How is it that so many Social Science/Humanities grads in the UK are able to recruit into IB?
A friend of mine works in IB in the UK. While nearly all of his fellow associates have undergrad degrees from the usual institutions (LSE/Oxbridge etc.) in the usual fields (Econ, Finance etc.), a good handful also come from backgrounds in philosophy and political science, among others.
How is that the case in the UK, but not so much in the USA? Does the UK just do that much more on the job training, such that a related background isn't really required?
Just curious.
Interviews are motivational and behavioural for the most part. Usually only technical if the background warrants it. At my bank, interviewers tend to adjust their interview questions to the background of the person they're interviewing, because in the end it's what you learn on the job that counts.
No idea why but most of the people interning at the HF i'm going to tend to not be finance/econ types either.
The US is like that too. The better your school is, the less your major matters. There were no shortage of CS, English, history, poli sci, psych and even urban planning majors (I didn’t even know this was a major) in my BB group.
Realistically, you forget 95% of what you learned in undergrad within a few months. That’s why firms are willing to take chances on people who are smart but don’t have finance-specific knowledge.
Common enough in the US too. If you go to a top-tier school, you can major in just about anything. If you go to a non-target you have better chances doing finance or econ.
It's not like comp sci where you need 4 years of coding training - finance undergrad is usually more theory-based than Excel, so not super relevant to on-the-job tasks. If someone is smart and willing to take some time to learn technicals, they can do very well in banking.
They don't want 50 analysts who all have done the same modules, but rather that have a range of skills/interests.
While Econ is very popular, not all top unis do a course in Finance (LSE and that's only recent) for the target schools in the UK
The finance modules tend to be unrelated to the job of a banker but rather extremely technical maths content (with some key finance concepts that are relied on as fundamentals). All in all, not so useful for technicals but still brings a higher expectation from the interviewer
Even the pre-programme training provided by the banks is hardly useful to the actual job... so not surprised that they wouldn't rely on degree background as a proxy for ability as a banker
Perhaps more impressive when someone has managed to keep up with the econ/finance majors in an internship/interview process when they themselves are of a different academic background
Our oxbridge recruits are almost never from a finance/econ background. often philosophy.
I think companies also want a diverse field of staff.
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