Are diversity interviews easier for IBD?
I recently read on here that diversity candidates have a separate set of technical interview questions that are easier when compared to those of non-diversity candidates. Can anyone in IB speak to the veracity of this? I'm highly skeptical of this, but I'm aware that finance is not based on pure meritocracy.
Edit: I would count as diversity.
Confirmed. Much easier, by design and explicit instruction from HR. It’s kind of the point, in fact: lower the barriers (one of which is interview difficulty), get a pipeline going for underrepresented demographics, then slowly raise the bar once it’s established. We’re still somewhere between steps 1 and 2.
If the processes were identical, why not run them together then pick a set # of diversity candidates? Even if the questions are the same or similar, there’s still a different standard for each pool.
If you don't mind doing so, could you perhaps provide an example of a such a distinction? (Ex. Diversity candidates are only asked very general questions vs being asked to do a paper LBO)
Sure: HR saying “focus more on candidate motivation and story” and giving explicit instructions to avoid certain topics (LBOs, AccDil) or “keep accounting questions straightforward.” Pretty common when pre-briefing for interviews.
Usually it’s a combination of the above and benchmarking the recruits only against their peer group. So even if the questions are the same, an answer set that’ll get you dinged in the general pool may very well get you an offer at a targeted superday. You’re competing against a far smaller and less-prepped cohorts for a proportionately larger # of spots.
Again, not making a value judgement here. Just explaining how it works.
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At a bank that just finished our summer analyst recruiting process. We had a diversity process and a non-diversity process, but the questions were the same.
Then your bank has easy technical interview questions to begin with... I have never heard of any of my diversity friends getting grilled on LBO or even DCF at length.
Usually questions dont differ, but you expect a different answer from 1st gen or people who had every resource to prepare that interview. And you apply different thresholds. Not a huge difference but it helps to spread equal opportunities.
Diversity interviews happen earlier, sometimes by a few months, so naturally they may be easier because you are a few months into your spring semester sophomore year vs non-diversity recruiting that happens late spring semester, in the summer, or even in the fall.
I went through both diversity and non-diversity interviews and found them to them to be the same level of difficulty.
Uh I don't think so, I know diversity upperclassman who prepped just as hard and answered the same technicals I did as a non diversity.
How to answer a question that wasn't asked
Lol
I went through the non diversity pipeline at both eb and bb's, and only had 1 diversity interview at a top bb. My hardest interview was at the diversity interview.
It is all relevant to who is interviewing you at the end of the day.
Yes, 100% no doubt about it.
I like that all the blue names say yes and the green say no lol
Exactly..and intern/prospect on repeat.
Going into some of those interviews were fairly uneventful. I had friends who were a year above me go through recruiting at a lot of these places and they made it seem like you have to be some sort of technical guru to make it through.
Unless you're interviewing at a pjt/evercore, most people would make it through just from studying the guides and accounting.
Lmao funny you called out PJT considering their Women's event is the most egregious example of watered down diversity recruiting with literally 0 technicals asked to candidates
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I know two people in that picture. Very well prepared as you mentioned.
I know 2 people in that picture too. Doesn't look like diversity candidates in the back
Are you referring to the male candidates? I also noticed that, but they may be of mixed descent. I was referring to a couple of Asian females in the front.
bruh all those UT Austin kids in the front lmao
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Wait how do you know they go to that school?
...looking at the picture, how is this "diversity"?
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Related prediction: asian women will be excluded from diversity recruiting in
How do you have much conviction on this? Completely agree that they should be excluded, given they take up the majority of the spots, and particularly at the top schools, come from the same backgrounds as the Asian males and have in effect very similar opportunities, but I feel like the PC cost of excluding one set of women would make this impossible. Even if you ended female diversity recruiting, and just did Latino / Black / 1st gen, would get a lot of PC pressure.
Obviously just a guess, but they’ll find a way (e.g. not totally excluding, but setting an implicit, very low cap at these events/programs) when the demographics don’t shake out the way HR would like.
