Graduates - Lambs For The Slaughter

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last updated: 27 July 2008

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Here Is The City has a new blogger. 'Bud Momus' is an analyst finding his feet in investment banking, having graduated not too long ago. By day he works for 'the man', by night he occasionally dreams of liberation and a job doing more noble things for mankind. His innocence was quickly lost, and he already finds himself held prisoner by the relatively large amounts of cash that come his way for selling his soul.

Our mate 'Bud' pontificates below about the graduate recruitment process.

'Graduate recruitment is now a cycle that never ends. New graduates recruits, summer intern recruitment, summer intern management and new graduate initiation is the cycle that runs from one autumn to the next, as the hunt for new talent is critical for maintaining momentum at the top investment banks.

Around campus, jobs in an investment bank are either viewed like the elite starting-point for life after university, or the beginning of a journey to hell. Investment banking has a mythical reputation. The streets of the financial markets, it seems, can literally be paved with gold. And the stories fly around campus - can one really get a 100% bonus in the first year ? Do firms only employ public school / Oxbridge-type studs ? Is it true that women don't generally progress further than VP ? And will I really be eating all three meals a day at my desk for the next 3 years ?

Although these graduate jobs are not all they are made out to be, and are often misrepresented by those involved in the recruitment process, those high-achieving graduates usually couldn't care less. This is reflected by the conversion rate of interns - over half of those who do an internship stay on in the sector, either in the same role or moving to a different department, after having experience the harsh realities of life at the coal-face.

Every investment banking employee knows that there's a limit on what they can say about life in their firm at a recruitment events. Now I am involved in this process, I understand that. I would love to answer honestly to the crowd of wide-eyed students, telling them that some of us are stuck at work night after night editing pitchbooks that have not materialised into one deal this year. Yet I find myself having to convey an image of graduates 'having challenging work and important responsibilities'. For reasons of personal pride, and not wishing to dive bomb our own careers hardly before they have begun, we do not reveal that in reality, the social life at our firm has been largely non-existent, and that many of my colleagues now have bad wind and mild scurvy because of the appalling takeaways they are compelled to eat for dinner each evening. Some actually work 100 + hour weeks on a regular basis.

Oh, and that nice head of department you've just talked to is not the polite and considerate guy you think he is. He talks on his blackberry whilst at the urinal, and enjoys nothing more than plying young females with drinks until they are blind drunk and good for....well, you work it out. And, by the way, you really have to watch yourself at these milkround events, because, despite it supposedly being an informal event, the fact that you turn up wearing a soiled t-shirt and ask questions about big bonuses and hot chicks will mean that you'll get an automatic turn-down should you apply for a graduate position. Be on your guard at all times.

Anyway, needless to say, when the campus recruitment season begins again with a vengeance in late September, I will be on my best behaviour and do my part for my esteemed firm. I will unashamedly glorify my position as a monkey, and tell all who will listen about my balanced and fun lifestyle. After all, it's 'buyer beware'. If I ever meet that chap who convinced me the path of investment banking was the righteous one, I wouldn't hold it against him. Because, despite all I've said, I quite like working in this tough old industry'.

READER COMMENT:

'As a recent naive and doe-eyed graduate, I can broadly support the views expressed in this article. Having said this, there are areas of investment banking, not involved in the frantic comings and goings of front office, that offer a slightly more gratifying experience. (In that I mean that your colleagues don't want to eat you alive, and you get out of the office at a fairly decent time). Let's face it, though - young, debt-ridden things will always succumb to the perceived glamour and earnings-potential of investment banking, despite the warnings. Let's feed their fantasy for now, and let them retain their innocence, however, for as long as possible!'.