Financial Services
Building a European talent programme for a global investment bank.
A bank expanding through satellite offices needed a reliable way to build junior talent pools across Europe without relying solely on its existing graduate programme.
Global investment bank
- Solution
- Rotational out-of-cycle internship programme
- Markets
- Six European countries
- Average hiring
- Ten interns per quarter
- Focus
- Analyst and associate talent
Challenge
A global investment bank was looking to open satellite offices in key locations across Europe to meet increasing client demand and capitalise on growing merger and acquisition activity.
Director-level appointments were supported by rigorous executive search, but the bank wanted to reduce the risk of an unknown talent pool at analyst and associate level.
The existing graduate programme offered limited options because candidates often lacked the necessary experience, international mobility or language capability.
Approach
Working closely with global leaders, we identified priority growth locations and the specific skill gaps across the existing team, including language, cultural knowledge and capability.
Although talent at this level was readily available, referencing alone would not provide enough evidence of ability and the cost of poor hiring decisions was significant.
We conducted detailed market research into alternative routes and talent pools. The evidence indicated that a rotational, out-of-cycle internship programme was better suited to the bank’s needs.
Outcome
- Designed an out-of-cycle internship programme to complement the bank’s graduate programme and provide junior talent throughout the year.
- The programme enabled the bank to assess a broader group of candidates against role requirements before offering selected interns permanent positions.
- Following its success, the programme was rolled out across France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom.
- The client now hires an average of ten out-of-cycle interns per quarter across six countries.
Partnership over transaction
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