Morning Coffee: J.P. Morgan gives up on people who can't be persuaded to work there. Desperate measures to retain women

When Lloyd Blankfein writes his annual letter to shareholders at Goldman Sachs, it's traditional for him to divulge the percentage of students who accept the job offers Goldman extends. For 2016 (the last available year) it was 80%, as it was in 2015. That's good - although a not insignificant proportion of people clearly don't want to work for Goldman Sachs. If you asked a group of European MBA students whether they want to work for J.P. Morgan, the proportion would be considerably lower.

The Financial Times reports that J.P. Morgan has decided there's no point pitching all its wonderful employment opportunities to MBA students in the Europe. The bank's European MBA programme was cancelled in 2013 because it was, 'hiring so few graduates from the handful of schools it worked with.' While this may be partly the bank's own decision, it also seems to stem from a lack of enthusiasm on behalf of the students. "You will always have those people who knew from birth that they wanted to go into corporate finance, but gone are the days when we would be inundated with students who want to go into banking," says Rob Walke, co-head of campus recruiting at the bank.

J.P. Morgan is still hiring MBAs in the U.S. but they seem recalcitrant too. Now that students can earn big money in technology, banks like J.P.M. are having to change their pitch. Instead of bonuses, Walke says they're trying to lure students with promises about the quality of life, guarantees to protect weekend leave and holiday time and the opportunity to swap with counterparts based in offices overseas.

Separately, the Financial Times also reports on some extravagant attempts to retain women by private equity funds. As the notoriously male-oriented funds try to increase the proportion of women who work for them, the FT says they've started offering perks like egg freezing and breast milk shipping during business trips.

Meanwhile:

BNP Paribas wants to become a leading investment bank serving UK customers: “It might seem counterintuitive to single out the UK as a golden land of opportunity for us, but it is in the same way as Germany has been for us.” (Financial Times)  

Citigroup’s gender pay gap is just 1 per cent, and the bank’s ethnic minorities in the US earn 99 per cent of what their white peers do. (Financial Times) 

So, senior risk professionals at UBS in France can expect to earn salaries of €165k. Plus bonuses. (Bloomberg) 

People keep trying to climb the Lloyds building in London and Lloyds doesn't like it. (Evening Standard) 

Man quits banking to make films: 'The parties got bigger, the amounts I was gambling got bigger.' (The Jourmal)

Man quits banking to join Hare Krishnas: "I was working in investment banking and earning a decent salary but engaging in lots of drinking and drugging." (Time Out)

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