MSc Fin LSE - Bad Placement lately?

Hey guys,

I'm planning to attend the LSE MSc Fin in September. I come from a non-EU country and my goal is to land a IB SA/OC/FT after graduation and stay in the UK for a couple of years with the new visa.

I have a very good concept about LSE and I thought it would be the best option to land an IB role in London. However, after a quick Linkedin search, I was concerned to see that most of the MSc Fin candidates from recent years were not in IB. In fact, several have not updated their profiles after graduation and I would say that only 10% of the profiles I checked were able to land an IB SA/OC after graduation. (I'm not considering candidates who had a SA prior to their Master´s)

While I am not expecting that this Master's will spoonfeed me a SA/OC role after graduation, it was dissapointing to see these numbers.

 My biggest concern is that recruiters/BBs are not calling MFin students as much as they used to. I would be fine as long as I get interviews. But if these MFin candidates are struggling to get interviews, I would be very concerned. One of my first thoughts was that perhaps recruiters are preferring LSE undergraduates instead

I wonder if anyone had additional information about this, I would appreciate any insight. Maybe LSE MFin placement is still good and it was just a sample bias when using Linkedin,or maybe not all the LSE MFin kids want a role in IB

Thanks in advance,

 

Any degree having 10% placement is probably good (although I'm including undergrads here too, unsure about MFins, maybe something like LBS MFA is much higher and LSE is genuinely lagging behind). Its tough out in the recruiting world, every finance and economics grad is going to be applying, what makes you stand out? Why do you stand out more than the Biochemist who can answer all the interview questions as capably as you can they also have a more unique "why IB" story which incorporates their non-standard background? Only so many finance/econ spots available out there, and there's about 3000+ of you applying. Also worth noting that 10% get into IB, maybe a third of that 10% end up at quality banks.

Good luck to you though.

 

Spring Weeks are taking up more and more spots for SA, which makes the placement for MSc programs lower across the board. Lazard for instance doesn't offer typical IB SA program anymore because it fills up its class from Spring Weeks.

 
Most Helpful

MFin Alum here, couple of things to highlight:

-As mentioned previously, a top MSc will not spoonfeed you a top IB position, no programme in Europe can do that. In terms of reputation, LSE is still at the very top, together with LBS and Oxford

-SA positions are primarily filled with diversity/spring week candidates these days, and FT roles are mostly filled with SA interns. One feeds into the other, which means that a lot of MSc students miss out on these opportunities, though that is true for virtually all graduate programmes

-LSE's career service has declined substantially in recent years, being virtually completely useless now, outside of a few exclusive job opportunities at the likes of Centerview/CVC/Bain Cap that are posted on the LSE job board. I believe LBS/HEC have a leg up here compared to Oxford MFE / LSE MFin

-Competition has become increasingly fierce and banks are more and more hiring 50% of their class through diversity buckets. If you don't have a damn good reason why you are a more desirable candidate than the 15,000 (not even exaggerating) candidates that applied for this position (e.g. through previous internships or by being from a ....desirable group), then it's always going to be an uphill battle

All in all, LSE gives you an advantage over virtually any other school in Europe. However, this only makes a minor difference if the odds were already significantly stacked against you in the first place

 

All of this is correct and through my own experience at LBS, I would only add one thing. Those who come in the programme with strong profiles (previous experience in IB/PE/HF/real VC) find it a lot easier. Those who speak European languages (French/Italian/German) find it a lot easier. These people already have the relevant skills and the knowledge from the masters makes them even better. Those who somehow got in without front-office internship experience typically struggle.

In summary, I would say that the level of education at these places has not really dropped. The negative impact on placement comes from diversity recruitment. It really shook up things and each leading university/business school is affected differently. Something to think about is whether banks will tone down diversity efforts in the next 1-2 recruitment seasons. 

 

Diversity recruiting is not why the majority of you are failing to secure roles. As an EMEA IBD analyst, the overwhelming majority of my class is still white and male. A few diversity hires get spring/SA but they rarely convert. It's not diversity, it's simply a significant increase in the level of competition.  Maybe it's different in the US.

Re LSE: What did you expect? Everyone and their dog at LSE is applying for IBD.  From where I'm sitting, 10%+ is great placement for a field that routinely chucks 95% of applicants, especially from THE university for getting into IB. Ultimately, if you can't do it from LSE MFin, you probably wouldn't have done it from any other program (Ox maybe?).

 

Do you have anything in your profile that would make you stand out? I’d argue being invited to interviews would likely be harder than actually standing out. Just due to the sheer amount of applicants likely from LSE Undergrad and Postgrad and firms only wanting to take a certain amount from a given school.

 

I think the above posters are spot on. I am an international student with good internships who will be pursuing a non-finance masters at LSE this year, but still trying for IB. If recruitment were to work in a way in which banks go out to find the most technically adept kids who can build the best financial models, recruiting for first year IB analyst would have started after HBS/Stanford MBA lmao. I think that the banks themselves decide on the composition of the incoming cohort well in advance of even receiving CV's for the roles. They probably scope the talent pool and then decide on x% minority kids, y% international kids, z% from MSc, rest from UG etc. 
So, I guess securing LSE MFin will only get you to the final round just before the interview stages as your CV/application at that point will be judged against other MFin candidates only. I maybe dead wrong, but if it didn't work this then we would surely see close to 70% of LSE MFin class in IB which is not the case. 

 

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