What's the actual advantage of being at a target / super target coming from a very normal background for recruiting?

Super targets = Harvard Yale Princeton Penn Stanford ChicagoTargets = Duke Northwestern and the likes.

Very normal background = no connections, not rich (so can't fly to a place for networking for example), might not be in any finance-related clubs, maybe non-diversity.

I'm at a non-target that banks post internships/jobs on Handshake as "Apply Externally", but no banks post interviews in the "On-campus interview" section. I'm curious if students at target got interviews mostly from jobs/internships posted on Handshake/Symplicity as "Apply" or have banking interview applications in the "On-campus recruiting" in Handshake/Symplicity, or most opportunities are actually from clubs, or they just apply online, and whichever resume having a target school name will automatically be routed to the school's recruiting team at banks.

Or the actual advantage lies in the huge no. alumni in finance. Do target students have to network as hard as nontargets?

I know for consulting, the school recruiting team can be easily found online (e.g: McKinsey website -> on-campus -> enter school name), but it's not public for banks.

It's best if you can tell what school (sepcifically or in super target/target bracket) you were/are and how was your recruiting experience.

Thank you for your time!

 
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I went to one of the schools you listed. The main advantages are:

1) opportunities that aren’t available at other places - so PE/HF firms will recruit, smaller/hard to break into places will be there. Some of these won’t even have online career sites so you can’t really apply without networking or through the “target” schools

2) network - obviously lots of alumni who work in finance. So more opportunity to network and to get help 

3) on campus recruiting - as you noted banks/consulting firms/etc come on campus. Getting an interview on campus is MUCH easier than applying online. The firm is already on campus, and they usually have 15-50 spots for interviews. So it is cheap for them to “screen” candidates on campus and then bring them to the office for a superday
 

#3 is a huge and advantage. I knew people with 3.0 type GPAs who got interviews on campus at the banks. 

 

So if I understand correctly, banks and HF/PE will post their on campus interviews on Handshake/Symplicity's On-campus Interview section, which everyone at the school can see it, not just a job with the "Apply Externally" button.

And do top hedge funds focus on OCR mostly at super targets?

 

Yes at these schools the application is internally, it isn’t some link to the company site (unless things have changed a lot since I graduated)

As for HFs each one will have their own set of targets, but in general they will focus on a small set of schools (looking for fewer candidates, have specific needs, etc). There isn’t some standard set of schools, but the ones that are generally well regarded are as expected (Harvard, Princeton, UPenn, etc). That being said more quant like funds will focus on schools stronger in math/CS (MIT) while others more on econ and traditional “finance” schools (UPenn). 

 

Just wanted to add that I'm pretty sure Northwestern is only a target for consulting and around a semitarget for finance. The experience for finance opportunities at a established target school like Duke vs NU are very different.

 

I go to Penn. Honestly, on-campus recruiting is overrated as all the major firms interview before the fall and so the only companies left and do OCR isn't that ideal. The biggest benefit to going to a target is that you can just apply online or handshake with 0 networking and get a ton of interviews. I got interviews at Mckinsey and BCG when I didn't really want to do consulting and just cold applied. 

 

I was a top student at a "super-target" as you put it. During recruiting, going to a top 3 BB was my backup plan. I look at these massive state schools with like 10000 kids in the undergraduate business school and 5000 of them majoring in finance, and like 10 going to BB FO when my school doesnt even have 10k students total and sends like 300-400 to FO each year, and I realize how lucky I am to go where I go. Going to a target school is huge.

Just wanna clarify, going to a target doesn't guarantee you a top 3 BB or anything by any stretch. However, if you do everything right like this forum tells you to do, and you try as hard during recruiting as a nontarget who gets into banking does, you are guaranteed to get opportunities that nontargets just don't have access to, and I would argue at that point you would be guaranteed a top 3 BB honestly.

 

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