What was recruiting like before 2008?
Hey guys,
I was wondering if you remember what recruiting was like before 2008 and the current recession we are in. I get the impression that banking is difficult to get into regardless of good times or bad times, but I hear a few years ago banks were giving away positions like candy. Back when I started reading this site I saw very few 'No offer, What do I do now" kind of posts and now they are springing up all over. I'm curious to hear your impressions about how difficult it was to get in both banking and consulting before the current market meltdown. How much easier was it?
- monkey
apparently in the boom years of 05-07, close to 25% of harvard's graduating class would go to finance + consulting. basically suggesting that if you were at a top target and wanted a job in those industries, it was there for the taking. obviously not everybody ended up at GS or MBB, but yeah, things have become a lot more difficult.
It was 10x easier. Still difficult on an absolute basis, but much much easier.
Not only were summer analyst and full-time classes bigger, there were more players (i.e. Lehman, Bear, and Merrill) to apply to and choose from.
Many of the top 10 schools were sending roughly a quarter of their graduating class to finance-related fields.
A friend at a BB S&T group in NY said that in the boom years they would get 250-300 applications from the school he was in charge of recruiting for, and then they would hire around 5 summer interns.
This year he said applications were down to around 50 from that school and they only took 1 person for the summer.
So on paper the odds are theoretically about the same, but the difference is that those 50 people are much more serious / well-qualified than the 250-300 who applied in previous years.
Back then if you were at a core recruiting school you could kind of just BS your way in and maybe you wouldn't end up at GS or MS, but you would probably get something. These days, lots of students at core schools are surprised that they have to actually network their asses off to have a shot at getting in, which is one of the topics we've been covering in recent presentations.
I find it hard to believe that only 50 people dropped their resume from one school for a BB.
Yeah I find that very, very strange. Most BBs saw a relatively stable # of applications...
I know we did on average (even though we had ~1/8th as many positions). I expect that next year we'll see a drop in applications (although it will still be much more competitive than last year)
1/8th? those people with internships are going to look like rockstars for full time
I remember as a freshman, some of the seniors were making fun of their friends getting a job at Jeffries. Now everyone (including me) would have given their left nut to get a job there.
40% of the 2007 graduating class at MIT went into finance or consulting.
Right now I think most BBs are taking 1-2 summer analyst juniors.
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