University Choices for Banking.

What about this then?

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=351393&

After this come 6 prestigious institutions with a pretty dismal record of getting people into tier 1 front office, but from here the 2nd division (the likes of ABN Amro, BNP Paribas, Dresdner etc) are all really accessible - made easy particularly at Bath and Loughborough with the sandwich placement years giving you valuable experience.


Epic confusion! Who's right, who's wrong!?!

OP, are you a one off as a Bath graduate like this thread would have me believe?

Well that is 3 years old. I don't know if that is important or not, but it has got Lehman Brothers on it.

I think you guys are getting too worked up about which Unis can get you there. The main issue is that YOU have to be good enough. If you're from a top 20 uni, you won't get dismissed outright. You may have to do a back office job for a year or so to prove yourself, but progression once you're in a firm is (relatively) easy.

At the end of the day, no bank will hire you based on where you come from. Yes, a lot of grads come from the big unis; but the stats are interpreted the wrong way.

You see say 60% of grads come from top 5 unis (made up stat) and you think:

They went to those unis, so they got the job.

More realistically, it's:
Better candidates happen to come from these unis, so they got hired. The attributes that get you into a top uni aren't too dissimilar to those that will get you into a top job.

People read those stats as causality, when there is merely a relationship.

do you know about signalling?

Yes mate. If you're going to shoot down everything I say, i'll forget the advice.

I'm just trying to give you my experiences, and that is that your uni and grades aren't the pivotal factor in getting an IB job. That's it. If you've heard otherwise from someone else - that's they're view.

I was told after interviews that IBs are looking for communication and analytical skills. If you can portray that on a CV and in an interview, you'll get a job - whether you're from Oxbridge or from Newcastle.

so im not allowed to stop a thread going into a (biased?) direction by highlighting different views?

and to follow your analogy. so what if you have A and B from cambridge and newcastle respectively. both can "portray communication and analytical skills" in equal measures. who gets the job? would you really hire B over A?

now, those tests that you do, and the interviews they do, in them its not hard to portray either of these things (with the exception of being nervous in an interview maybe). where does that leave us?

edit: classy mr big time banker.

It's very unlikely to have exactly the same skill set. Banks will look at your CV - the things on it where you may have learnt these skills aswell as how you come across in an interview. It's very hard to 'put on' someone you're not in an interview, so the people with the skills they want will come through. These guys interviwe hundreds of people every year - so they know what they're doing.

You cannot sit down and say A would get the job over B or likewise - I think everyone gets too wound up about being from the right uni and having the right stuff and thinks about it that way. It all comes down to YOU, how you perform in an interview, and whether you're what they're looking for.

Some banks(and other employers) will put more emphasis on education, some will put less. Some interviewers may look for a relaxed, well rounded guy who they can mould, some may look for a technically superb person. It's impossible to say.

There's no magic formula to getting into IB, and a lot of it's luck. I'd say I got very lucky with mine, maybe you will. Obviously try and do well in your education as it won't harm your application, but look to be more than education on your CV so you widen the chances that you're what they're looking for.

But you are just in a middle office job.
The recruitment process, criteria and competition are completely different.
You advice is at best completely worthless and at worst seriously harmful to anyone looking at getting a real job ( ie : a front office job ) in investment banking.