Competition for graduate jobs higher than ever
Want to land a graduate traineeship in investment banking? You're not the only one.
New research suggests more students than ever before want to develop careers in investment banking. 12.4% of finalists at the UK's top universities aspire to go into the industry this year, up from 11.1% last year and higher than at any time since 1995. 12% more students applied to work in investment banks this year, while the number of graduate roles in the industry increased by 20%, according to the Association of Graduate Recruiters.
Despite this, Martin Birchall, managing director of High Fliers, which conducted the research, says i-banking is harder to get into - more than 45k students from the UK's top unis alone applied to the industry this year. "All the banks we work with are quoting receiving between 50 and 150 applications per vacancy," he says.
Which banks are the most popular (and therefore the hardest to get into)? Research by Universum, a Swedish research company, suggests UK business students' preferred banking destinations are (in descending order): Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, HSBC, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup.
