With 2018 SA applications being up, I got to thinking - for a lot of investment banks, there are thousands of applicants for potentially as few as 10 spots. For people who go through these apps, what percentage of applicants would you say are actually realistic, (i.e. have at least decent GPA, relevant work experience, have networked, etc.) versus those who are just applying to apply (poorly worded/formatted resume, no networking, no work exp, low GPA, etc)?
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In short I would handicap the number at 20% of all applicants. I headed up recruiting to fill a few off-cycle slots (our HR is useless) at my current employer. I posted on LinkedIn yielding 500 applicants before I shut it down. 80 or so were worth a phone screen, of which maybe 30 where given a modeling test, and half of them were worth moving on in the process, resulting in 3 hires. I think these numbers are skewed downwards compared to a larger shop with a more institutionalized hiring process in that it is incredible easy to submit a resume via LinkedIn, and there are no consequences for being extremely unqualified for a role.
Damn, really good to know. Thanks
When you're on the candidate side it seems like you've got a 1 in a million shot. When you're actually doing the hiring it gives a nice, sobering perspective on how many sloppy resumes and stilted phone interviews you actually have to endure so that you can fill up all the seats on superday. Once you're in that small field of actual contenders for the job, fucking right it's competitive, but if you look at the total sample size, you realize how many people you climbed past just to fight in the coliseum.
Having left IB, the problem is compounded tenfold. You'd be surprised how hard it is to find a Financial Analyst (2-3 years of experience) who portrays a solid work ethic, preparation (at least Googled the firm to figure out what we do), and is willing to start in square 1, learn the job, then start "adding value" once they understand how some of the parts work together.
Gotcha, really good to hear - and yeah it definitely feels like I have a 1 in a million shot. With my internship this past summer, I was surprised to hear how many applicants there were and felt really lucky I got one of the few spots. The dude who was doing the hiring though told us how a ton of people have errors in their emails, give one word answers in interviews, etc. which was also kind of surprising to hear. I guess I just have to go through this again lol
Curious to know if this applies to other industries as well.
Do you think this also happens to tech and consulting? I definitely have felt the pressure of other's on me when interviewing.
Is this true even from target schools? IMO Ivies should be a bit above sloppy resumes (bad phone interviews I can see happening tho).
You'd be surprised how many target students (Ivy or otherwise) assume that they shouldn't have to put in any effort just because of having that school's name on their profile
About 10 - 20% of the college students who apply from my 'top' target to my current bank are worth giving first rounds to
Based off what though? Do the other 80-90% not have good GPAs, no prior work experience, lots of mistakes in resume, etc?
Good question, would like to know as well.
What percent of first rounders usually make it to the superday?
At my target we're aiming to have about 30 first rounds and probably anywhere between 4 (on the extreme low end) and maybe 10 (including diversity programs, accelerated ppl, client hires, etc.).
Idk about 'normal' numbers - i feel like every bank approaches this differently at every school
Is that 20% the percentage of applicants who have extremely competitive profiles or simply the number who meet all the baseline requirements for the job i.e (3.5+ gpa, relevant studies, semi-target/target school, previous related internship).
I am aware of how much interest these online postings attract, I interviewed at a BB wealth management office last year and my interviewer told me they had 100+ applicants in a less than a week for that non-program internship opening.
We are hiring an MD at my botique and all the resumes are uploaded to the network in a folder that I have access to. So, I have looked through them all out of curiosity/getting ideas for my own resume. Turns out they are the ones who need resume tips. It's hilarious how terrible some of the resumes are. People with 10-15 years experience, top MBA, and their resume reads like a college freshman made it.
What types of mistakes are the making? Having multiple pages or sloppy formatting or what?
I'm not sure if at the MD level its normal to have multiple pages, but I would say 75% of the resumes were multiple pages. It seemed weird to me, but maybe with that much experience and closing 50+ deals it might be normal? The thing that bothered me the most is some people put company descriptions as their bullet point, like people do on LinkedIn sometimes explaining the company they work for and not anything about themselves/what they do at the company. Also some people had 1 bullet point for their position like "work on the M&A team focused on technology" and thats it, nothing else about the position at all. And ya, lots of people just had very unappealing format in general. The wso template looked better than every single resume format I saw.
Also some people had those annoying missions statements at the top of their resume. A few of them had 5-6 sentences that took up 1/3 of the page (and their resume ended up being like 4-5 pages). Not sure where people learned to do these things.
yeah, I'd say some of the more senior clients we get for our resume review service need the most help. It's shocking at first but then you realize they grew up in a time without access to beautiful free resume templates that most people use nowadays (like the WSO one)...
...although to be fair, I'd say for 95+% of clients (a lot in college) also have room for significant improvement...
So basically everyone assumes they are good after talking to a few friends and their career center = mistake (smh). We do rarely get an amazing resume in for a review and we are like "dude/dudette, what are you doing? your resume is solid, no need for a review, just tighten up this bullet A, blablabla"...but that is less than 1/20.
About tree fiddy.
Jokes aside, I've seen a lot of unqualified IB candidates with poor prep in the actual interviews for my MF. Can't mention any recent deals for the groups, or don't know what the focus of a particular team, or don't even know some basic modelling.
That's atrocious. It's always blown my mind hearing stories like that where people don't do research on the firm before they interview, previous deals and shit like that are slam dunks usually
About tree fiddy.
Jokes aside, I've seen a lot of unqualified IB candidates with poor prep in the actual interviews for my MF. Can't mention any recent deals for the groups, or don't know what the focus of a particular team, or don't even know some basic modelling.
For reference I speak Spanish, not many of us around, and applied for a Spanish speaking role at a BB 3 months for a lateral. The linkedin app page had roughly 2200 views and 400 applications then they took it down. I had 2 phone screens then made it to the final round meeting with 7 people. I'm very well polished and know my stuff. Went to a good school but graduated with a 2.9GPA, which they found out about during the final round. I didn't get the job, and the positions has still not been filled. The posting is back up.
Conversely, we're a second/third tier international bank and have an analyst opening. Realistically, everyone worth hiring is snatched up by a good firm already, and the candidates we bring in dont really have the knowledge for the job.
What I've learned is that if you have what it takes, things will work out, Talent always wins out.
Absolutely man. Good luck with lateralling
I have done and sometimes still help out with resume screens for my MBB office... these percentages seem high. Traditionally maybe ~2-5% of applicants get interviews and of those, up to 10% get offers. If you have a good GPA, decent internships, and some track record of leadership at a good school it is really not hard to get an interview - the vast majority of applicants are horrible.
Even though I'm not aiming at consulting, how do resume screens usually go? Is there a program that narrows it down to the good ones and then you narrow it further?
Nope, all screened by junior staff members.
I think you have a good shot at banking.
Bro you're a freshman.
true hehe
Pump and Dump "A few clicks can change that..... Investment Banking - Mergers and Acquisitions - CEO... now no one will question my judgement."
Some people seem to think that excessive networking compensates for a sub-par application. I am much less likely to speak to someone who hasn't demonstrated that they can work hard than someone who already meets the normal standards.
I would also add that about 35% of the people who've contacted me to network are truly awful and have shot themselves in the foot by networking in the first place. I feel that people get the wrong impression and think that if they network a certain number of times and have coffees with a certain number of people, their chances improve, which is not the case. You need to network well, be tactful and considerate and show that you're intelligent and humble. If not, you hurt yourself. I have seem some horrible attempts to network.
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