How do you create ‘control’ in London recruiting?
Would genuinely appreciate advice from people who have gone through London recruiting recently because I’m getting increasingly worried about how much of the process seems completely HR/CV driven.
Background:
- American student
- “Lower tier Ivy so to speak” undergrad
- 3.54 GPA (honestly my biggest insecurity here)
- Didn’t recruit for IB in the US during undergrad
- Relevant Finance Clubs on Campus (not part of any exclusive team)
- Internships in M&A consulting (Big 4) in europe, corporate finance in usa
- Around 1 year of full-time experience at a relatively large AUM hedge fund focused on securitization / structured products by the time I start my masters
- Going to a top target master’s in London (Oxford/LSE/LBS)
I’ve already started networking aggressively for London IB SA 2027 and one thing I keep hearing over and over, even from people in chats, is that first rounds at BB/EBs in London are much more HR-driven than networking-driven compared to the US. Basically:
- CV screen
- online assessments/IQ games/pymetrics
- maybe HireVue
- then first round
And that networking mainly helps later on rather than getting you the interview itself.
In the US, networking at least feels like an input you can control. In London, it almost sounds like you could network your ass off and still get auto-rejected before a human even really advocates for you.
I’m taking out loans to do this master’s, so naturally I’m thinking about downside risk a lot. I’m willing to grind hard and network heavily, but I honestly don’t know if my CV is “competitive enough” on paper for London BB/EB SA recruiting given the GPA and non-traditional background.
Would appreciate honest opinions from people who have actually recruited there on how I can execute recruiting well, and what things I can control and maybe add to my profile.
Not looking for reassurance, just trying to calibrate reality before taking on a lot of debt. I am far from being a risk averse person, but would also not take a negative RR bet.
I think you shoot and pray.
That's the best part - you don't.
London is a lot more random. There is not much people "pushing" your CV.
Random shit like hirevues, tests, application questions matters more.
Tbf its solely up to HRs like nowdays everyone knows how to pass OAs and ppl hv access to HV questions in advance so it rlly comes down to one's CV/Profile/Demographics etc and UK HRs like signals for dei/early interest(basically dei/socmob exclusive events)/prestigous HS etc
The only thing you can control is the timing. Apply the day offers are posted. Do hireviews/OA the day you received them. And just pray.
thanks for the advice. TO your knowledge, are hireviews looked at by real people or is it some AI thing? I've heard in the US at least nobody looks at your hirevue unless you have been flagged for an interview by someone inside.
Might depend of the bank, but for GS for example it's reviewed by real people. Probably the same for MS. Treat it like a real interview and you'll be fine.
In the UK it is shortlisted by AI and DEI / Socmob / whatever BS criteria they have and ppl review it.
Are you competitive?
I am trying this year with:
Big4 Audit, Transaction Services, Valuation, M&A as well as LMM M&A and infrastructure investing experience.
Best business school in the country, GPA is like upper 12% there. Now starting masters there too, same university.
I will share here later what I got, feel free to reach out and talk / update during recruiting.
DEI
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