Landed BB SA Offer for Asia Pacific Office
Hello! I've been on this site for a few months and gained a lot of basic exposure to the interview process for Investment Banking and Management Consulting. I was very fortunate with the process and have received an SA offer from a BB for their Asia Pacific office a few weeks ago. I have a few hours to spare today and would like to take this opportunity to answer any questions that you might have!
My background:
- Attending U.S. Target School, pursuing an undergraduate degree in economics
- Average GPA (~3.0 - 3.5)
- Recruited for both BB's and MBB
- Proficient (but not completely fluent in Mandarin Chinese)
Congrats on your offer! I just have a few questions in mind:
How do BBs (and EBs for that matter) view applicants recruiting for both SA positions in Asia and Europe? Is GPA as scrutinized for Asia Pacific SA positions as NY SA? If not, what other factors might come into play? Would you say being Asian ethnicity is a big advantage for Asia Pacific recruiting?
@"lebroke"
Thanks for the questions! To answer your questions: 1) Many BB's (and MBBs for that matter) restrict candidates to limit their SA application to one region. Although they have you put down your three geographical preferences when applying for SA positions, I have barely heard of students getting interviews for both US and Asia. However, there are BBs (such as Credit Suisse) that do not have such restrictions. There are also BB's that let you re-select your geographical preferences when they invite you to Superdays. As you can see, it is slightly different between each BB, but for the most case they only consider you for one location. I also don't have much exposure to recruiting for Europe, as not that many students go for that option here in the US.
2) Yes, GPA definitely plays less of a role. When we recruit for US offices, we go through on campus recruiting. For on campus recruiting, they usually limit their first round interviews to a small number of candidates. Because of that, GPA becomes a bigger factor when it comes to screening people. The other factor that contributes to the lesser emphasis on GPA is the size of the applicant pool. When you apply to Asia Pacific offices, there are less candidates applying, which means it's usually easier to get first rounds.
Other key factors include your proficiency in the local language: for investment banking at least, many of your clients are domestic clients. Therefore, the pitch books and financial statements would be in local languages. As SAs, proficiency in local language is almost a must. Of all of my peers within my school that got BB SA offers in Asia Pacific, they all speak the local languages fluently.
3) Not necessarily. All candidates that I interviewed with for Asia Pacific offices were all Asian students, but that's mainly because most local language speakers were Asian students. However, if you are a foreigner who is fluent w/ the local language, it should not stop the firm from hiring you.
Let me know if that answers your questions!
Congrats!! Hard work definitely paid off
@justacollegestudent
I just have some other questions,
-SInce a lot of students are applying for Asia-pacific SA positions in their second year due to having three year degrees, how would HR view U.S students wanting to do their soph summer internships? I know a fair amount of people who did this instead of having to compete for uber-competive official soph BB SA positions.
@"lebroke"
Great question! From my experience, if a student is actually graduating in three years, that should not be a problem, as the student would be junior standing student before entering the internship and potential returning full-time a year later. However, if a student is a sophomore who has no way of graduating in three years, then that would be a problem. If a candidates lied about his/her class status, it would usually come up in background check process.
congrats!
Do you know anything about how Japanese offices view non-Japanese applicants? I have some friends who speak fluent Japanese who might be interested (I'm targeting the NYC region and I speak no Japanese, so I can't provide much help to them).
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