How do RO discussions work?

Currently wrapping up SA internship and have had friends wrap up theirs (with and without offers). Just confused on what these processes look like on the other side of things (obviously varies by bank, but would imagine some consistency across the board)

Heard generally it looks like: full-timers on your deal teams fill out review forms about you, if there's any negative feedback then it all gets hashed out in a conference room, and then offers are distributed. But it seems to be more complicated than that: How does the school and recruiting pipeline come into play? Are there people who are not even worth discussing (i.e. definite noes)? 

For example, a friend just finished in a generalist program and the people they worked with said they were "hoping" he'd be there next year. What does this mean? Aren't they the ones directly deciding if he does or doesn't, and wouldn't they know for sure whether or not he'd be there? 

3 Comments
 

First of all, your school doesn’t matter once you’re in the internship. I’m sure there are some exceptional cases, but generally the internship recruiting process acts as a filter and it would be stupid to make return offer decisions based on someone’s university.

As to why people say they “hope” their interns come back, it’s probably because they don’t know if there will be headcount available. Usually HR has the final word on headcount for generalist intake programs; desks will submit their “recommend for hire” decisions but if there isn’t room in the program you might be out of luck.

 

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