Plus, Asian women aren’t exactly the most beloved class of the PC folk (only kind of sorta fall under POC umbrella, higher average incomes than whites), so could see them getting the cold shoulder, especially if they continue to dominate.
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Yikes
I'm an asian male and I don't understand the sheer amount of ignorance and casual racist remarks made about diversity programs on WSO that is deemed acceptable. I hope your white because you clearly don't understand how the minority model standard is used as insult to Asian Americans and is anti black/latino.
I hope you find happiness in seeking validation from white people who will never view you as one of them despite being in the same industry, going to the same college or playing the same sport but go ahead and bash other minority groups so you can get a nice pat on the back from the white kids on this site who will casually say racist jokes behind your back and won't stop from others from doing the same because muh it's banter bro toughen up.
There are some programs only for Black/ Hispanic folks, if I recall correctly
Agreed.
Banks are becoming more and more likes colleges, where students are penalized if they come from an ethnicity that has made themselves successful in life unlike Hispanics or blacks. I'll get MS but its true lol
"Ethnicity that has made themselves successful" ... I wonder how that happened.
Asians tend to already have privilege in their families providing the resources they need. They are the highest earned ethnicity in America. Same goes with Indians, who come to America on opportunity. Diversity programs are intended for students who face barriers and resources that weren't given to them growing up.
So we are now punishing the kids whose families saved money and taught them education is important and rewarding the families of the kids who wanted to party all day and spend their credit cards ??????? Asians are more educated and wealthier because they sacrifice their entire lives for a chance at a job, and now because of those sacrifices they get punished.
Just so you are clear with your geography, Indians come under "Asians".
Non-diversity but diversity friend was asked harder questions at his superday on the same day at the same BB, maybe it was easier for him to get into the superday?
You can get lucky or unlucky based on whom you run into on the interviewer schedule. There’s a wide range of difficulty for both regular and diversity programs, so sometimes a diversity one may indeed by harder. But on the whole, diversity processes are — again, by design — easier.
Heard frmo a friend that HR at GS prepped him to please know "What is investment banking" and "Make sure you know the functions of an investment bank" befroe his superday. Superday.
...
Heard the same thing hahaha
To be fair, there are a lot of people here who would(/could) readily rank the 20 ‘best’ banks and still have basically no idea what they do.
Indeed
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Diversity programs aren't just scraping the bottom of the barrel for candidates. There are a significant number of diverse candidates from target schools grinding day and night to prepare for technical interviews. The competition within the realm of diverse candidates is very high.
The goal of a diversity pipeline is to provide the opportunity for candidates with backgrounds that are non-traditional to finance an opportunity to network with people at the firm. Other students in traditional networking environments often have pre-existing connections with members at the firm and at the most basic level just a bit more in common.
In addition acceptance rate is not a good metric because there are simply less diverse candidates.
You say that acceptance rate doesn't matter but if 90% of diverse students going for IB at my school place at solid banks compared to a 50% rate for everyone else. One of the following has to be true:
a) Diverse students are far superior than non-diverse students b) Diversity recruiting is significantly easier
At my target there are 3 black males who recruited for IB and all got offers. One at a BB, EB, and PE. So that would be a “100%” acceptance and really not a relevant statistic because the sample isn’t large enough. especially when compared to a normal pool of 100+ kids.
In addition, a diversity pipeline doesn’t just take every kid they interview you’re still competing against the best and brightest talent from a wide array of targets and non targets.
How do you know the backgrounds are truly "Non-traditional" and not just a H/Y/P diverse admit?
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Yes, and that is why some argue that really it is self selecting a certain group (arguably a minority) out.
Yes you are correct that most students in the school might be considered diverse. That being said not every student recruits for finance. It’s a profession that traditionally attracts mostly white males (nothing wrong with that). Just take a look around an on campus networking event and you’ll see the disparity.
Firms recognize the value in having a team that comes from a wider array of backgrounds and are making an effort to attract and retain diverse candidates.
