Investment banks like to target a select band of universities for their graduate recruitment programmes, and competition for places in the front office remains incredibly intense – as the elite students receiving offers at the top institutions this year demonstrates.
One Oxford University student who interned in a major investment bank in the City this year, told us: “Everyone asks each other where they’re studying. Within a few days it was obvious that most were from LSE, Oxford, Cambridge or UCL. We had one guy from Bath on our desk.”
But is it really the case that investment banks target a handful of elite universities? We looked through the public profiles of the analyst class of 2015 in London and New York at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan to see if there was a general prejudice. All candidates were in front office roles – namely working in markets or investment banking division (IBD) functions.
Based on analysis over 250 individuals we can conclude two things – firstly, investment banks genuinely do seem to fish from quite a diverse pool of universities. Secondly, and least surprisingly, the largest proportion of analysts do indeed come from a select group of top tier universities.
But there are some interesting points worth raising about this year’s classes. For a start, there seems to be more of a preference for students who have studied a Masters degree. This has helped Bocconi, which offers a well-respected MSc in Finance, make it into the top five overall. Goldman Sachs has also hired two students from the London Business School Masters in Management course.
Then there’s the regional bias element. It stands to reason that with summer internships comprising the most obvious route into banking, those studying at local universities will gain the majority of slots. However, the vast majority of students getting jobs in the City studied in Europe and new Wall Street recruits invariably graduated in the U.S. Only one student on our list – a graduate from Singapore Management University at Morgan Stanley in New York – came from an Asian University.
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