By Lindsay Gellman
To land a summer job on Wall Street this year, Fairfield
University junior Matthew Edgar sent 300 emails, made dozens of
phone calls and several networking trips to New York banks from the
Connecticut campus.
Darwin Li had a more direct route: The Princeton University
junior applied online for positions and attended campus information
sessions where company recruiters walked him through the
application process and the firm's culture.
A growing number of employers say a degree from a prestigious
college counts less than it once did. But among elite finance and
management-consulting firms--which offer some of the highest
starting salaries for new graduates--an alma mater still matters.
That puts students from less-selective schools at a disadvantage,
career-services officers and students say.
"We teach our students that they're going to have to compete,"
said Eugene Gentile, director of the office of career management at
Rutgers Business School. "Many of our students are not already
moneyed. They're often first-generation college students. When they
get out there in these firms, they compete with the best of
them."
Competition is intense for summer analyst positions at Wall
Street firms and management-consulting firms, the surest way to
land a full-time role after graduation. For instance, fewer than 2%
of applicants to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s summer
investment-banking programs are accepted.
The odds can be even longer for students at places like
Fairfield, Rutgers and Northeastern University, which are usually
considered "nontarget" schools by recruiters. For those students,
getting a foot in the door at a prominent Wall Street firm means
sending hundreds of emails and cold-calling a string of bankers in
hopes of landing a brief phone interview and a recommendation.
Wall Street target-school lists vary, but they tend to include
Ivy League schools and a handful of other elite institutions, such
as Stanford University, because that's where they find top
students, recruiters said.
At target schools, it can seem as though banks and consulting
firms are the ones in hot pursuit during fall recruiting season.
Students submit applications for summer-analyst roles, which are
then funneled directly to recruiters who visit campus several times
throughout the fall semester for information sessions and informal
coffees.
By the time a bank invites applicants to a first-round
interview, "we've probably met you three or four times" on a
target-school campus, said one big bank recruiter.
Classmates have to do little outside work aside from just
showing up, said Mr. Li, the 20-year-old Princeton student, who
recently accepted a summer-analyst offer at Credit Suisse Group AG.
"The industry is very connection-based," he said.
Rutgers senior Jason Seo, co-president of Little Investment
Bankers of Rutgers (LIBOR), the school's finance club, said
companies "are actively searching for kids" at target schools,
while "we are actively searching for firms."
Recruiters and alumni employees from consulting firms like
McKinsey & Co. visit target campuses several times a semester,
hosting informational events and getting to know students.
Bank and consulting firm recruiters say that all applicants for
summer positions who make it into the pool of candidates for
consideration are evaluated equally.
For students at nontarget schools, the trick is finding a way
into that pool. Without recruiters on campus, they must initiate a
blitz of emails, calls and messages through networking sites like
LinkedIn to find a banker or consultant willing to flag their
application to recruiters.
"I treated every phone call like an interview," Sameer Saifi, a
22-year-old senior at the University of Texas at Austin, said of
his two dozen calls to bankers. Those calls were followed by 200
emails, he said. Houston banks recruit heavily at the school, which
is on some big banks' target lists, but recruiters for New
York-based investment-banking positions rarely visit, he added.
Mr. Saifi got a foothold at Bank of America Corp., where bankers
he spoke with agreed to give his application a nod, landing him a
first-round interview in New York, and a summer-analyst stint at
the bank last year. After graduation, he'll begin work with Goldman
Sachs in San Francisco, he said.
Mr. Edgar, the 20-year-old Fairfield junior, was determined not
to end up in a back-office role. He said he contacted a Fairfield
alumnus at Morgan Stanley who put him in touch with colleagues for
informational chats. He followed up with a visit to the firm's New
York headquarters, where he asked the Fairfield graduate to
introduce him to other bankers.
In addition, Mr. Edgar said he spent upward of five hours a week
teaching himself investment-banking concepts, such as valuation
techniques, that would come up in interviews--and that competing
applicants from higher-tier schools likely knew already.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and other firms dedicate recruiters
specifically for applicants from nontarget schools who read
applications but don't typically visit campuses. But the banks say
they are doing more to cast a wider net.
Goldman Sachs said its list contains more than 25 schools,
including some that others consider nontargets, like Rutgers (
Harvey Schwartz, the firm's finance chief, is an alumnus). Bank of
America Merrill Lynch said last year it rolled out Web-based info
sessions to reach a wider array of potential candidates at schools
it isn't able to physically visit. Citigroup Inc. said 28% of its
incoming summer investment-banking analysts hail from schools it
didn't visit. And J.P. Morgan said a significant portion of each
summer analyst class is made up of candidates from nontarget
schools.
Mr. Edgar's Morgan Stanley contacts came through, and he landed
a summer analyst spot this year. The extra legwork tested, and
ultimately confirmed, his interest in investment banking, he said.
"I know this is exactly what I want to do with my life."
Write to Lindsay Gellman at Lindsay.Gellman@wsj.com
Access Investor Kit for The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US38141G1040
Access Investor Kit for JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US46625H1005
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires