Top investment banks receive upwards of 200,0000 applications globally for their graduate programmes and hire only a tiny proportion of these every year – often those who have spent the previous summer as a summer analyst on the desk they were eventually hired by.
We have plenty of advice on what it takes to make the most of Spring internships or summer analyst programmes in investment banks, or even how to master the application and interview process. But what did it take for the class of 2016 to make it through the door this year?
As part of our series of articles looking at the analyst classes at individual banks like Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, UBS, Barclays and HSBC, we’ve analysed the profiles of 795 people who were hired this year in both London an New York.
We’ve crunched the data below to give you an idea of exactly what it takes to get into an investment bank this year. Overwhelmingly, the most common degree subjects studied were Economics and Finance, with 41% and 39% of the 2016 class majoring in these subjects respectively. Business, Mathematics and Engineering make up the top five, with humanities subjects in the minority.
We’ve also crunched the numbers to look at which universities provided the bulk of the recruits. Our findings suggested that banks in the U.S recruit from a broader range of universities than those in Europe, which (overwhelmingly) favour the London School of Economics and other top universities. The result is that the top ten largely comprises of the most popular universities for the UK analyst class. Only New York University and Wharton made the top ten from the U.S.
Related articles:
The top universities for the 2016 analyst class at Barclays and HSBCWant to work for Barclays or HSBC? This is what it takes.
The top universities for the 2016 analyst class at Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Morgan StanleyWant to work in the front office of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan? These are the universities they've hired this year.
The investment banking recruitment processHere's our step by step guide to getting recruited by an investment bank, and making it through the application process.