How hard is it to secure a full-time position if you haven't completed an internship this year?
Students with aspirations to break into investment banking in 2011 have to face the fact that majority of full-time places will have been filled by the previous year's intake of summer interns before firms even embark on campus recruitment.
But to what extent this year have full-time places been taken up by intern conversations?
J. P. Morgan is in the unique position of admitting that all of its full-time graduate places within investment banking (encompassing M&A/corporate finance and capital markets) and sales, trading and research have been filled by its internship programme.
This leaves the not particularly auspicious options of operations, technology, private banking and investment banking risk open to external applications.
One former head of graduate recruitment at a bulge bracket bank, who now works as head of the careers service at a prominent UK business school, says investment banks are already saying they want to present to students "to talk about next year's summer internships and nothing else".
"It's fairly common practice to leave the application system open when there are only a few positions left and these can be very specialised. In reality the majority would have been filled by summer interns and there's little chance of vanilla candidates securing a role," they say. "I'm not saying all banks are doing that this year, but it's easy to over-estimate the number of opportunities firms are recruiting externally for."
But is it really that grim this year? Based on conversations with recruitment sources and the investment banks themselves we've compiled the following (if you disagree let us know):
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Divisions recruiting for: Compliance, global capital markets, global corporate banking, global investment banking, global market operations, global quantitative research, global research, sales & trading, technology, global treasury solutions, HR, Merrill Lynch wealth management, corporate & financial institutions debt products.
Number of positions: Approx. 200.
Vacancies within: All divisions
Proportion of positions filled by interns: Declined to comment.
Barclays Capital
Divisions recruiting for: Compliance, corporate communications, finance, global financial risk management, global marketing, human resources, investment banking, legal, operations, quantitative analytics, research, sales, structuring, technology, trading.
Number of positions: 300
Vacancies within: All divisions
Proportion of positions filled by interns: Declined to comment.
Citi
Divisions recruiting for: Capital markets origination, corporate banking, global transaction services, investment banking, private bank, sales & trading.
Number of positions: 250
Vacancies within: All divisions
Proportion of positions filled by interns: 60%
Credit Suisse
Divisions recruiting for: Fixed income trading and structuring, equity trading and structuring, IT, Investment banking department, equity sales, fixed income sales, equity research, IT (non-technical), fixed income research, operations
Number of positions: 275
Vacancies within: All divisions
Proportion of positions filled by interns: Declined to comment
Deutsche Bank
Divisions recruiting for: Asset management, corporate investment banking, finance, HR, in-house consulting, legal, risk and capital, group technology and operations, private & business clients, private wealth management, regional management.
Number of positions: 700 (globally)
Vacancies within: All divisions
Proportion of positions filled by interns: Approximately two thirds
Goldman Sachs
Divisions recruiting for: Finance, global compliance, global investment research, human capital management, legal, internal audit, investment banking, investment management, merchant banking, operations, securities, services and technology.
Number of positions: Around 300
Vacancies within: All divisions
Proportion of positions filled by interns: 70%
J.P Morgan
Divisions recruiting for: Asset management, IB risk, investment banking, operations and business services, private bank, sales, trading & research, technology.
Number of positions: Unknown
Vacancies within: All divisions except investment banking and sales, trading & research.
Proportion of positions filled by interns: Unknown
Morgan Stanley
Divisions recruiting for: Investment banking, global capital markets, sales & trading, equity research, real estate investing, credit risk management, private wealth management, technology, finance & operations.
Number of positions: Around 250
Vacancies within: All divisions, but majority of roles in global capital markets and sales & trading have been filled by interns. Students advised to check bank's website for updates on vacancies.
Proportion of positions filled by interns: 50-60%
Nomura
Divisions recruiting for: Investment banking, global markets and corporate infrastructure (incl. IT, operations and finance)
Number of positions: Around 200
Vacancies within: All divisions.
Proportion of positions filled by interns: Declined to comment.
Royal Bank of Scotland
Divisions recruiting for: Global banking and markets, operations, technology, corporate banking, finance, risk, marketing
Number of positions: Around 600 (400 of which in investment bank)
Vacancies within: All divisions.
Proportion of positions filled by interns: Unavailable for comment.
UBS
Divisions recruiting for: IBD, equities, FICC, operations, finance, technology, risk, COO, HR, compliance, global wealth management.
Number of positions: Around 300.
Vacancies within: All divisions.
Proportion of positions filled by interns: Declined to comment.
