Recruitment Incentives

Hello Guys.

I attended an interview today for an Entry Level Investment Management role through OCR. It was at a British firm that not many of you would recognise. The firm isn't particularly glamourous and isn't even based in London.

One of the questions I asked at interview was about the ratio of applications to available positions. They replied that they had recieved close to 5000 applicaitons for 8 positions.

I find this incredible. The firm had visited Oxford, Cambridge, the LSE, Warwick and a few Scottish campuses. The positions had also been plastered all over the internet as well.

Now, why would a firm place so much effort into recruitment when they only have 8 positions? Say, for arguments sake, that half of these positions were to be filled by candidates pesonally known to existing employees, then that leaves thousands of candidates to fight over a few places.

Does anyone else agree that campus recruitment for firms is simply a brand building exercise and that recruitment is merely a secondary concern? What is their incentive?

Do they realise that student sentiment is partially responsible for creating and supporting the 'prestige' of a firm? Are they trying to utilise this?