DB HR Recommends Exploring "Summer Alternatives" for SA
Along with the frustrated incoming DB interns in the other thread, I have reached out to HR multiple times for feedback on current plans. In my latest call, I pushed further asking about the potential alternatives for us. After breaking past the BS, she made an offhand comment on preparing "summer alternatives" in the event SA is disrupted. I followed up asking if this meant in terms of housing/technology or the entire internship itself but she kept being vague. I know when they shut down their Houston office, they gave no notice to the incoming SA and canceled their internship with only the offer to interview for FT.
Maybe I am reading too much into this, but I do not understand why they can't give us a straight answer less than 10 weeks before the internship was supposed to start? I am hoping for the best, but honestly am starting to creating a backup plan.
Not a good sign. Getting nervous and search for back up plans
Is seems like the issue is... did she say they're exploring alternatives? Or she was advising you to explore alternatives?
Highly doubt that they would say the former. Definitely need the OP to clarify but highly doubt it. HR probably meant alternatives in the sense of doing a virtual program like PWC possibly
You mean "highly doubt that they would say the latter?
Just a FYI - when they closed HTX office, they moved all interns / incoming to other offices.
This is 100% not true. Had an incoming SA friend who was left to dry. Also talked to multiple analysts in the office who got laid off, without getting the chance to relocate.
So they didn't move any interns at all to other offices or just some didn't get moved?
That's just f'in awful. Even the smallest of boutiques shouldn't do that (at the very least, let the kids intern for free so at least they can put it on their damn resume.)
100% not true. very good friend was given nothing. their intern pay was eventually paid out, but that was decided about a month after they were hung out to dry.
this was a summer associate.
There must be DB analysts here furiously spreading BS and throwing MS
Fact of the matter is DB gave zero notice until right before the internship, shut down the office and left all the interns hanging. LinkedIn was flooded with posts from UT kids trying to find a last minute internship. Pretty sure a few went viral and still should be public if you search for it.
You killed me with this post.
All right, cancel the internship. I don't give a fuck. But they damn better hand out FT offers.
DCM guy, I feel for ya... you seem pretty stressed out about all this. Can't blame you -- every day, you hear news from other, smaller shops... and DB just doesn't seem to care.
Honestly I'm not that stressed but I like cursing online lol
This sounds really bad, I hope the OP meant the bank is exploring different options and not that the HR person told HIM to explore alternative options.
Well he never confirmed what he said when he meant summer alternatives. He probably misinterpreted their tone
Doesn't seem bad at all to me. Seems like HR is using the same vague language all the other banks were using a month ago.
I would not trust DB at all. At my business school (A top US bschool) a couple of years ago - when there was no global recession round the corner - HR at DB had rescinded the offer of some of my classmates for unknown reasons...I canT even imagine what they’ll do in this era
UCLA Anderson?
Hmm NO. When did Anderson become a top school...
Pretty sure OP is just reading into the standard “alternative option” response banks have been giving otherwise db is just going to completely ruin the last bit of reputation it has left
to be fair it's not like Christian Sewing gives a shit about Wall Street reputation anyway. The man hates investment bankers...
...
Just got off a call with HR for DB SA in London. Still very minimal information provided which is getting quite frustrating as other banks have already made decisions regarding summer internships. It seems for now they are going by the assumption that the internship will go as planned (in person) while still monitoring the situation for alternatives. I find it difficult to believe that an in person internship will happen especially when considering that people will have to travel from all around the world to attend. HR said that we will be getting more information next week, although they said the same thing last week... Any further insights are welcome!
I know you said she was vague. But if you remember in a bit more detail what she said, it might be helpful to provide that additional detail. Could've meant a lot of different things.
Also, be careful calling up HR. If you're just doing the occasional email every other week that's fine. But a weekly call on the other hand would be annoying. Not saying you fall in that camp but just watch it. End of summer decisions can be hard. I've sat in a few of those roundtables, including one that lasted hours bc of tough calls. And there's nothing we appreciated more than someone who gave us an excuse to cut.
