However, a bountiful supply of relevant work experience is the best way of eventually securing a full-time role, so what if the easiest way of attaining this is to pay for it? Hedge fund Man Group and investment bank Oppenheimer have signed up to a charity scheme that auctions work placements to the highest bidder.

Jill Shaw Ruddock, a former investment banker, now runs charity the Second Half Centre, which offered a week’s work experience at seven firms – including the two finance companies above – to parents willing to pay around £5k.

A week at Man Group or Oppenheimer is more likely to provide you with a valuable insight into the financial sector, and some contacts, than it is a fast-track to a career in the City. However, it highlights how it helps to both be both affluent and connected to get the first leg up towards a finance job.

Paying for internships is not unprecedented; at the Conservative Party’s Black and White party in 2011, attendees paid between £2-3.5k for work placements for their children at hedge fund Caxton Associates, interdealer broker ICAP, Arbuthnot Private Bank and CMC Markets.

Putting a price tag on it may make the whole process more contentious, but nepotism still exists within the City. An overt example of this is at wealth manager St James’ Place, which last year started the ‘Next Generation Academy’, specifically aimed at the children of current partners.

Less obviously, though, the recruitment process is weighted towards those from more affluent backgrounds, whose parents are more likely to give them pointers on the various hoops they have to jump through – the right extra-curricular activities, work experience throughout, or even before, university, choosing the right college and subject – than those from poorer backgrounds.

Financial services firms are, at least, beginning to acknowledge this. J.P. Morgan launched its Residential Internship – aimed at A-level students from poorer backgrounds – this year, while Goldman Sachs spent nearly £600k last year providing scholarships to disadvantaged students. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Lloyds Banking Group all have similar schemes.

Still, only a few hedge funds recruit graduates directly and those that do are notoriously selective. Narrowing the candidate pool to those who can afford it doesn’t sit well.

The place auctioned by the Second Half Centre was just one of many internships offered at Man Group this year. A spokesperson said that: “Internships are available on a case-by-case basis to a range of applicants”. Oppenheimer didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

“Every book I read, I’m in love with it as I read it,” he told the interviewer, before enthusing about his latest reading material – Ron Chernow’s book on George Washington.  During the peak of the financial crisis, he said there was no time for contemplation: “You just try to sort things out and to get through and then one day you come out and there’s nothing left to sort out and you realize it’s over.” 

Blankfein’s great wisdom was most in evidence when he discussed careers advice for young people. To the young, he said: take things one step at a time.

In his own career, Blankfein said things had turned out very differently to his early expectations. Young people need to accept their lack of control. If you’re a young adult now, Blankfein said you should “do something that’s for the next period of your life and not be so obsessive about where it will take you in the longer term.”

The problem is that not only do you not know the context you’re going to face as a young person, said Blankfein: you don’t even know yourself. “The idea of planning these things and trying to do these things on a course and thinking will this be good for me in the long run,” is wrong, he said.

“I think people should take advantage of the act that in this generation no one is getting drafted into the army, and you can have a few years of experimentation,” Blankfein added. “You can be liberated from the need to make sure that everything is taking you on some straight line to some place, because turns out not to be a straight line anyway.

“To succeed, you have to be a complete person,” he concluded. “In the early part of your life you should focus a lot on being a complete person.”

Blankfein’s own children are aged 19, 25, and 27. He said they don’t take his advice themselves. 

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After a period of training, analysts recruited into front office roles at Barclays investment bank formally started their new roles in February, and this week were given approved person status by the UK’s Financial Services Authority.

These newly anointed-Barclays staff include Ian Clancy, an analyst in the leveraged loan, high yield and distressed debt team; Marco Micieli, an analyst in commodities origination, Abhishek Reddy, who works in fixed income sales; James Simmonds, an analyst in credit strategy; Henry Capper, M&A analyst; Bastian Greiner, an analyst in the investment banking division; Paulina Sokolova, an equity research analyst; Matthew Terret, an analyst in institutional securitised product sales; Jordan Barnes, a money market trader; William Benjamin, IBD real estate; Mark Vaillant, an analyst in FICC emerging market sales and Martha Pachatouridi, analyst in rates sales.

