i think you did your math kinda wrong. 2020 means that they are targeting sophomores in their fall semester not freshman. But yes I agree this has seriously gotten out of hand. I really don't see any reason to keep pushing this stuff forward as many kids will be evaluated without potentially having had any internships yet :(

Yes it’s out of control. Unfortunately I don’t really see a reason why it would get pushed back (or stop moving further up).

I don't see the PWP 2020 SA apps online? Did you that through OCR.

insane

Fucking idiotic. Gonna recruit out of high school next at this rate.

Crazy. Let's hope this isn't a general trend for this season.

Disaster waiting to happen

I don't even see the point of it and it will by no means increase talent in the classes recruited. Banks will just hire people that think they know what they want to do instead of top talent. It's sad to see that IB is becoming more competitive for the wrong reasons (banks making it harder rather than increasing the average candidate).

I think it will continue moving up until the next recession. Firms will cut back on their offers that are more than a year out from their start dates. The economy will recover and they will recruit again closer to the start dates.

Yes it is out of hand and I'm not sure exactly why. They're recruiting for the SAME spot but earlier which makes no sense. They want a student for their Junior year internship to "test" them and see if they would make good full time candidates. One could argue that evaluating a student when they're older rather than earlier in their college days would provide a more accurate picture of who that student is and if they'll be a good intern / analyst. Plus the demand is always going to be there so I don't really see a point. With hundreds of thousands of applicants and a few thousand TOP spots who gives a shit if Goldman gets the top 150 and JP gets the next 150. Is the risk of having 5, 10, 20 shitty interns really worth getting a ranked 20 prospect vs. a rank 60? (Plus these are arbitrary ranks... none of them have been through the grind yet and a candidate that is rank 1 on paper may be a dud...)

But yeah... fucking crazy

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CS is coming to my target this week for 2020....

This is actually fucking bedrock stupid. I imagine firms that do this will eventually get burned by absolutely trash interns, as many of you said above.

123

Glad these banks all autistic recruiting processes that are heavily outdated, makes it that much easier to snipe talent hehe.

Will be curious to see if they ever start behaving more like tech firms in their recruiting approach.

RIP Non-targets. I don't believe for a second this is an issue with tech stealing the talent. No first year student is going to have jack-all understanding of anything and they're still going to recruit them? The only type of candidate this is going to benefit is someone who knew they wanted IB in high school - you literally have to be bred for this to answer why IB.

Closest Houlihan branch to my school already closed 2020 SA apps on our career portal.

"What Do You Think Of The SA Uber Accelerated Recruiting Cycle?"

Source: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/polls/what-do-you-think-of-the-sa-uber-…

These banks have identified key traits that their top performers possess that are evident at an earlier date in a potential bankers life. They are trying to capitalize on that albeit placing a higher degree of trust in their recruiters to be capable of recognizing them correctly.

Hey I am a freshman at Baruch, I want to become an Investment Banker. People have told me it’s a Non-Target/Semi-Target and what not; I know this is a very broad question, but what should I be doing right now? Like should I be looking for internships already? I just started school, or do I wait until next year? I’m just a little worried and confused because if certain firms are opening applications for years to come, I don’t want to miss out and get screwed. Are all firms doing this, or is it specific ones? And if so, how do I even build up my resume for such an early application? Like I haven’t really done jack shit as yet.

It's ridiculous. It assumes students know very early on that they want not just to be in finance, but to do banking specifically. This gives students little chance to bone up on technicals and do the networking. All so banks can line up their intern classes more than a year in advance? Ridiculous. The banks keep trying to preempt each other but every other bank just keeps coming earlier in response.

del

Great to see I’m not the only one wondering this. I’m a transfer sophomore student and as a result I have barely touched finance classes, yet they are recruiting us already.

It's ridiculous. Firms agree to specific dates and all it takes is for one to shift and the rest follow. It happens every year and is one of the key reasons as to why it continues to get pushed up. To say it's "not ideal" is an understatement – it's a shit show more than anything else, and honestly, I'd argue screws the banks more than the kids.

tl;dr: Garbage situation, shouldn't be this way. Pity.

i recruited super early in finance with no finance classes under my belt besides macro and micro econ. thankfully it was nearly all behavioral and logic questions, but still begs the question as to how they will ever be able to deal with kids whose actual financial aptitude they won't be able to gauge in an interview 14 months ahead of SA start dates

I am a non-target finance student, this is getting waay out of hand

Speaking as a former BB M&A banker who now helps college kids get into IB as a consultant to several schools, target and non-target, I can say that this process is really hurting the non-targets. Some of the non-target kids I work with would easily have scored an SA position in the last couple of years, but they've been totally shut out this year. As others have said, this is going to go on until the banks get too many reneges or actually hire too many kids who don't realize what they're getting into. My advice for those who are at non-targets or semi-targets (and don't qualify for diversity programs): network, network, network as much as you can, and give yourself a reality check once in a while to make sure this is what you want.