They have different cohort of diversity recruiting. For instance, all female candidates would have to compete for limited spots in women diversity program. Questions are different, and the competition is different too.
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My thoughts on diversity recruiting after going through the process at an EB - the biggest advantage is a much higher percent of diversity applicants are given first rounds. One of the events I went to they mentioned that there had been a couple hundred applicants for the 30 spots which means a pretty good chance at getting a first round. However interviews were still hard and I think no more than 3-4 offers were given out
if youre black, hispanic or a woman and are seriously recruiting for IB and even then fail to make it then sth wrong with you/
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I don't think I would agree with that. There's lots of competition at some schools. I've seen some strong candidates get unlucky and not be able to land an IB gig.
This is simply not true.
I’ve never heard of HR having lists of questions. The bankers ask what they feel like asking. And I doubt they lower the bar for diversity candidates. That’s done before the interview.
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Yes by systematic design, otherwise if more competent and capable they would be over represented (Asians, hello?) The idea that you have a specific pipeline where competition is only amongst itself, and self-interest and ease to get in the first stages on an interview process which gives a precedence for putting less effort (don’t need to network or prep techs as hard). It depends on company as well because if you only plan to take 3 candidates they can be the children of god regardless of pipeline. EB’s like Moelis still ask decently tough questions and there are so few spots that there exists enough diversity candidates who are also just as competent as non diversity. From my experience the EB’s can be like that because there are few spots to begin with; however, the general rule is that diversity candidates are less technically sound. But let’s caveat that with IB is highly process oriented, a smart middle schooler could prepare for and not only memorize but understand financial statements etc. especially if you designate to the top 5% of middle schoolers in this country (aka diversity wants minorities who check the boxes, being technically sound is not a big deal to the actual IB job, you’re also not doing investing which requires critical thinking or intelligence).
One thing though is that they have much easier pipelines in terms of getting the interview in the first place probably (absolute number of diversity candidates is low therefore many interested candidates at a target who are minorities can get an interview essentially), so at the end of the day the diversity pool is going to be much less technically sound than non diversity (by nature of giving many more people the opportunity, self interest, even need because you’re competing with only other diversity). However, as separate processes with a finite outcome (we want to hire x amount) the process will be competitive within the pipeline to the extent the pipeline is competitive (e.g. it depends on how good people are at technicals in the specific pipeline). Therefore the overall bar is lower on average, sure, and you will get less technically sound candidates but sometimes it can be the other way around too. it’s just a generality and how it’s designed.
Generally though, by virtue of people getting offers at BB’s and EB’s too that are genuinely dumb and/or know nothing it is a simpler process. Even if ‘the same’ questions are asked it is impossible to have the same bar for the reasons I outlined, or the minorities would be over represented if more technically sound (Asians?). Its literally impossible for the entire process, but the candidates who end up getting accepted may or may not be equally or more qualified than non diversity. It’s a relative bar and a weaker pool means weaker skills, but that’s a general rule and has tons of exceptions like I mentioned. Also at a MM or BB the technicals are straight out of the book anyway so it doesn’t matter and again IB is process oriented and doesn’t require too much critical thinking (e.g. your life is marginally improved by being intelligent vs. an investor role for example).
This is true for diverse students who strike out in diversity recruiting and go through the general recruiting process as well. I knew I was most likely fucked when I walked into a superday and it was just me and a girl fighting for one of the last spots to fill up the intern class at the very end of the bank's recruiting process. Pretty much that she had to fuck up and I had to be amazing because this was a somewhat big bank that had a quota to meet for diversity requirements.
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for what it's worth: went through an IB SA diversity process and my technicals included all of the basic stuff but also LBOs and accretion/dilution, in addition to bond math and some credit ratings discussion (topics that haven't really come up in other interviews I had or that I've heard about). obviously this might just have been particular to this firm or my interviewers that day, but I thought it was worth mentioning
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Can confirm Moelis Evercore diversity interviews are still insane. Got paper LBOs, accretion/dilution, debt waterfalls (for moelis), multi-step accounting. PJT was significantly significantly easier and I honestly do not know why.
