Ask a Georgia Tech Sophomore!

BanjoHitter
Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:22:12 +0000

Banks have three types of schools: primary targets, secondary schools, and non-targets. At a primary target, the company plans to hire X number of students from that school. At a secondary school they will visit and interview, but will only hire if they see someone special. A non-target is a school they do not visit and you submit a resume online.

At a non-target, it is very very difficult to get hired unless you know someone. Otherwise your resume is grouped with 10,000 others and you have to pray that it stands out to someone. At a target school, the company has already planned to hire from that school, so all you need to be is one of the top students at that school to get hired. At a secondary school (like Tech), the company will come and may or may not hire. So you don’t just have to be a top student at Tech, you have to be an outstanding student overall.

As far as BB banks that come to campus (this list is in no way correct - it’s just me going off memory from job postings I recall from the last few years): Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citi, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan. So that’s about half of them. I also know that many non-BB investment banks come to campus.

Being at a secondary school is good, though. There’s not many of them. And if you want to go to a primary target, you’re looking at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, and a few other schools that are very expensive and very difficult to get in.