Do all the advertised graduate jobs exist?
Have you been busy applying for graduate jobs in banking and financial services? What level of response have you received? I have feedback that suggests the number of actual vacancies is far less than might be expected from the corporate websites.
I’m told that one investment bank has already recruited 90% of the planned 2012 graduate intake from this years Summer interns.
In financial services, Stephen Isherwood, the head of graduate recruitment at Ernst & Young, has said that 30% to 40% of its graduate jobs, set to start in September 2012, had already been offered to students who completed internships at the company over the summer. Next year he plans to offer half of the graduate jobs to those who have completed an internship with the company.
One way of increasing your odds for selection, apart from completing an internship, is to select wisely the area of business activity in which you want to work and the part of the country/world you would like to work. Is it imperative that you work in London? This is where the competition will be most fierce, take a look at regional offices and what they can offer. Once you are qualified you will have the opportunity to move within the organisation or to another firm in a location that you find more attractive.