I think it very much depends on the interviewers. Maybe that’s considered normal in their group, or maybe they just had a bad day...
Are veterans considered diversity candidates, even if they are white males?
There are many veteran specific programs.
Right, I just wasn’t sure if they were considered “diversity” or not, especially considering if the hypothetical veteran is an educated white male from affluent means.
So basically if you’re a Naval academy grad who wants to get into IB, you’ll have an easier time than the Cornell grad just because you’re a veteran, even if you’re both white males from affluent backgrounds.
I have recruited for both diversity and general pool. Indeed, the diversity has much more general question (story and motivation) while general pool variety of technical questions are expected. One interesting point tho, diversity candidates compete with each other (smaller pool so very competitive) and general candidates have their own pool. Two pools have entire different competition - so no worries about getting harder questions.
My experience at a NYC BB:
We absolutely do interview diversity candidates differently. Sometimes this is asking easier questions, or deliberately avoiding topics that we know the diversity candidate will struggle with.
HR doesn't require that interviewers do this, but they do pressure us to extend offers to a certain number of diversity candidates. I've seen situations where we have to hire 1 man and 1 woman from a pool of 8 men and 1 woman, so we kind of turn a blind eye to any red flags that the female candidate may have.
We also sometimes run diversity superdays, where 100% of the candidates would qualify as diverse. These are run identically to regular superdays, as we're still trying to pick the best candidates out of the group. In my own view, I like this method better.
How do you know if someone is diversity while interviewing them in a mixed superday? One of my friends is half black but could pass for completely white depending on his hair for example.
analyst at a top bb (Gs/ms/Jpm) here. can confirm that diversity recruiting is a completely different process, at least for my firm. heard of the questions they asked diversity candidates at a recent superday, and there were 0 technicals on there. questions focus on background and why they’re interested in banking.
it’s surprising that the technical bar has gotten this low these days, as I remembered my interviews being 50% technical (one superday interviewer only grilled me on technicals as well) as a non-diverse candidate. fwiw I think people will become more critical of diversity recruiting over time when they realize that lowering standards wont help anyone at all - underprepared candidates will be in for a rude awakening when they join and just realize the true nature of the job, and there will clearly be a lack of qualified analysts who are capable of the tougher staffings. it’s good to encourage equal opportunity, but not equal outcome like this imo
I think you fail to realize that recruitment is not like 10 years ago and things have changed. Anybody can teach you the technical aspects of the job and anyone can learn it, IF THERE IS PASSION! Which is why they ask you technical questions to show if you're passionate about the job and through that you will be eager to learn things. Quizzing someone on specific topics in technical questions isn't that effective. Behavioral/fit questions are more common now bc it shows more of the students work ethnic. The only industry I can see where technical plays a much bigger role is PE or IB, you will need to def study the technical aspects to understand the basics of the job.
You should never cut urself this slack. As a diversity, you stand out for doing a better interview. Just like some people say that liberal arts students get easier interview questions. But as a liberal arts, you can only stand out if you do know all the technicals.
A lot of women's recruiting programs are known to hand out less technicals during interviews.
Analyst at a US BB (GS/MS/JPM) and I’m also a diversity hire. I applied through the 2019 summer analyst position and converted so I can speak about my 2019 summer analyst recruitment process:
I was asked no technical or accounting questions throughout the process. I wasn’t even asked about a DCF, which surprised me. Every interview was focused on my CV and background / motivation. Also in interviews they normally brought up diversity and how important it is to them.
I didn’t have to do a case study either but that’s just our general recruitment process we don’t make candidates do case studies it’s just a super day full of interviews.
One thing I did notice is that all my interviewers were also diversity hires i.e black males / females interviewed me, I didn’t have a single white male interviewer which I did not expect. I believe they did this in purpose but unsure.