Damn, this is interesting. Do you mind expanding on what was being talked about during the hour long deliberation?
Everyone knows there’s a small handful of people in the summer class who are easy cuts and won’t get an offer. In a class of 30 maybe there’s 2-3 of those or 5 at most. So if HR tells you we’re making 24 offers out of 30, and 3 are easy cuts, you know right away you’ll be dinging 3 more that are good. And you know that won’t feel good.
So how do you pick those 3. I suppose you could try to split hairs and figure out the 3 “least strong” people. But that feels close to random, I mean can they be much less strong than the last person who made the cut? Unlikely.
What makes it easier is to see if there’s an excuse to drop someone. This guy didn’t have the best attitude, that guy was annoying to HR, etc.
As for how those meetings go. In my experience the summer staffers say these dozen interns had pristine reviews so unless anyone objects now, they get offers. Then these 3 had problematic reviews so unless anyone objects now, they’re dinged. For everyone else, let’s go name by name, we’ll read the pros and cons from the reviews for each name. And then each person is discussed, and a few iterations of pulling people from that group to put them into the offer bucket or no offer bucket.
they cant tell you what you want because plans haven't been made yet. they are still deciding what to do
DB SA London and HR have said they're fully committed to holding the programme as promise, but they are looking at start date possibilities, whatever that means
Good sign?
this is a good sign. did they mention anything about remote work?
No, but they 100% said they're considering "possibilities with start date" - so like insinuating that they may have flexibility in start date. They haven't considered anything remote but they have all their employees working remote, and that they are functioning nearly as normal.
What are your thoughts?
Btw I'm fairly certain they are considering virtual internships (but why would they tell us before making the decision?)
Great
Think this means it could be a shortened programme with a later start date, possibly end of July - end August? And hopefully in-person
Considering the fact that they haven’t updated any plans to substitute the placement day most importantly is pretty suspicious.
Think about this for a second:
“Do not book any flights or accommodations” = even though DB’s internships should technically begin in a little over a month on June 1st like other Wall Street banks, this means they’re not projecting an in-person on the original start date. It takes people a pretty good amount of time to try to find flights and accommodations especially if this is an international bank... So this definitely confirms it will be a virtual start, push start date, or complete cancellation.
They sent out a statement to all groups from NY office to SG office stating their plan is in progress and will be updated soon = there is a collective decision being made on virtually all groups/desks. Aka there is an underlying issue/concern aside from covid itself that is making the overall bank question whether or not it is feasible to conduct the internship program. If virtual was such an easy option, they would not hesitate to move forward with that outlet like other BB’s and not wait so last minute for that statement.
DB has had a history of closing shop and letting go of employees and interns with no hesitation or prior information. That just goes to show they will make decisions discreetly through upper management and execute hastily after a decision has been made. This means if you were to find out any new updates about the internship program, there’s a pretty good chance it will happen at the very last minute. Be ready to wait a little longer.
Looking at the overall culture and past history of the firm *(ex: how they previously made decisions, group performance.. etc) * you can pretty much tell that DB is trying to hold this out for as long as they can while at the same time keeping their options open for the sake of their bank and not for you.
Just being realistic here. Keep your options open and prepare for the worst; no one is safe from this bullshit.
Literally only 2 BBs have moved to fully virtual, and the Europeans in general have not said much. Chill.
Lmao you are overthinking it bro. It will be fine.
Yeaaaaah no
Just got off a long call with HR (APAC). They're finalizing things and most likely we'll hear by end of week/next week. Indicated that it's very likely we'll have late start + virtual internship and changes to "assessment for graduate opportunities" (obvs didn't go into detail but I suppose that means there wil be more interviews/projects after the summer/end of summer to access who gets a return offer? HR also said summer interns "will be prioritized for 2021 hiring" - sounds like auto FT is off the table? :/ ). Also mentioned possibility of a Plan A + Plan B. Whatever decision they make will most likely be implemented globally, and that things are changing so rapidly that they want to remain "flexible".
