Rumours of an unusually high intern conversion rate may have been greatly exaggerated

Now, more than ever, achieving some modicum of success during a summer internship is a golden ticket to being offered a permanent investment banking graduate placement.

At least that's the assertion of a number of users of this site some of whom, we presume, are on the receiving end of these offers and have suggested banks are converting an unusually high proportion of interns this year. Unfortunately, broadly speaking, this is not the reality.

According to the banks we spoke to permanent offers were made to (in no particular order) - 65% of summer interns at Morgan Stanley, 75-80% at Nomura and 75% at UBS. This is in line with historical averages, say the banks.

"Our conversion rates are broadly in line with previous years - perhaps slightly higher in some areas but we are hiring more full time overall so that will probably balance out. We are certainly maintaining our requirement to be out on campus and hiring for 2011," adds Gemma Lines, head of graduate marketing, recruitment and development EMEA at Citi.

It may be, of course, that few banks want to be seen to be vociferously recruiting interns until they're sure the offers have been accepted. After all, if this was the case, the assumption on the milkrounds next year would be that gaining a graduate place is decidedly more difficult.

However, there is a need for banks to bolster graduate intake, and recruiting interns is the easiest way of doing this.

"The slowdown in 2009 meant most banks took far fewer interns and this left them short at the bottom when they needed to convert people to full-time positions in 2010. This disrupted the market and the breadth of talent committed to the industry, so many banks are still making up for this and are currently rebuilding that pool," says Malcolm Horton, global head of recruitment at Nomura.

One bank that has upped its intern conversion rate this year, however, is Royal Bank of Scotland. Around 85% of this year's summer interns have been offered a place, when the average rate historically is around 70-80%. As we alluded to earlier, RBS has more than doubled the number of interns within its global markets division this year.

"We've been ramping up our assessment processes and increased the training that the interns receive while they are here," says Karen Martin, group graduate resourcing manager at RBS. "The result is that our selection process now means candidates more closely meet our requirements and that we meet theirs."