Competition for investment banks’ graduate positions is intense, but it’s the front office positions which remain the most coveted. What does the 2013 analyst class at Barclays tell us about what you need to do to secure a position?

1. Intern in the division you wish to work in

Internship conversions are the most direct route into a front office investment banking position, with 60-70% of summer interns securing a full-time position. With the exception of Clancy, all of Barclays’ 2013 analysts interned at the bank within the division they eventually secured a full-time position in the summer before.

Jane Clark, head of investment bank campus recruitment, Europe and Asia, at Barclays, said: “Participating in a summer internship or off-cycle internship is the best way for students to decide whether this is the right career and organisation for them and for organisations to recruit the very best talent a year early. Testing each other out in this way has proved so effective that this is now the primary route to a graduate role within the banking sector.”

2. Secure as many internships as you possibly can

All of the Barclays class have multiple internships on their CVs, both summer and spring insight weeks, at firms as diverse as Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Scotland, Keefe Bruyette & Woods, PwC and Aon. The message is pretty clear – if you want to work in a front office investment banking role, start trying to secure work experience either from the moment you start university, or before.

3. Study a mathematical subject

Ask any investment banking graduate recruiter, and they’ll tell you that they hire students from a broad range of universities across a diverse set of subject areas. However, the new Barclays recruits suggest that a mathematical subject is your key into an investment banking position.

The majority studied economics, with both mathematics or engineering also featuring prominently. Only James Simmonds studied an arts subject – History at the University of Edinburgh.

4. A Masters in Finance COULD give you an edge

Masters in Finance courses are expensive, coming in at £30k at the top end, and it’s debatable whether they will do much to increase your chances of securing a full-time position upon graduation. However, the experience of Barclays’ new recruits suggests that investment banks do indeed value them.

Greiner has an MSc in finance and investments from Erasmus University Rotterdam, Sokolova has an MSc in Finance from London School of Economics and Micieli an MSc in Finance from Bocconi.

5. Extra-curricular activities are very important

Graduate resumes can be quite sparse, and investment banks are obsessed with attracting people with a range of extra-curricular activities that demonstrate how any new recruits would be the perfect ‘cultural fit’ into the organisation.

Barclays’ recruits demonstrate this. Matthew Terret was corporate liaison officer Imperial College Finance Society, which would have helped him schmooze with various investment banks, as well as being active in football and rugby teams at university. Abhishek Reddy was a football coach in Ghana with Projects Abroad and William Benjamin was University Challenge captain for Cambridge.

“Through participation in sports, university societies and volunteering in the local community, students learn skills such as teamwork, time management, problem solving and communication,” said Clark.

Related articles:

What does it take to get hired at JPMorgan? Meet this year’s analyst class in London

What does it take to get hired at Bank of America Merrill Lynch? Meet the new analyst class at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Private equity recruitment firm PER conducts an ‘unofficial count’ into how many analysts join the M&A and corporate finance teams of six leading banks in London. In 2010, PER calculated that 250 people joined a combination of Bank of America, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley. After tracking those individuals for three years, it recently calculated that 140 of them are still working in banking. That’s an attrition rate of 44%.

JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse declined to comment on their attrition rates for M&A analysts, and none of the other banks concerned responded to requests for comment. One bank insider said the figures looked high, however, and said that their rate of turnover was less than half that given by PER.

Gail McManus, director at PER, said the high turnover rate reflects both redundancies and defections as analysts leave banking for private equity (PE) funds. Thanks to all the departures, McManus said banks’ teams are being squeezed. The workload for those remaining on teams has increased as banks rein back their junior hiring. “Analyst class sizes have got a lot smaller. This year, we calculated that the top six banks only hired 175 first year analysts in London,” McManus said.

