Banks in US hire more graduates

Investment banks in the US are hiring more graduates this year as they gear up for extra business. Some have extended their normal hiring period.

Andrea Beldecos, head of recruitment at Banc of America Global, Corporate, and

Investment Banking said: 'Graduate recruitment is up 30% for 2004.'

She said graduates were required for investment banking, the debt and equity markets and equity research, with the bulk of demand in sales and trading.

Tony Brown, the director of staff at Bear Stearns, said graduate recruitment is up 22% in the bank's investment banking sector compared to last year.

'There is no specific sector in demand right now for graduates as we start them out in a rotation pool. However the technology area is beginning to come back, as well as the retail division and especially energy,' he said.

Brown added that Bear Stearns is building several new teams, including a hedge fund, that will need junior recruits.

He said Bear Sterns had analysed which universities produced students who succeeded at the company and returned to them to look for further recruits.

The picture is also positive at UBS, which said it expected a 15% increase in graduate hires in its investment bank, wealth management and asset management division in the Americas.

A spokeswoman at Merrill Lynch said its recruitment was 'pretty consistent', but gave no details, while a source at Nomura said hiring prospects looked healthy.

Universities confirmed that banks have been hiring more students and said their recruitment drives on campus have been higher profile than in recent years.

Joanne LaRosee, recruiting manager at the campus career center of Boston College, said Lehman Brothers has been hiring for its European equity team in Boston. Lehman declined to comment.

Laura Hoffman, director of employee relations at Columbia University's career development center, said: 'We definitely saw an increase in campus recruiting activities from last year and for the first time in a long time saw students receiving multiple offers.'

Some banks had prolonged their hiring period into 2004 to meet new demands created by the economic recovery, Hoffman said. Banks had also been recruiting Columbia alumni who have a few years' experience out of school.

'We are currently in the beginning of the summer intern recruiting season for investment banking and the increased activity is holding up there as well,' said Hoffman.

Jim McBride, director of the University of Virginia's career center, said there were 4,300 personal interviews on campus in fall 2003 between students and banks - a 9% increase from the year before.

McBride said: 'The economic recovery has also seen more financial support from investment banks who underwrite advertisements in our campus publications.

'I have also heard talk that slight salary bonuses are coming back.'

On the west coast Joyce Haraughty, UCLA's career center corporate relations manager, said however she had not observed any significant increase in recruiting since fall 2002. She said most banks had made one or two visits, at each of which they typically interviewed about 13 students.

Matt Merrick, director of MBA career services at Harvard University, said it was too early to tell how many MBAs banks were hiring this year. 'Recruitment activity has been consistent over the past few years in terms of banks' attendance at recruitment events,' he said.

He added that 7% of the Harvard's business school graduates go into investment banking.