London Job Market – Worse than 2008?

How bad is the London FT job market right now? I am a final-year Oxbridge STEM student and was at a US BB this past summer. I have been applying to every Summer Internship, Full-Time or Off-Cycle role I can find this year and have received a grand total of 4 interviews. This is across IBD, Management Consulting and Quant Trading. Can someone from the inside please let me know when the market is expected to pick up? And to what extent has grad headcount at your firm been cut by? I was getting 10x the number of interviews last year with significantly worse experience.

 
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Yep, it's pretty bad but can't comment on 2008 comparison. For reference, most BBs have hiring freeze and the odd lateral hire needs to be absolutely necessary and requires multiple central approvals to go fwd. Same for EBs although these places are more flexible and can move faster in terms of headcount approvals. YTD hiring in most banks (exl. PJT / Laz / EVR) has been almost exclusively from grad programmes. PJT & EVR snapped a few CS people but that's it. From conversations I've had with seniors at some banks seems that consensus for meaningfull pick up in hiring is around late Q2 24. That said, last couple months there was some hiring in MM banks but again quite limited. No view on SA classes but wouldn't be surprised if classes are smaller and conversions lower.

 

Heard from a senior that when he started 80% of the grad class got laid off when the GFC hit, compared to that this is sunshine still.

 

Not a recruiter, but i've been through the process this cycle and have talked to a lot of ppl this year at events on how they've been finding to it. I applied to around 70 firms in risk, only had one AC and thank god it went well. I've talked to other people that have applied to about 150 roles in IB, S&T, just spamming trackers and have only gotten 1 or 2 ACs.  I read something the other week on Bloomberg that said grad job posting in England are down 40% in the past three years?  Honestly it just seems like a lot of luck right now. I hope it works out for you.

 

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