Applying for different positions at same bank

What's the protocol concerning applying for different positions with the same bank; i.e., applying for ER and ibanking at the same bank (all in terms of SA positions)? Is it not allowed? Allowed to an extent, etc.? Thanks for the advice.

 
Best Response

i have done this, tons of friends have done this, and i can honestly say it doesnt matter. the way they select you for interviews is each division looks at you and decides if they want to talk to you. i've had interviews for multiple divisions from more than a few companies. now obviously, at some point you'll have to say which division is actually your top choice, but in general, this isn't going to be a huge deal.

bearing, hope you got the spots you wanted. otherwise, you may have closed some good doors for yourself...

 

your a third year in college. I would hope you would try to keep your options open. First off, most divisions don't even talk to each other, so we are cool there. Of the minority that do, spin it as I'm interested in both, I'm young, I like finance, and I'm trying to add value to my business education at this point in my life.

 

Agree with xqtrack. Applied for 2 divisions, got int with both. offer from 1 so that might have played a role somewhere in the back between deciding who to hand out offers to.

 

When I was applying for FT, I applied to S&T and IBD. Got interviews with both, invited to superday for both, but by the time the S&T superday came around I had already received an offer in IBD and accepted. So I turned down the S&T superday, but anyway, I agree with most of the other posters. It's really not a big deal - just if you accept a position, make sure to bow out of the others.

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This isn't an issue - by the time your resume actually gets looked at by someone for more than 10 seconds, it will be dispersed amongst the different divisions you've applied to, and there isn't much correspodance between them re: recruiting.

It would take someone in HR who's managing recruiting for multiple divisions to randomly get your interview in their multiple piles to review, and then they'd have to remember that they'd seen it.

 

S&T or IB? Make up your mind man. You can double app but keep it in different cities, and try to stay consistent in what you want to do.

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can anyone else comment on this? I'm interested as well. For Summer Analyst, do they want you to be focused on 1 division or does it not matter so much? Because honestly I'd prefer IBD, but if that plan fails, I'd still jump at the chance to take a trading job.

 

when you apply for more than one location, do you just say i prefer [location 1] but i also applied for [location 2] because _________? someone fill in the blank for me? for example, it sounds pretty dumb to me for someone to say "yea i prefer working in ny because thats where it's happening and HQ is where all the resources are at, but if i can't work there then i'm fine with working in SF too." i mean, why would SF even want you still in that case? help, anyone?

 

when i applied, i applied to multiple positions within a bank.

generally i was selected for only one but there was a bank or two where i had interviews for two divisions, i was told that if i received both super days i had to pick one.

 

from my experience, its completely ok to apply for more than one position in different divisions within a bank. Most of the time, they will only select you for one anyways and in other times like gekko said, you ultimately get to choose one.

If you are also applying for a summer analyst program, i dont see whats the harm at all in applying for more than one. Chances are you probably dont know what you truly want to do and you would gladly take either S&T or IBD in heartbeat so why limit your potential for either? Just apply for everything, that was the biggest lesson i learned through my on campus recruitment process.

 

I don't think that hurts your chances. When I was invited to the HL office, HR told us to rank our group/office preferences, and I interviewed with both CF and FAS. Also they had separate OCR. And I interviewed with Lazard CF and CapMkt.

 

bump for this. I'm applying to summer analysts positions right now and am wondering the same thing. In my case S&T and IM at a BB. I usually just keep the same cover letter and change the position title. Can I do the same for two positions at the same bank?

 

Do you think one office may say: since your school is closer to the other office (or only the other office recruit from your school), so we will not accept your application?

 

Yeah, just make sure you don't mention that you specifically want to work in that particular city if you are interviewing for multiple locations. Know someone who did this and it backfired (one bank called another, then called him out on it)

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You can definitely do this, but you run the risk of ending up with zero offers because your interviewers doubt your commitment to accepting their offer.

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Most people might disagree with me but I'd say go ahead and do it... I dont think it's going to look bad these days. I know usually it might give off a sense of "lack of focus" and that you're not 100% set on one path, which might mean that you don't want it as much as other people... However, nowadays you've gotta play a bit of risk management with your applications... I think you can do it, just have to make two points clear:

1) You've got to make it sound like the skillset that you're looking to learn in each job will yield you the same knowledge and experience... Not sure how you'll do that with IB and S&T...

