Been asked to help with recruiting, but I was curious if any long timers in the industry at IB, PE, or consulting firms actually noticed a change in a company's culture after they hired diversity initiatives. In addition, I was curious if you noticed a change in incoming analyst classes, in terms of race, background, and school, since the start of these programs?
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if the people care about it - yes
if someone gets volun-told to do it - no, they just hire a few top notch black and hispanic kids from Howard and the Ivies and think their work is done
completely depends upon who's implementing the initiatives and the pre-existing culture of the firm.
In your opinion, have there been any banks that have done a great job in terms of implementing their diversity initiative?
Hard to paint a broad brush because while diversity stuff is announced nationally, it’s implemented locally (aside from some major donation or partnership like JP teaming up with kevin hart). So what may be a good diversity initiative at Goldman in Chicago may not do shit when implemented at their Houston office (idk if this is the case, just an example).
the success of diversity initiatives depends on two things, both of which must be present - buy in from the implementers and resources from HQ. You cannot have success with only one, you must have both, and that’s why it’s so hard
I have noticed a significant uptick in female staff, regardless of race/ethnicity. Since female-focused diversity programs have been around longer, they seem to have worked out all the issues and it appears to be effective (don't have any proof whether the program participants are happier/on same pay/whatever).
Regarding URM programs: this is where my own employer, clients and my former companies struggle the most. My own colleague, as a hiring manager, tried engaging with HR on this topic to hire a diverse colleague and the program itself wasn't as clear-cut or with less guidance. One issue in that case was that the diversity candidate was also an international who needed a work permit IN THE FUTURE, which is a moving goalpost no matter in what location. The manager asked for this bit last year and, as you can imagine, the situation has change 10 times by now - both internally and externally from a gov/legal perspective. the only guys who won here were the lawyers.
Incoming new classes are way more diverse than ever before, at least within our client companies. Our own firm is not very diverse because we have weird requirements that almost nobody meets (even domestic staff). We are a non-anglo company though.
culture: I enjoy working with global people who bring a different mindset or a new perspective. Innovation is made like that.
Yeah, I'm sure acquiring work permits makes everything a hassle. Considering you guys are a non-anglo firm, would you say you had a greater-than-average diversity prior to the rise of these diversity programs?
Yes. More diverse than before, but that is mostly in the anglo office locations. so NYC, London, Toronto (we are not strong in South Africa or Australia). The language in each locality is a strong deterrent for immigration generally, I assume? We don't have black, hispanic, asian, etc applicants in Zürich, Stockholm or Frankfurt.
I'm familiar with at least one firm that has a target hiring agenda of 50% non-white males. I'm not saying whether that's good or bad, it's their choice.
Do you think that actually helps diversity, or is it just another case of them picking the best diversity candidates from Ivy League schools, who don't necessarily need diversity help to have gotten the position anyways?
Hiring top tier, diverse talent is really hard right now. There's a ton of opportunities out there - both by forced hiring programs, preference hiring, etc. No one wants to hear it - but it's just the reality.
What I will say you'll see is an expansion of what is a 'target' school - high performers, at smaller schools - lesser well known ones - local schools, etc. Maybe expanding outside of traditional 'majors' and pulling in candidates from other disciplines. That I've seen a bit of.
What I haven't seen - and this is a sample of one - is a reduction of standards. We tend to still manage to hire quality candidates, and in most cases have been able to have a 'diverse' talent pool via a variety of factors... not just race or ethnicity, including those things like majors, interests, backgrounds, etc.
Does it help? I mean - It gets the job done. If you can do it, and not lower the standards that you have for candidates that is. It does begin to beg the question as to discriminatory hiring practices - someone, who is white, will bring a suit against an employer one day (maybe they have - who knows).
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