Diversity in I-banking at Associate Level

Does I-banking industry believe in diversity at associate level? I am aware of inclusions when it comes to hiring analysts from undergrad but what about diversity in hiring from grad programs? By diversity, does it encompass only racial or would an unrelated work background be classified as diversity too? Can people with unrelated backgrounds pursuing MBA break in? I m aware that this is common when it comes to top tiers but what about colleges that are not amongst the top? Are boutique I-banks inclusive and welcoming of diversity??

 

Yes, there are diversity programs that recruit at the MBA level before normal recruiting, and also often extra diversity scholarships to diverse candidates that sign. Pretty sure that literally every bank has that type of program (maybe a few exceptions I'm not aware of?). I got the impression that less of the class is filled via diversity based on how many "diversity" candidates were recruited through the normal process. 

Diversity means anyone besides heterosexual white/asian/indian males. 

Your question about non-top schools doesn't change with respect to diversity. But there are plenty of threads on non-target MBA recruiting if that's what you're curious about. 

 

Non-diversity. What level of school are you talking about here? It sounds like in your scenario you need a bank to recruit at a non-target MBA, take on an applicant with a non-finance background (which is super common btw so don't be too worried about that point), be willing to sponsor an international, and also not get the position through diversity recruiting. 

There are definitely some hills to climb here for you. But at nearly every T-25 school you will get looks by banks, some much more than others. 

 

Yeah, Massive diveristy hiring at the top programs. The bankers on my team who handle their alma maters recruiting generally say the classes are split roughly 80%/20% between male and female (of those who recruit for IB), Theyve said, HR is pushing for the hiring to be 50% male and 50% female which leads to obvious candidate quality control issues given the disparity in applicants. Several of the bankers who manage MBA recruiting for our group are female and even they think this is ridiculus. Yes, they would like to work with more women but not if it sacrfices a bunch on candidate quality, it ends up burdening them and rest of the deal team to carry them in some cases.

 

Yes - diversity, from both a minority and gender perspective, is factored into hiring decisions at all levels at most MM/EB/BB firms. Larger firms (MM/BB/EB) typically have specific mandates for hiring minorities and/or under-represented demographics in an effort to boost representation from said groups. It is quite common for individuals to break into banking through an MBA even with an unrelated background. However, I'd say that most individuals that go to business school and recruit for banking have some sort of business-related experience.

Most banks (MM/EB/BB) will recruit from T-25-ish programs. If you do not have related work experience and decide to pursue and MBA outside of the T-25-ish programs, you may have a tough time breaking into banking. From what I've seen, smaller boutiques (i.e., no-name LMM/MM) do not place much of an emphasis on diversity as these firms are typically very lean.

 

So you are saying smaller boutiques pay attention to your skills and experience more than the diversity criteria? How open are they to hiring internationals given the cut-throat competition for BBs/EBs if they are the right fit for the role?

 

It really depends on what level you expect to come in at. Smaller boutiques have less resources for training etc and expect you to be able to hit the ground running. It's common for people to break into banking at the analyst level coming from semi-related backgrounds. I'd say most small firms don't bother with internationals, assuming you would need a visa and/or need relocation assistance. They'd probably prefer to just recruit local talent and avoid the hassle.

 
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If by diversity you mean racist hiring standards then yes a lot of US companies are currently giving certain groups bumps or dings because of race. No you do not sound like you would be diversity 

 

Yes.

Incidentally, this is why there are so many trainwreck female associates in IB — banks target a 50% female class, but very few (especially at top business schools, where elite consulting and tech jobs are easily tenable) women in their late 20s or early 30s are interested in signing up for four years of late-night PowerPoint. And when you’re trying to fill ~half your seats from ~5% of the pool, standards get lowered. A lot. 

 

This is unfortunately very very true. At my M7 a couple of American women who went into banking literally don't know how to get to EBITDA, or calculate interest coverage (after several finance and accounting classes AND the whole IB recruiting prep), which says a lot about what their superdays looked like compared to ours. The rest are Asian chicks most of whom barely speak English. I am not even kidding, it's kind of sad. Also worth mentioning, they all got several offers and choose top EB/BBs, none of them went to BofA/Citi or below.

 

what is the legitimate rationale for excluding indian/chinese candidates from diversity programs? absolutely ridiculous

 

I understand, but I believe that the premise of striving towards outcome equality (e.g. equal representation for each ethnic group) is illogical. Since recruiting is zero-sum b/w each candidate, these programmes are effectively making it way more difficult for those who they don't consider as minorities. But hey, meritocracy has been dead for a long time and banks will do anything for that bump in ESG rating

 

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