Want to work in a front office job in investment banking? You should have gone to the London School of Economics. Share on twitter Failing that, banks would dearly like to hear from Columbia University graduates. Or those from Oxbridge, French grande écoles or top London universities like University College London (UCL) or Imperial College. The Ivy League is also, of course, a pretty good bet.
Given the amount of time bulge bracket investment banks spend buzzing around the campuses of these colleges, these might seem pretty obvious assertions. However, analysis of the 272,000 resumes uploaded on to eFinancialCareers over the past 12 months adds some objective weight to the common assumptions about banks’ favourite schools.
We analysed resumes on our database from individuals who went to the top universities in the financial markets where we have most coverage. This means the UK, U.S., Asia-Pacific markets and a number of Continental European countries – but mostly France and Germany. We then cross-referenced this against the proportion of people from individual universities working in front office positions – this means M&A, capital markets and a number of markets functions including equities, research and trading. The result is the top 50 ranking below.
Delving into the top ten gives a better idea of which division you’re like to end up in. LSE graduates broadly work in IBD – 31.6% of front office candidates were working in M&A and another 10% worked in capital markets. However, LSE alumni are also well-represented in other areas – 13% work in equity research, for example, and 11% work in derivatives structuring or trading.
Most universities were in the top ten by virtue of the fact that their students went into M&A. A hefty 40% of all front office employees at The University of Pennsylvania work in M&A Share on twitter, while this figure is 30% at the University of Oxford, 23% at Princeton, 22% at Columbia and 21% at both UCL and Imperial.
Other universities were particularly strong in derivatives, though. At, Ecole Polytechnique there was a good spread of CVs across most functions, but 28.1% of graduates from this university in front office positions work in derivatives. French grande écoles are traditionally strong in engineering and French finance professionals have tended to gravitate towards equity derivatives functions. Similarly, nearly 25% of front office CVs from Carnegie Mellon were in derivative functions.
The figures suggest that, aside from equity research, most investment banks tap top universities for their IBD functions rather than markets divisions, or perhaps that more people from these universities are attracted by these more cerebral functions.
The Top 50 Universities for Front Office Investment Banking Jobs
| University | % in front office roles |
|---|---|
| 1. London School of Economics | 33.9% |
| 2. Columbia University | 33.0% |
| 3. Ecole Polytechnique | 32.8% |
| 4. Carnegie Mellon University | 32.5% |
| 5. University College London | 32.4% |
| 6. Princeton University | 32.2% |
| 7. Imperial College London | 31.8% |
| 8. University of Pennsylvania | 31.6% |
| 9. University of Oxford | 31.5% |
| 10. MIT | 31.4% |
| 11. University of Cambridge | 30.8% |
| 12. Yale University | 30.6% |
| 13. University | 30.5% |
| 14. ENPC | 30.5% |
| 15. Duke University | 30.4% |
| 16. Cornell University | 30.1% |
| 17. Harvard University | 30.0% |
| 18. University of California, Berkeley | 30.0% |
| 19. New York University | 30.0% |
| 20. Brown University | 29.6% |
| 21. ENSTA ParisTech | 29.6% |
| 22. Johns Hopkins University | 29.6% |
| 23. University of Michigan | 29.4% |
| 24. University of Chicago | 29.1% |
| 25. University of Virginia | 29.0% |
| 26. Peking University | 28.9% |
| 27. Dartmouth College | 28.1% |
| 28. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | 27.6% |
| 29. University of St Andrews | 27.3% |
| 30. University of California, Los Angeles | 27.2% |
| 31. University of Delhi | 27.1% |
| 32. University of Warwick | 26.8% |
| 33. Northwestern University | 26.6% |
| 34. The University of Hong Kong | 25.5% |
| 35. University of Wisconsin-Madison | 25.4% |
| 36. Tufts University | 25.2% |
| 37. Frankfurt School of Finance & Management | 25.0% |
| 38. Indian Institute of Technology | 24.9% |
| 39. University of Bath | 24.8% |
| 40. Boston University | 24.7% |
| 41. University of Washington | 24.0% |
| 42. University of Bristol | 23.8% |
| 43. Durham University | 23.7% |
| 44. The Chinese University of Hong Kong | 23.6% |
| 44. Tsinghua University | 23.6% |
| 44. Fudan University | 23.6% |
| 47. University of Nottingham | 23.4% |
| 48. University of California, Davis | 23.4% |
| 49. Nanjing University | 22.9% |
| 50. University of Edinburgh | 22.9% |
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