Why Are Banks Targeting B-School Students So Early?

EARLY ENGAGEMENT AT CITI

Though much of it appears to be a domino affect, the firms Poets&Quants spoke to expressed that it’s not merely about what everyone else is doing.

At Citi, for instance, Storz says their early identification efforts have much to do with early engagement and education. To this end, the company ran a brand new early identification effort this spring semester. A cohort of 600 sophomores from more than 100 different schools were accepted into a five-week, virtual learning program centered around technical skills and industry readiness. Yet, the experience is meant to be comprehensive in nature, Storz says. “It’s not just about technical skills or having a mentor, but providing them with a much better sense of who we are as a firm, how they could end up here, and what their experience would be like,” she explains. “We desire to attract the best talent into our pipeline and much of what we’re doing right now is building relationships early.”

Storz says Citi is even going as far as high school level to get prospects interested in the company. “Some people may not think they want to work in financial services or a bank,” she says. “It’s about giving them a chance to learn about us and opening their minds to the possibilities here.”

TREND BRINGS ABOUT MIXED EMOTIONS

Business schools and employers both say that accelerated recruiting doesn’t mean there aren’t any summer internship opportunities left. Many positions have been filled, but not all. Still, the topic of accelerated recruiting is a touchy one. Outreach from Poets&Quants to other firms, including Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, have gone unanswered and in a recent Yale News article, Bank of America explained having no comment on the subject. “The accelerated recruiting timeline is a mixed-emotions topic,” said Sarah Huguelet, a campus recruiter there. “At this time, we have to decline to comment.”

‘Mixed emotions’ is a fair description. On one hand, students like Kenan-Flagler’s Persuad essentially say they’ve accepted it as just the way it is so students simply adapt and move forward.

“The general feeling among students is it’s at the cusp,” says Persuad. “It’s accelerated because it’s what the firms need to do to get the best talent. It’s hard for us, but it’s manageable. If it gets any more accelerated, I don’t know how students can do it. I can’t even imagine that, honestly. I would have zero business classes, no corporate finance, nothing. For students who got a later start, that’s the boat a lot of them are in and I’m sure they’re probably feeling it’s unmanageable.”

Serena Upadhyay, a rising junior at the Gies College of Business, will intern with JPMorgan in the summer of 2019. Courtesy photo.

Serena Upadhyay, a rising junior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Gies College of Business, agrees. Like Persuad, she entered business school knowing what she wanted to study and took advantage of all the resources the school offered to get herself ready. Working toward her dream job of becoming an investment banking analyst after college, she locked in her summer 2019 internship with JPMorgan in April of this year — more than a year in advance. “Generally, it is hard for students to know a year out what they want to pursue, but we’re given so many resources to make sure this is what we want and to get kids ready to go after it,” Upadhyay says. “It’s very accelerated, but  you’re allowed to take your time with the decision. I took my time and didn’t rush into anything if I wasn’t sure.”

SURVEY SUGGESTS ACCELERATED RECRUITING COULD RESULT IN MORE STUDENTS RENEGING ON OFFERS

On the other end of the spectrum, there are students who feel accelerated recruiting is too aggressive. The recent Yale University article on the subject reports students there are dissatisfied with the practice. Similar sentiments have been expressed by students at the University of Pennsylvania. However, there’s hesitation in speaking up for fear of damaging their prospective careers in such a heavily sought after field.

But in 2017, a student survey conducted by Scott Resource Group found that students not only disagree with accelerated recruiting, they’re confused about the need for it.

Key findings from the study of 511 undergraduate students at 19 different universities — of which 42% were business students — show that the strongest ratings for interview and offer decision timelines mapped to three main conclusions: students feel employers should abide by university policies for decision timelines, they don’t understand why they’re being given less time, and they don’t support accelerated timelines.

“Somewhere along the line, employers have lost track of the fact that students do have a need to be respected and they do choose among employers based on how well that’s reflected in their candidate experience,” says Mary Scott. Her firm, Scott Resource Group, works with employer clients to research students’ perspectives on burgeoning workplace topics such as this one. “I think it’s just the competitive nature of the business they’re in and treating this process of hiring graduating students similar to closing the deal,” she continues. “If you listen to students, that’s not a strategy that works.”

Another one of the study’s findings: comparative metrics show that students with higher GPAs were more focused on making the right decision, while those on the lower end of the GPA spectrum rated accelerated timelines more favorably.

“GPA is an arbitrary metric, but one that was useful for sorting responses in a way that told a story,” says Scott. “In this case, students with higher GPAs — who we can assume are of more interest to employers — are less likely to understand why employers were pushing them into a corner and more likely to renege. The inference is there’s a lack of respect for them as an individual. They want the opportunity to make their best decision about something so important as an internship or full-time offer. Whereas students with a lower GPA tend to welcome any attention and opportunity to lock down a position because they aren’t being recruited as aggressively.”

At Citi, Storz shares that there’s been discussion around the possibility for students reneging on offers. “We’re aware this is a possibility. But it’s early days for us so we don’t know yet.”