Happy Post-Independence Day and Happy Post-Canada Day, and for all the other Countries in the Northern Hemisphere, I believe an amazing summer is ahead. I took the weekend off of job hunting, which I have now done for the past three weeks, and basically disconnected from the world, on a beach on Long Island. It was a nice mix of friends, parties and relaxing.
Before the long weekend, my goal was to try to land a summer associate program at one of the major banks. Every summer, the large banks take fresh MBA graduates and put them through a couple of months of training about the bank, and then they go through rotations around the firm for several years until the perfect fit is found. I spent several days of last week contacting all the campus recruiting directors at the big investment banks in NYC.
The recruiting for these associate programs usually happens in the fall. I was working full-time and going to school full time for my MBA while the recruiting was happening. Like most people in my class, I wasn't really paying attention; school and work was enough. Recruiting for the Associate Programs is pretty much solely targeted towards full-time MBAs. I think this is a failing of the Administrators of part-time MBA programs and banks are also missing out on attracting good talent.
Despite missing out on the recruiting season, a friend of mine suggested that I contact some of the IBs and see if there were any last minute cancellations or openings into the program. The vast majority of them start the first week in July. So, I started with a linkedin search of all the campus recruiting directors at the large firms (Goldman, Barclays, UBS, Nomura, JP Morgan, Deutche, Credit Suisse, CITI, Bank of America / Merrill Lynch, RBC). At most of the firms I was able to speak to someone in HR and they all pretty much said that at an analyst level, perhaps they wold look at a last minute recruit, but not at the associate / post-MBA level. My couple of days of effort was not wasted. I made several great connections with HR recruiters that advised there were looking for experienced managers for associate roles. So, I have closed out the task to try for a summer associate program, and will be actively pursuing those opportunities this week (I am developing a networking approach for some of the more interesting roles and I will see how it goes).
As a coincidence, I met with a fellow university alumni this morning for coffee in midtown, and there was a sign in the Barclay's lobby that said "Welcome 2011 Graduates to the Associate Program" There was obviously a certain feeling of satisfaction in knowing that I had tried to get in, instead of wondering what could have been!
As a side note, there is a great coffee shop called the Financier Patisserie, with quiet outdoor seating and amazing coffee on 6th Ave and 48th st. Check it out if you need a little respite just north of Times Square.
-BSM.
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