2) If asked why you are applying to several divisions (which prob. wont happen anyways) you should tell them that because of the risky environment, you wanted to increase your chances because at the end of the day, you REALLY WANT to be at THAT bank and no other bank, and that as long as you're learning those skills and getting that exposure you're really looking for, you will thrive in either position....

I did it, I applied to three different divisions at one bank, worked out fine.

 

Just look at it from the bank's perspective. You have two applicants, one has applied to two divisions as he is not entirely sure what he wants to do while the other is so passionate about a division he has only applied there The recruiter won't know the conviction and passion of a certain applicant but guess what most recruiters assume

 

I applied for two positions at a BB in undergrad. Got an unexpected phone interview one day and wasn't sure which position it was for and the interviewer didn't make it clear. One of his first questions was which I was interested in more, IB or S&T. The honest answer of course was that I just wanted a job that summer and would have been fine with either one so I said both. The interview ended shortly after that so def got dinged for that. Turns out it was for S&T. Lesson is, remember what you applied for and if you really don't remember just take a guess at one or the other :)

 

I applied to three jobs at Zenefits. Literally was phone interviewed by 3 different recruiters (they split sales/account management/biz dev) and only after that did they realize, and ask which I prefer since I was going to be offered 3 in person interviews.

I'd say if they're different divisions (e.g risk vs. ibd vs. sales) then you might be alright. However, it depends how HR does their recruiting whether anyone will even realize.

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You will be fine. Offices generally do not communicate between international locations regarding SA candidates.

Again, this is a general statement. Your best option would be to perform very well (obviously) on your first interview so that only good words spread.

 

Hm so even if I dont qualify for an interview in HK, I could still be considered for NYC?

I feel like that kind of negates the whole concept of a "global" institution, since some people qualified in one location may not qualify in others.

 
ilovenyc8:
Hm so even if I dont qualify for an interview in HK, I could still be considered for NYC?

I feel like that kind of negates the whole concept of a "global" institution, since some people qualified in one location may not qualify in others.

In reality, global institution just means that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing

 

I would definitely prep hard for the HK interview. The demand for an NYC gig is so much higher that you have the advantage of competing with less players for the HK job. But to answer your question, you should be fine if you do just "OK" in the HK interview. Global office generally don't go into explicit detail of how a SA interview went.

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No expert in the two, but I don't see a problem. I had friends who interviewed for S&T who were actually told by their interview partners that they should look into investment management and then got set up for interviews with them the same day.

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A Fellow Linguist:
Here's another related questions: are the technicals for Capital Markets and IBD the same? If so, I know that there are some banks that are okay with individuals applying to both.

Interested to know too. Anyone?

 

If you are applying for general IBD vs. a general capital markets position (DCM, ECM, or LAF) I would expect many more modeling type questions for IBD. Capital Markets tends to be less technicals in general (may still ask accounting type questions). A common question is asking if you follow the markets and what your thoughts are on current market activity or forecasts. Generally speaking though, Capital Markets interviews (at the places I have interviewed at) tend to be much more focused on fit.

 

If you had a choice, sure, because it makes you seem more focused.

Being that you have the interviews, it's too late to ask the question you are asking. What you should plan is on how to spin this in your favor.

Find commonalities between positions and emphasize that you want to be in a place with great culture, etc. etc. love this company so much bla bla bla therefore you don't care too much about which position with CFO you start in as you're sure you'll learn a lot.

 

It's fine. Since your school listed them, I'm going to assume you go to at least a semi-target. With that said, I got interviews at a top bank in both trading and IB and got an offer from one (both went to final rounds).

Just do your thing.

PLEASE DONT CHANGE EXCEL SHORTCUTS!!!
 

this is touchier than people think and can backfire if u r interviewed by both. the divisions will question ur devotion to their respective field. when i was interviewing, i did this at a bank, and was called post-superday by division B to be rejected from division A so i could interview with division B. think about it.

 

It's always helpful to ask beforehand, but typically the different departments have different hiring managers/HR and so you could apply and interview for all of them. It depends though, because some banks do set limits, I'm just talking about the firms that don't.

 

No it most definitely shouldn't. Expecting some kid out of college to be 100% sold on IB, research, trading, etc. without any FT working experience within them is ridiculous. I see it as showing curiosity among different facets of finance.

 

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