Smaller class sizes and high attrition rates may help explain why banks are so keen to keep hold of their juniors. Bloomberg reported earlier this week that Morgan Stanley had contemplated blocking its first year analysts from applying for new jobs before October. Last September, Goldman Sachs scrapped its two-year contracts for investment banking analysts – reportedly because so many of its junior bankers were leaving for private equity funds.

Why private equity funds want to hire banks’ analysts  

While banks aren’t poaching many M&A analysts from each other, recruiters say private equity funds are more interested than they’ve ever been in taking analysts out of banks.

This is partly a function of the changing dynamic in the private equity industry. “The structure of private equity funds is changing,” said the head of one recruitment firm. “Private equity partners aren’t retiring as frequently as they used to and it’s consequently become harder for PE funds to promote people up their ranks. A lot of funds have started hiring analysts onto two-year programmes so that they can get rid of them at the end of year two.”

McManus confirmed the trend. In the past, she said private equity funds hired second year associates from banks. But second year associates expect quick promotion within the private equity funds they joined. By comparison, she said analysts are easier to manage and have fewer expectations of fast progression. If they’re on two-year programmes, they can simply be let go when the second year is up. Most go on to study MBAs.

Although investment banks are desperate to protect their top analysts from poaching by private equity funds, this doesn’t mean that it’s easy for junior bankers to move into private equity. The head of one recruitment firm told us he’d mapped the entire market of corporate finance analysts in London on behalf of a PE fund which wanted to hire. “We must have interviewed around 80 junior bankers,” he said. “The fund only hired six of them.”

In the year to June 30th 2012, Goldman Sachs Gives (UK), the British charitable arm of the US bank, donated  £575k to Christ Church College, Oxford University. The money will be used to provide help to current students in financial need, and to encourage wider access to the university for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Over the same period, Goldman Sachs Gives (UK) donated £500k to provide bursaries for disadvantaged students to study in the sixth form of Eton College. The bursaries will preferably be given to students from Afro-Caribbean and African backgrounds.

JPMorgan also has a programme to help disadvantaged students in the UK.

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Here are the ten best options:

1. Apply for an off-season internship

You won’t get a graduate job in an investment bank nowadays if you’re expecting to leave university and walk straight into one. As our study of this year’s graduate trainees at JPMorgan showed, most junior hires will have completed multiple internships, often at several banks, before they join. Most full time jobs at banks go to people who were previously interns – especially jobs in sales, trading, or mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

Therefore, if you leave university without a graduate job lined up, your best option go for an internship and hope to get a full time offer later.  Some banks, like Nomura, will accept applications for internship positions from students even after they’ve graduated from university. Most banks now offer ‘off-season’ internships which take place outside the summer months. Apply for these.

2. Apply for a Masters course

A Masters in Finance course can also offer another bite at a banking career. Not all masters in finance courses are equally effective, however. We’ve listed the top 15 Masters in Finance courses (in Europe) for breaking into banking here. You’re advised to try one of these institutions. For maximum effectiveness, you should aim to complete an internship in a bank during the summer after you leave university and before you start the masters.

3. Go into accounting

Accounting jobs can also be routes into investment banking. Banks hire accountants into finance roles like product control, in which accountants calculate the daily profits and losses of traders. You will only be able to move into a ‘front office’ finance job (eg. sales/equity research/M&A) if you train with the Big Four accountancy firms and (in the UK at least) complete an ACA qualification. Be warned, however, that moving out of accounting and into banking is harder than it used to be.

4. Go into industry and then study for an MBA

Private equity funds, industry-focused M&A teams, and equity research functions in banks will be interested in you if you have solid experience in a particular industry (eg. pharmaceuticals) topped off with a top MBA. For a list of the MBA courses banks prefer, click here.  

