How do referrals really work from the inside?
Networking is stressed to get your resume pushed, and it is clear that it has an impact but is there anyone on the inside that can provide insight into the mechanics of it. Does HR wait for a quantity of referrals? If you have the worse experience, does HR look for more networking? Can one analyst pull someone through?
I'm sure its different across all banks, but I have always disliked how much of a black box this process has been and think it could have been a lot easier if I was able to cater my networking to what banks look for.
Process various a lot depending on firm size (BB/EB/Boutiques) I’d assume as well as school priority (target/semi-target/non-target) at my EB it usually goes like this (hr is barely involved except help scheduling stuff). Aside from diversity recruiting its not a “rolling basis” we wait till x date to get all the resumes in and then deliberate.
Target school: OCR get a stack of resumes the relevant alumni (usually juniors as seniors dont really care) pick top 15-20 kids to interview for first rounds through usually an internal email chain or sitdown for 30min-1hr. Now if you networked your name will standout and get an interview. Of course say you networked with an MD and he/she refers you to us, we’ll probably interview you to not piss the MS off
Semi-target: same concept except # of applicants probably to interview less (probably half or less than half of target)
Non-target: after going through target/semi-target recruiting we get a huge batch (200-300 resumes) and we then select top 20-30 kids to interview. Now if an analyst refers you here, you’ll have a good chance to standout.
Hope this helps and gives you a little bit of color
If you network correctly, you won't even be in the stack. Your resume will already be in the group for interview.