Goldman, JPMorgan Eased Up on Early Intern Recruiting. Others Haven't.
March 08 2019 - 5:59AM
Dow Jones News
By Liz Hoffman
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. said last
fall they would ease up on the intern-recruiting madness.
But rivals haven't followed, which could set the two investment
banks back in the competitive scramble for junior employees.
Goldman and JPMorgan both announced last year they wouldn't
interview college sophomores for internships that start after their
junior year, aiming to ease the pressure on students to lock down
Wall Street internships. College officials say most banks are
sticking to their traditional recruiting schedules and plan to hire
students this spring for summer 2020 internships.
The application window is already closed at Citigroup Inc., and
is currently open at Royal Bank of Canada and boutique Moelis &
Co. The first offers will go out to students in May, weeks before
JPMorgan and Goldman begin taking applications.
"It's not easy to reverse a trend, especially in the competitive
space of campus recruiting," Matt Mitro, JPMorgan's head of campus
recruiting, wrote in a blog post to potential recruits last
week.
Thousands of summer interns, working between their junior and
senior years of college, form the talent pool that Wall Street
firms rely on to churn out future bankers, traders and engineers.
JPMorgan hires about 3,000 interns and Goldman hires around 2,500.
Competition for top candidates is fierce, especially for women and
minority interns whom banks need to diversify their ranks.
A race to hire the most promising students has pushed recruiting
earlier and earlier. Students used to apply in the spring of their
junior year for internships that summer. By 2016, the interviews
started in their fall semester. Last year, they jumped to spring of
sophomore year -- more than a full year before the job would
start.
College officials have complained, to little effect. In January,
deans of nine university business schools, including those at the
University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan and New York
University, sent a letter to investment banks asking them to wait
until the school year ended to start recruiting.
Recruiting chiefs say that by waiting, they risk missing out on
top candidates. In an interview last fall, Dane Holmes, Goldman's
head of human resources, acknowledged the risk. "I'm OK with that,"
he said. Mr. Holmes said he wanted to hire "people who want to be
at Goldman Sachs, not people who felt they had to say yes to an
offer."
JPMorgan asked the National Association of Colleges and
Employers, a group that sets guidelines for campus recruiting
policies, to set new policies to even the playing field. NACE
hasn't done so.
"Everybody believes they need to have first-mover advantage to
get top talent," said Jane Hershman, who runs career services at
Emory University's Goizueta Business School.
Representatives for Goldman and JPMorgan said this week that
their firms had gotten positive feedback from university officials
and students, and would be doing less formal outreach on campuses
this spring. "We feel confident that we'll continue to attract and
engage top talent," a Goldman spokeswoman said.
The University of Michigan's Ross School of Business has told
banks they will have to wait until the fall to interview juniors on
campus, said Maria Hayes, who manages the school's relationships
with financial firms. "This is in the best interest of the student
and the bank," she said.
Officials at the University of Virginia's McIntire School of
Commerce, where about a third of graduates go into investment
banking, asked banks this year to hold off on interviewing students
until after spring break. Sara Rogis, an associate director of
career development at the school, said banks appear to be doing so,
but that the school can't control less formal outreach through
student organizations or off-campus events.
"Students are getting savvier, and understanding that they have
to be on their game sooner and earlier," Ms. Rogis said.
Write to Liz Hoffman at liz.hoffman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 08, 2019 05:44 ET (10:44 GMT)
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