5. Go into law

In the US, law school has long been a route into a career in corporate finance or M&A. Jeffrey Cohen, global head of retail banking at Lazard, started out as a lawyer, for example.

6. Join a commodities trading house

Commodities companies like Gazprom Marketing and Trading and BP will train graduates in commodities trading roles. Unfortunately, their graduate trainee programmes tend to be as oversubscribed as those at banks, but they’re another route into a job if commodities trading interests you.

7. Go into strategy consulting

Strategy consulting houses like Bain & Co. and McKinsey & Co. are also recognized hiring grounds for would-be investment bankers. Be warned, however, that banks are most likely to hire ex-strategy consultants into internal consulting roles and are most interested in hiring strategy consultants with previous financial services experience. Alternatively, if you’ve worked as a strategy consultant in a different industry area and have completed a top MBA (see point four), you might be able to make it onto an industry team in M&A.

8. Try for a job in the back office

If you wanted to work in sales or trading or M&A and didn’t get a job offer, consider lowering your expectations. Jobs in banks’ support functions (known as the back and middle office) are often easier to get. Be warned, however, that you may be working in Salt Lake City, or Birmingham instead of New York or London if you succeed.

9. Try for a job as a personal assistant

This is a long shot, but if you’re really desperate, there’s always the personal assistant route. If you start as a P.A. you’re unlikely to ever make it into a trading or M&A job, but you could move into project management or an operations position. 

10.  Get a job in a proprietary trading house

‘Prop shops’, which offer to train graduates in the art of trading – for a fee – are popular with students who want to be traders and don’t get into investment banks. If you’re truly desperate, these are an option. Be warned however, that while they may set a few people up for careers as traders, you’ll need something else (like a top Masters in Finance) if you want to move into an investment bank later.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch:

The bank’s remaining full-time graduate positions are in Asia-Pacific, with risk roles available in Hong Kong and China and sales and trading positions, risk and treasury jobs available in Australia.

Apply here

BlackRock:

The world’s biggest asset manager is still going strong on graduate recruitment for 2013. On the investments side, fixed income, equities and client solutions roles are available in both London and Edinburgh. There are also support function full-time positions still available.

Apply here

Deutsche Bank:

The German bank has one full-time programme in the UK still open for applications – within its asset and wealth management division. However, there are also opportunities further afield – transaction banking in Dubai is open for applications (Arabic is a must, though) and there are still graduate roles for its corporate banking and securities division in the Netherlands.

Apply here

Henderson Global Investors:

This is not a graduate position per se, since it’s a 12-month trainee scheme with no guarantee of a full time role at the end. However, the majority (78%) to undertake the scheme have secured a job within Henderson after its completion. Applications for the current intake end on 27 March, but it has seven intakes each year.

Apply here

ICAP:

The world’s biggest interdealer broker is still hiring graduates in London for support functions. There’s a full time programme for post trade risk, and a one-year placement for technology graduates. However, there are full-time broking roles in Sydney and Singapore that are pen to applications until the end of March.

Apply here

Investec:

South African bank and asset manager Investec only opened to applications for its 2013 graduate programme on 8 March. These are for support functions on a rotational basis for six months at a time before new recruits are settled into a particular business area.  There are 4-6 positions available.

Apply here

J.P. Morgan:

J.P. Morgan has a couple of graduate positions open, but you’ll need to be quick – applications close today. There’s a private bank solutions analyst role in London, and an asset management sales support analyst, also in the UK.

Apply here

M&G Investments

This Prudential-owned asset manager has most of its graduate schemes open for applications until the end of March. There’s the commercial management programme – which gives graduates a rotational tour of all the different front office functions, IT and compliance places available.

Apply here

Morgan Stanley:

Unfortunately, the only positions left at Morgan Stanley are for technology and back office roles. There’s a full-time analyst programme for its operations divisions in Glasgow to start in February 2014, or the more adventurous graduates can apply for IT jobs based in its Budapest office.