During my summer I also had meet ups with HR to see how everything was going and was invited to diversity events / presentations.
Do you know if BBs like GS/MS/JPM apply the same methodology for sophomore SA positions? I find it quite strange that you weren't asked a single technical question.
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Idk man. I got asked DCF technicals as a rising sophomore for a BB diversity superday. Meanwhile lots of non-diversity liberal arts target school ppl didn’t get asked a single technical. Granted this was a few years ago.
I am a black male (Non African American .
I think I can safely say that I have never done any of the diversity recruiting processes - only black in the room with people from myriad schools and colleges even Ivys at times. How do I know I was not fed a free lunch? Lol come on, everyone discusses their questions after super day rounds. We all had roughly similar technicals with minimal differences based on how we navigated the conversation.
I have interviewed at and received offers with many of the tier 1 BBs. My interview experiences, in most cases, have been much more difficult than that of my friends who completed diversity recruiting cycles. I would be grilled harder on DCF or valuation concepts if I interviewed for IBD and have more in-depth markets/investment product discussions or tougher brain teaser questions for S&T. Those that have gone through diversity recruiting have more conversational interviews with very little technicals. But, the level of difficulty and difference between standard and diversity recruiting really depended on the bank.
Do banks need diversity recruiting programs? Yes, diversity candidates will catch up and, if given the opportunity, will deliver value for their employer and clients. The number of visibly diverse candidates in the intern cohorts is still so appallingly low that I don’t even see why people complain.
I think this question is self explanatory. They are obviously easier. Why would a bank start a separate process for kids that are not making it through the traditional process and then make that process MORE difficult? It just doesn't make any sense.
The "Intern" or "Prospect" comments on this thread swearing that the diversity process is totally harder are just delusional diversity kids lying to themselves.
I think you have to consider several factors to determine why diversity recruiting is easier than non-diversity recruiting. If you are at H/Y/P, I doubt it matters that much whether you come from diversity or not, because unless you are a total retard, you can land a IB role somewhere.
Coming from a non-target, people that do make it into IB are typically from the diversity pipeline. I'm talking about extreme non-target like schools that only have 1-2 people going into IB every 3-4 years. Otherwise, you resume goes straight to garbage.
Interview questions are definitely easier, IMO not because the questions is easier, but the interviewer is less focus on grilling you with technicals. For diversity, if you can answer the basic questions then you are good. For non-diversity, the interviewers will always try to grill you on technicals until you break.
Non-target here from the West Coast who got an offer at a BB NY this recruiting season. Got asked a crap ton of technicals, but I had a decent amount of internship experience and passed level 1 of CFA if that changes anything. I got asked 3 statement linkage, LBO calculations, WACC calculations, brainteasers, and explaining the income statement line-by-line. In addition I was grilled on my GPA.
I see a lot of people here talking about how diversity candidates have interviews that are "just as hard", but that does not matter even if it was true. The reality of the matter is there are 10 non-diverse kids who could have crushed the interview just as well as you who weren't even given the first-round interview. It's the advantage of having networking opportunities through diversity networking events, guaranteed first rounds, easier (arguable) superdays, and higher offer rates (number of offers/total applications) compared to non-diveristy. Not saying that the people who get hired from diversity processes aren't qualified, maybe they are or aren't, but the reality is you probably wouldn't have gotten the offer if you were non-diverse because you would have to work much harder to even get your foot in the door.
Not exactly sure, but I will say this...At my bank, this year, the diversity round filled 1/2 of the class before we started at core schools. Not a critique, nothing like that, but I think that matters more than question difficulty. Deff an uphill battle when 1/2 of the seats are finished before recruiting starts.
But isn't diversity supposed to fill 50% and even more because girls themselves should ideally 50 % plus more for other minorities
At the end of the day, who give a shit?
Some of you waste an awful a lot of time complaining about diversity and shit that has 0 impact on your happiness, performance, compensation, or anything that matters in life. Go read some technical guides, interns. The questions won't answer themselves.
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