Arguably, aren’t you getting less polished candidates? If the process was later, people have matured more and have experienced more college. I don’t understand pushing it basically to freshman summer (for networking). People change their minds, and people who might realize they do/don’t want to do IB after a little while get screwed. I feel like forcing students to decide so early only will increase flight risk.
| +38 | Interns - AI usage, don’t put yourself out of a job | 6 | 2d |
| +20 | How Do I Make Friends During My SA? | 10 | 10h |
| +18 | What’s something you wish you knew before applying for internships? | 2 | 5d |
| +13 | Forced into FP&A | 2 | 4d |
| +12 | spring week cv advice | 1 | 9h |
| +11 | Seeking Career Advice | 3 | 2d |
| +9 | Addressing Transfer Status for Recruiting | 0 | 59m |
| +9 | Are Traditional Job Boards Becoming Obsolete in the Age of AI? | 1 | 3d |
| +9 | FT Recruiting – Profile Check & Advice | 1 | 5d |
| +6 | Rising sophomore trying to pivot to finance | 0 | 15s |
Career Resources
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
To add, I feel like the better, more well rounded candidates (that I know of) end up doing worse, and the hardos that no one wants to work with do better.
The problem is they don’t want cool, likeable candidates. Assuming most will leave after 2-4 years, the seniors are only looking for robots who knew they wanted to do IB since high school.
Then why do people complain about culture? Who would want to work with someone like that?
don't apply then. the candidates are desperate so the supply is there. nothing changes.
The people in charge don’t care about culture, they are the ones who create bad culture. And they know you’re leaving in two years anyway
this is true. They are not recruiting the future CEOs of the firm. They are recruiting high-quality slaves for a short term.
That’s sad
What’s shocking me is that when equity research and wealth management are opening now too
Yeah we should just start recruiting kids in 9th grade to really get the best talent
i'm a senior rn in college and last year i knew a fellow junior who landed an IB SA offer and dude was studying LBOs to prepare for his PE exit opps in a consulting project class already. i just rolled my eyes cuz like some people have no chill and that dude was no fun to talk with lol. it was honestly a bit depressing to see that and i do think in that sense, going to a boutique/mm where people tend to stay as career bankers have much nicer culture, and those have much nicer recruiting cycles as well.
while many of the people who chose their college majors based on money have switched from business/finance to computer science, it also leaves a large ratio of wannabe PE/HF bros left in the finance circle.
I think the money chasers have switched away from CS. CS is one of the highest unemployment rate majors even at top schools. Frankly, it's significantly easier to get a BB/EB IB job than it is to get a FAANG offer in this economy and over the past year ago at least at my target school. I am aware it might be different for other schools, but either way both FAANG and IB realistically recruit from a similar tier of school so should be fairly relevant to overall candidate perception. Some finance targets aren't CS targets like NYU and vice-versa like UIUC but most of the target schools essentially overlap.
Agree generally that more and more hardos are being selected, think junior alums are trying to select fewer hardos but given how early it is we are forced to have a candidate stack filled with full-on hardos whose parents/relatives either did finance or knew they wanted to do it since high school. We are also doing more on-campus stuff as a result to reach out to less hairdo's but it's hard given how early the process is and how many non-hardos either don't know about the process or don't bother because they think they are too far behind (rarely actually the case).
i largely agree with you on everything you said, but i don't think we're going to see a stop in the growth of cs majors (or adjacent one like data science) soon. tech is still marketed as much more accessible to the majority, unlike high finance with requires going to top schools and not to mention it's a lot more complex to prep for multiple finance roles rather than just grinding leetcode which lets you apply to 100+ swe internships. not to mention the constant talk of ai boom helps market it as well, although it's a bubble that can pop soon. and anyways, even if the cs major stops growing, what will those cs majors do? i doubt majority of them wish to deal with finance as the recruitment process isn't much less toxic, and i doubt they have the patience to deal with being premed or prelaw.
i am curious, when you say some people don't bother to participate in the process because they feel far behind, what's the max you think somebody can catch up?
Recruiting captain for my school at what this forum would consider an "elite boutique" bank (for reference on my POV).
We understand this makes candidates worse. We know roughly the peer group of banks we play in and understand that it roughly comes down to;
1. There are banks we beat, if we give offers to candidates before them.
2. There are some banks we beat if we give offers concurrently (i.e. candidate chooses between us and them).
3. Some banks we beat no matter what the offer timeline is.
We match our timelines to be in the categories of 2 and 3 mainly since we would prefer not to pressure someone into signing our offer (leaves bad taste in people's mouth + end up coming away with lots of FT recruiting / renegs so yield lowers). Not every banks seems the same and incentives to be ready to match on 2 and 3 mean that everyone should be ready to go when others are. Weak/imperfect signaling between banks + everyone being jumpy + banks that try to go in category 1 to "punch up" in hiring pushes it up.
To be honest there are very few qualities that *really* make candidates stick out. Almost everyone has a pretty similar understanding of industry and technicals. I'd say ~5% of the candidates are truly truly unique (i.e. come in with a strong coverage industry draw, has a unique background/POV, understand finance at a very deep intrinsic level, very connected, etc AND good soft skills). Its pretty obvious when we come across them and those are the candidates that get multiple offers and we compete for them. To be honest most other top candidates are good (in a check the box kind of way), but come off humble and have ppl at the firm who liked them. We look at markets / M&A all day so it comes off clunky when people try to act overtly smart (especially to MDs/Partners who have been in the business forever). At the end of the day analysts are basically all replaceable and have very little business impact since we're execution based and most people will leave after 2 years (myself included). I don't think people really care about how good a candidate is as long as they're driven enough to try hard and hit a basic bar of can do technicals (300 pages of guides to get a $220K+ job out of college...).
Given your background, could you shed more color on those 5% of candidates you referenced? Especially in soft skills, what separates those exceptional few from the rest who are still well-liked within the firm?
The best candidates are often:
- Genuinely excited to come into the chat (not in an obnoxious way, but energy is infectious, and if you come in bored think about how we feel)
- Interested in the IB (very obvious when someone asks canned questions vs the ones that have genuine things they are trying to learn/POV that only a banker could provide instead of what is online)
- Have done their homework (even something like reading my LinkedIn and pointing to experiences in common or asking questions about my past, is helpful since there's a reason you're talking to me instead of any other person)
- Humble (you'd be surprised the amount of candidates that try to show off. We do this stuff everyday so we arent really impressed by any of the knowledge and it comes off pretty sad when candidates try to "flex". We always appreciate candidates who come in with the POV of "I don't know as much, so let me see what I can learn and be humble". Especially applicable to chats w/ senior bankers.
- Basic etiquette (good communication skills, prompt responses, not misspelling name / noting wrong bank, etc -- that basics)
The 5% candidates are all/most of the above *and* have some strong draw. I'd say maybe 70% of candidates are just the above but no super strong draw otherwise. The remaining 25% just don't check any of the boxes and are easily not considered.
220k?
Id aperiam aut ipsum numquam tempora repellendus quo. Sint fugiat quo sed aut quia ut sed. Rerum excepturi velit porro laudantium suscipit commodi.
Architecto adipisci voluptas unde nihil mollitia. Omnis eligendi nostrum placeat qui inventore.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...