What Are the Dimensions of the Recruiting Process at Sg Cowen?

Investment banking as an industry was going through a consolidation period. Integrated banking groups (like Citigroup or JP Morgan Chase) were able to “win” business from more traditional firms due to their multifaceted in business. “Organizations compete fiercely in the war for talent. Many invest an enormous amount of money, time and other resources in advertising and recruiting strategies to attract the best candidates” (Pulakos, 2005) Fighting occurred with other high status jobs such as venture capital and even tech jobs. That being said, because business has slowed down, there still are a plethora of recruits.

SG Cowens (SGC) recruiting process has many dimensions. Internally, young employees were able to be promoted and interns were offered full time employment after their graduation. Externally, SGC recruited on college campuses. In the fall, SGC associates would begin recruiting in he fall where it would make company presentations at certain business schools. Those associates would even go so far to conduct “informal interviews” to gauge interest before their first formal interview. Team captains were assigned at each school, preferably banking professionals who were alumni from that school, to be a point of contact.

The success of SGC recruiting came when captains (and teams) were able to pound the pavement, like at Cornell. Gregg Schoenberg, who joined the team in 1998, was the team captain ad an alumni of the Johnson School of Business at Cornell. He believed that Cornell students had to show more initiative and be more focused which turned them into great hires. In addition to that, because they couldn’t be big players at core-schools, they found success at recruiting top of the class students at non-top 10 campuses (such as Emory and USC).

Chip Rae, director of recruiting, encouraged his team captains to answer four questions at every recruiting presentation: “Who are we, what we do, what distinguishes us from