summer analysts all screwed? I was screwed over... help!

hmm, not sure what bank this is because I too am working in HK and my bank as a matter of fact is expanding by almost 1000 employees this year so they plan on recruiting heavily. Your bank must be UBS or MER.

I didn't get placed in the division I wanted last summer for my SA placement. I tried to get HR to switch me and even found someone in the division I wanted who was willing to swap, but they just said no.

Seems like you have already tried with HR, so don't push it or you will just p*ss them off.

On your CV, of course you can only write about the actual work you did, wouldn't advise putting anything about getting "accepted to IBD and then switched" or anything like that

I worked hard and got a FT for the division I wanted, hopefully you can do this too, good luck

That's really surprising.

I thought recruiting in Asia went relatively unscathed since there is an increased emphasis on virtually every global bank to scale up operations here. Can anyone please shed some light on this?

which bank is this ? or which league?

PM'ed you.

just to clarify, i applied for IBD SA and actually got into IBD SA. and this is at a top tier BB too (GS/JPM/MS/MER/UBS), and one that was relatively unscathed by the credit crisis.

the reason they gave for moving me over was not so much that they were cutting costs because of writedowns, but because dealflow had slowed down to a trickle in the past few months in HK, and that they didn't have enough meaningful work to give out to everybody in the SA class.

i thought Asia was unscathed by the crisis too, but it seems like my bank is freezing FT recruitment next year. and my bank had plans to expand its Asian headcount by around 1000 over the next few years. when i HR about this they said that it would be mainly in Singapore rather than HK, and in divisions other than IBD/S&T.

Banks' Asia offices usually have an extremely low SA->FT conversion ratio anyway.

I think it's fairly clear that this guy will be an SA at JPM, based on the fact that only 2 of those 5 were "relatively unscathed" and if he wasn't going to be working for JPM he wouldn't name it before MS.

As for advice, the point of your CV is to list what you have done, not what you "could have done but ultimately did not get to do".

Do a great job as an SA in which ever division you end up in, and you may be able to leverage that experience into an FT position in another division that is higher up your preference list. Bear in mind the fact that many people don't even get highly popular summer positions like the one you've got. And they still manage to get full time offers in the division of their choice. So relax and focus on doing a great job at whatever it is you are doing; considering the circumstances you are still in very good shape.

LOL

sorry to hear that, it is a big blow...i cant believe they did that to you. but nauru is right, the only thing you can do is focus on the stuffs you have right now. good luck.

yea, it is quite demoralizing and makes you wonder what is the point of even doing the summer internship. the amazing thing is they did that to 75% of the SA IBD class in HK this year... things must be pretty bad i guess in terms of activity and deals at my bank.

Am sorry to hear about this. However, it was not entirely unexpected when JPM laid off 30% of its analysts and associates.

Well, I wonder how the FT hires would fare. Most would probably be chucked into divisions that they didn't apply for.

r u sure it is 75%? thats crazy

At least you still have a job in the bank you were hired by. The bank that I landed my summer gig with, and was pretty excited about (I turned down offers and interviews with other banks to accept this one) went bankrupt (I wonder if we can figure out who I am talking about) and by the time I found out I was being laid off, it was too late to find another job and I am now stuck working for the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission... quite a fall from IBD to that huh?

LOL.. Newibhire27.. i look forward to seeing you on my ride home.

One of the factors that might affect recuiting in Asia is the US Visa policies. A lot of banks are having trouble with work visas and are using international offices to retain some of the analysts that cannot work in the US.

"out of the class of 8 summer analysts only 2 were staffed in IBD"

I think it's MER. GS, MS and JPM are known to have larger IBD SA classes in HK and UBS is still doing relatively well in terms of league table standing. MER had 5 deals this year in ECM and its class is smaller.

I'm pretty sure the OP kept the firm anonymous for a reason. If everyone pieces together their knowledge to guess out the firm in question, it kind of defeats the purpose of being anonymous to begin with!

This board has an obsession with trying to 'out' people.

Do you not realize that 'outing' only weakens the community? No-one will want to say anything specific or useful if he/she lives in constant fear of being outed by a bunch of ungrateful college students.

well, i'll point out that as far as being switched into another department besides IB, that's tough -- but you still have a solid internship either way, and you can always explain that your first and foremost goal was to get an IB internship (which you did), but due to market-wide as well as company-specific circumstances, you were switched into another division. still, don't forget that you are working at a well-respected bank doing finance, which is how you want to spend your junior year internship anyway. either way, you have a good internship and things could have turned out MUCH worse if the bank decided to drop you altogether.

and as far as your second-guessing your credentials, well that's pretty easy to do and also understandable, but (1) you never know how they made the decisions, and (2) don't worry yourself silly over something you didn't have any control over. you were as good as everyone else that got the internship offer, and it just so happened that only two out of eight interns actually got to stay in the group they applied for. you can't catch all the breaks in life -- just remember that if it wasn't you, it would have been someone else anyway, and you just have to roll with the punches.

One of my friends who was supposed to start his FT analyst year this July just got a call that he'd have to wait till Oct 2009 to start because he did not get the H-1b Visa. And if after filing for him come April next year and he still did not get the Visa, he would be terminated.

I think all international students should steer clear of JPM. No one really gives a shit about anyone in this industry.

Why can't he work under OPT? He can work for a year under that provision. Also I thought people who didn't get the visas were automatically transferred to international locations.

The gave excuses like they didn't want any disruption in the firm's operations that could result from expiration of the OPT so he couldn't use that. Matter of fact, he would be fired if after next years H-1b petition, he still does not get a Visa.

I feel its a way the bank is trying to trim the incoming analyst class with total disregard to the poor boy's plans (He basically has nothing to do between now and October 2009)

hey clipp, same situation as you are..see you in two weeks.

pm'ed you chicago

pm'ed you back..

correct me if i'm wrong, but the nice thing i heard about hk is that most banks there will hold events and interviews for interns at other banks. sort of like an early interview type of deal so they can fill most of their FT class before the summer is over. i knew a few people from my school who interned in hk last summer and before the summer was over, they were holding multiple offers from BBs in HK.

if you still have the contact info of HR staff from other banks in hk, make sure to shoot them an e-mail when you arrive in hk asking about those events and the possibility of interviewing while you are still in hk this summer. hopefully even with the bad marketing conditions they will still be holding these early interviews.

i'll be in hk this summer as well interning. hopefully see you around!

isn't JPM on top of the league tables for Q1 in Asia ex japan? I think they're #1 in equities (maybe i'm wrong)

and if they're telling you that their deal flow is so low (low enough to only hire TWO SAs?), i wonder what the deal flow is at the other BBs.....