Apply here

Nomura:

Nomura is already recruiting for its 2014 analyst programme in Sydney, and is closing applications for a Japanese speaking graduate to work in sales on 31 March.

Apply here 

UBS:

UBS has just one open full-time position in EMEA left currently – a project support roles for wealth management, based in Luxembourg.

Apply here

Brevan Howard declined to comment on whether the donation means it will be trying to recruit graduates from the new research centre, although we understand that this is not the express purpose of the gift. Nonetheless, it will certainly accentuate the ties between Brevan Howard and Imperial College. Alan Howard, the founder of Brevan Howard, is an Imperial alumnus and his wife Sabine Howard is on the college board.  Howard already funds various clean energy-related scholarships at Imperial.

This isn’t the first time that a hedge fund has put money into an educational establishment. In 2007 the Man Group and Oxford University founded the Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance (OMI), with core funding coming solely from Man. Man recruits from OMI, which it says provides, ‘a unique opportunity for academics and commercial researchers to work alongside each other on a daily basis.’

These are entry-level jobs, so many of the questions seem surprisingly simple. One in particular crops up time after time: ‘Where will you in five years?’ – never walk into a banking interview without knowing how to respond.

Under each link, we’ve also added the answers students told us they gave to the questions. The responses are for your information – we’re not saying they’re ideal, or even necessarily correct, we’re just giving you an idea of the standard of the competition. If you’ve interviewed for a graduate role with an investment bank and have some questions (and answers) to send us, get in touch at Editor@eFinancialCareers.com.

Barclays, finance interview questions, graduate position 

Bank of America, technology interview questions, graduate position

Bank of Ireland, FX sales and trading interview questions, internship 

Brown Brothers Harriman, compliance interview questions, internship 

Deutsche Bank,  sales and trading interview questions, graduate position

HSBC, finance interview questions, internship  

HSBC, debt capital markets interview questions, internship 

JPMorgan, private banking interview questions, graduate position 

Morgan Stanley, credit risk interview questions, graduate position 

OSTC Trading, fixed income trading interview questions, graduate position 

Royal Bank of Scotland, debt capital markets interview questions, internship 

Santander, retail banking interview questions, graduate position 

SocGen, equity structuring interview questions, internship 

The new venture, Investment 2020, will see 13 asset management firms offer 100 places to graduates and school leavers from outside of a small elite band of universities this year in an attempt to ensure a greater range of backgrounds in the industry. Financial services firms have typically targeted the cream of academia, and the new trainee programme will target young people regardless of their education. Firms are keen to dispel accusations of class bias.

By 2020, the aim is to offer at least 2,020 jobs every year.

Aberdeen Asset Management, BNP Paribas Securities Services, Cazenove Capital, First State, JO Hambro Capital Management, Jupiter, Legal & General Investment Management, M&G, Pension Insurance Corporation, Schroders, Standard Life Investments and Threadneedle have all signed up.

The programme is based on a pilot scheme at Henderson Global Investors that’s been running for the last three years. It doesn’t offer full-time jobs, but is a 12-month training scheme that gives graduates exposure to different areas of the business including marketing, investment, information technology and operations.

Henderson takes in students seven times during the year and has trained 83 people since the programme’s inception, 75% of whom have gone to a permanent role at the firm. Some 95% now work in a fund management position; the remainder have returned to full-time education. Henderson intends to hire 40 students this year.

“Our firms are on average receiving 50 applicants per role, 25% more than three years ago,” said Andrew Formica, chief executive of Henderson.  “The Catch 22 is that 50 percent of recruiters say they will only hire someone with work experience, and often only from an education at one of a small group of universities.   But how can most young people in Britain get that work experience if they haven’t been to one of the top universities?”

Fund managers typically recruit between five and 10 graduates each year, making competition fierce.

Those graduates interested in the jobs this year should follow this link when the website launches on Wednesday 6 March.