By February, students at top UK universities had already made 27,440 applications to work for investment banks
If you are already working in investment banking, you can feel smug. If not, you can feel sick.
The number of applications investment banks receive from students aspiring to work for them is crazy.
The latest report from student research company High Fliers suggests that by February this year, UK students had already submitted 343,000 applications for work in all sectors. 8.5% of these went to investment banks - suggesting banks in London received more than 27,000 applications from students at the UK's top universities.
Banks will also have received applications from students who are not at the UK's top universities and from students at the top universities across Europe.
The number of top UK applicants to investment banking jobs has increased nearly 14% on last year, with 11.5% of finalists now interested in the industry.
High Fliers interviewed 17,851 people, suggests that 2,052 were aspiring investment bankers. It also suggests that the average student made 13 applications to investment banks - each one taking an average of 3 hours.
More promisingly, High Fliers estimated there were 2,218 investment banking jobs on offer in London last year. Assuming numbers are roughly static in 2011, banks clearly need to import talent from abroad.
If top UK students alone were competing for graduate places, banks would have to take whoever they could get.