Thank you for the update. APAC incoming intern too, but IBD. Is this applied to IBD as well?
I would assume "assessment for graduate opportunities" could be more about projects like those they had in previous years? I believe our interview process was basically identical to the graduate one, and I even had a regional head as my interviewer, so what's the point of having interviews again?
Anyways it's good to hear something from them.
Just hopped on the phone again for some clarification cuz this whole thing is driving me nuts lol. Nothing is finalized yet but HR raised examples of maybe additional interviews or evaluation based on projects or even additional events (I'm guessing like a supersized insight day? Or like an ultra intensive networking thing?). Anyway HR said all this stuff will be addressed in the announcement due this/next week. oh and also decisions will most likely be aligned across business lines i.e. probably IBD too
Btw, which office u at bro?
side note: totally agree that more interviews are basically redundant. But then HR mentioned hiring needs across teams will most likely be drastically different between 1H20 and 2H20 sooooooo maybe diff interviews w/ diff people? idk
when can we expect the app to b updated?
The app is trash. They just promote their own bullshit on it. No useful data whatsoever
i swear to god if any employee reads what you post (or any of the other dramatic complaint posts here), they're going to beg upper management to cancel internships because they'd rather screw everyone over than risk hiring someone as obnoxious as you
HR does their job and promotes firm content to incoming interns: the horror
also, how would you even define useful data? daily updates from Christian Sewing and livestreams of their decision-making process? a weekly announcement that says we're all getting FT offers?
the app ain't much but at least it shows u who's in ur intern class and how many peeps are there - to me at least thats pretty useful
I think the fact is that ur just an immature fucking tool ranting online because his future employer's app for interns won't reveal confidential information
Why did you even accept the offer if you hate them so much? They are communicating weekly with us and being very helpful, much more than other banks.
.
Been 2 weeks since the last app updates...any news
think we'll hear something monday...hopefully
Lol it been "sometime next week" for almost 2 months now
On Wednesday, after the q1 earnings announcement there's a call scheduled for incoming FT... Guess there'll be some news
Isn't that a bit ominous? Why else would they wait until right after the q1 earnings
Agreed. From what’s been on the news lately with company cuts happening after conference calls etc, this sounds unpromising. Hopefully I’m wrong though. Best of luck man, keep us posted.
how do you know that there's a call scheduled for incoming FT on Wednesday, and how do you know that its after the q1 earnings announcement?
Source: email from hr. For the q1 earnings announcement see website. Call is scheduled that afternoon, from this point my conclusion. Fingers crossed.
hopefully good news for these guys
Have no idea what to expect (I'm not a banker), but it does say they expect to beat expectations: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-26/deutsche-bank-expect…
Just got that. Are they still going to be cutting folks? Still dont know why they want to have a call.
HR had a call with the SAs London a couple of weeks ago. They basically fielded questions, concerns etc.
lmao how does beating expectations make you think anything about interns
exactly. I dont think it's possible that just because they beat q1 estimates then they'll hand out auto FT offers to everyone
Internship is 100% happening. It will be fully virtual though and much shorter. Check the DB app guys
"The format will be fully virtual and you will be eligible to receive a full-time graduate offer at the conclusion of the program"
this is so cryptic, dont know what to make of it....
Are you guys at NYC? I'm somewhere else but no update.
im apac and i got the update couple mins ago
They say we’ll be eligible for full time offers at the end. That doesn’t seem to imply guaranteed return offers does it?
Nope, doesn’t sound like it.
Realistically though if the program is being shortened this much what can they do to provide FT offers. Re-interview interns? This program seems to be much shorter than other programs from the likes of BAML, MS, GS, etc...
