Editor's take: Homegrown talent falling by the wayside
Ian Brown, editor-in-chief of eFinancialCareers, on why British bankers should be giving their countrymen a leg-up into the industry.
It's often said the hardest job to land in the City is your first, and this year that cliché is ringing truer than ever. There are more positions for grads than ever before - upwards of 10,000, according to research from the City of London. But all the talk of bulging bonuses fuels bunches of applications. Deutsche Bank, for example, has just over 200 graduate slots on offer in the UK but well over 100,000 grads applying. Students want a piece of the action.
UK students, however, are in danger of being left in the wings. City firms have been spoilt for choice this season. Like funds closed to new investors, such banks as Goldman Sachs, UBS and Barclays Global Investors have shut up shop for this year and will place (or not) the current crop of student candidates already on file. Only a few are still accepting applications.
Few of those acceptances will go to students from the UK. Ten years ago, most places on UK training courses went to products of the country's best universities. Today that proportion has fallen to 50% or less.
Why? Simply put, Continental European students arrive with more languages, more work experience and having studied more finance. Very few are arts graduates, even from the European equivalent of Oxbridge. As one graduate recruiter said to over 100 first- and second-year students at the London School of Economics recently, "I'll look at a European graduate before a UK CV every time." That's either called throwing down the gauntlet or a call to action.
Europeans are applying to London because this is where US banks have their European headquarters, and where European training programmes typically take place. They're also applying here because the chances of landing a comparable role (for comparable money) back at home are close to zero.
What can be done to help the neglected progeny of British universities? If you're sitting at a Square Mile desk or trading screen, spare a thought for the next generation and adopt a student. They're not hard to find - give your alma mater a call.
· A version of this article appeared previously in City A.M.
