Also, since OP is learning French and his fluency is around other Asian languages, he might be Indian.

It is also more common in the Asian culture to list all languages you know a few words in, while in Europe you'd only list the very fluent ones. I have yet to meet a person from Asia who is truly native in English.

 

But speaking French and being “half descent” French are different things - I imagine by “half descent” OP means one parent is a French National rather than a Francophone? Or as you say we should really question their English language skills! 

 

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