I would expect something like a pitch or some other evaluation at the end that is more thorough than an SA interview? Seems like the most fair and effective method aside from giving everyone offers, which seems pretty unlikely.
"eligible to receive" - does that mean we got it????
Possibly. Don't think they can even do a case study type project for evaluation given that the program is so short. The first week will probably be similar to training so that will be one week where you can't do anything. Also if they do interviews what will be the purpose since it'll be the same as the SA 2020 interviews.
nope. that's a bs way of saying "no guaranteed full-time offers."
only 4 weeks of pay instead of the original 10, yikes
my thoughts exactly... i wish they paid us the original amount
Not a good look, but the bank is struggling hardcore rn so that makes sense
only 4 weeks of pay?
That part is quite irritating give the response by other banks...
yup, for everyone
What location? I'm not getting anything.
4 Weeks pay only? Yikes! Not a good look
What location? I'm not getting anything.
FT Analyst training scheduled for London in August is now virtual via app.
I assume it means the job of the incoming FT analysts are safe?
Quote from the app "we remain committed to you starting your career with us."
Yup, FT are safe.
Friend said DB app(?) was updated. Internship is now fully virtual, 4 weeks long, only 4 weeks pay but candidates are ‘eligible’ for a full time offer upon completion. No idea if that means auto FT but I wouldn’t be surprised either way. 4 weeks isn’t a tremendous about of time to evaluate anyway especially if there’s only 4 weeks. You defo won’t do any ‘real’ work.
What location? I'm not getting anything.
Cliff's notes for those who didn't get the message:
Start date pushed to July and internship will be shortened to 2-4 weeks, exact details TBC by ur local recruiter
"The format will be fully virtual and you will be eligible to receive a full-time graduate offer at the conclusion of the program"
4 weeks pay instead of full pay...
so that’s guaranteed full time no?
I don’t think so. “Eligible for full time offers at the end” seems more like they’re saying interns will still be able to receive full time offers but no guarantees.
optimistically - it could be something like a FT offer conditional of completing the virtual program or something...but really just guessing at this point
Hope so. I dont think they would've hinted at it given that it's assumed that an internship program, virtual or not, is for FT conversion.
Anyone call HR to verify if that means auto fulltime? Maybe it will depends on divisions
just got an invite for conf call w/ HR tomorrow, fingers crossed...
This is for NYC?
a conference call to discuss what the email meant ?
Why hint at it if it's not guaranteed? Plus 2-4 weeks is seriously short to assess people.
I'm thinking that it'll probably be division dependent.
Honestly at this rate, we should all be thankful we still have an internship going for us even if it’s a max 4 weeks - a lot of other people have had theirs cancelled entirely. The full time offers are contingent on certain factors structured in the program, which I’m sure HR will communicate with us about over email.
Relax guys/gals, you have the internship. Finish classes, pick up some new skills, network within/outside the bank, and enjoy your summer until the start date. This is great news despite all the circumstances happening in the world and within DB.
totally agreee
perspective is great and keeps us grounded but tbh db not paying us in full and leaving us hanging with the FT thing does leave a sour taste in the mouth...
why tf would they even pay u for full if it's only 4 weeks the fuck lol
Yup, if they give auto-FT offers then you know what, I'll say the sacrifice of 6 weeks pay is a worthy one. If not, then it's just a complete dick move
Yep Yep Yep, totally agree
I agree with this completely. The world is very different today than it was just 3 short months ago. People should be happy they are safe, healthy, and still have the opportunity to secure the job. The worst part about this for SAs is being unable to immerse in culture and determining for yourself if this is the line of work for you. Banks cut people left and right during the crisis and then some, so FWIW, all prospects/interns should be happy you still have a job.
I'm not ignoring the momentary financial hit of 4 weeks of pay vs 10, but this is absolute pennies compared to your trajectory of earnings in this industry.
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