This post was written by Canary Wharfian, a seasoned investment banking professional based in London with extensive experience across EMEA capital markets.
Application Process
The recruitment process for high-finance internship and graduate roles across the EMEA region is rather fragmented and quite different from that of North America. Each region/country has their own way of doing things, with the biggest difference generally being the lack of on-campus recruitment (OCR). In London, all applications go through the same online process/portal, and the path to getting to the offer stage is quite straightforward. Each role has different stages, but usually it goes like the following:
- Apply online on the company’s career site (sometimes outsourced to modern third-party providers like Greenhouse – sometimes it’s proprietary software)
- Complete timed psychometric tests, logical, numerical, verbal, and situational judgement (even this differs across each firm: some don’t do it all, some re-test on site depending on the role to prevent cheating, some have pass/fail, some have top 20% progressing, some do all 4 types of testing, some do no testing at all)
- Automated, one-way interviews (HireVue interviews are common) (same here: some do it, some don’t)
- Screening call (over Zoom, or simply the phone)
- In-person Assessment Centre (similar to superday, but it’s usually on-site at the employer – not at a hotel)
The standard grade requirement is called a 2:1 (upper 2-nd class degree classification) (equivalent to roughly a 3.5 GPA in the US). Anything under this means an automatic rejection, and MBA admission across the continent also became much more difficult (if not impossible to get admitted to a top institution).
Target/Non-Target Brackets
While all applications go through the same “black hole”, obviously the target/non-target categories are still very relevant here and go something like:
- Top-tier target: Oxford University, Cambridge University, London School of Economics, Imperial College London
- Mid-tier target: UCL, Warwick
- Semi-targets: Exeter, Bristol, Bath, Durham, a few others here
- Non-targets: Anything else (University of East Anglia, London Metropolitan University, etc)
Target students enjoy the same advantages as in the US: access to many exclusive networking events and opportunities to speak to industry professionals, while at semi-targets (Bristol has an exceptionally strong IB hustle culture) it’s generally sporadic, while at non-targets it’s non-existent, similar to the US.
Networking
Networking works to a different extent and the same tactics or high-level strategy that will succeed in the US, will fail in the EMEA. While alumni networks are fairly strong at the target/semi-target level, the same can not be said about non-targets. Generally coffee chats and cold outreaches are nowhere near the same ROI as in the US. For example, if you attend a non-target in the UK and have no connections, your chances of breaking in is close to nil, whereas in the US with persistence and determination it can be pulled off.
In other words, you can do all the networking under the sun in the EMEA, and you will probably still not make it if you attend a non-target. Not because networking doesn’t work, but because no one will take time out of their day and talk to you.
So, the US is more meritocratic and the EMEA is more elitist. However, Europe being the continent of 40+ countries, the recruitment dynamic here is also quite different, which can be a positive or a negative thing. That is, of shared language and cultural background. If you are Polish, you will find it much easier to network with fellow expats, same goes if you are French, or German, or British. Crude example, and this is often overlooked, but it’s obvious in everyday interactions. If you are not culturally aware, you will find Germans to be quite aggressive and even rude if you are British. And that was just one cultural comparison. It is a subtle and unspoken difference between two nationalities.
In an international center like London, where most high-finance roles are based and have pull from all European nationals, this matters for two reasons:
- Language. If you are French, that means you understand French culture (maybe even business culture) and can communicate in French natively. This has value in and out of itself. This means you are a great hire for a bank with a strong presence in France. Not so much in Germany, or say Sweden – but you can’t do two jobs at the same time anyway, and all it takes is one. There will be a German or Swede who will do those roles anyway.
Conversely, imagine you are Slovakian. You are of much less use in France, and probably out of luck (and a job). Here’s the bigger problem though, Slovakia is a tiny economy in Europe with no significant IB activity, and the same goes for many other countries. Put simply, your nationality can be a curse – or a blessing.
- Human nature. It’s taboo, but imagine the following scenario. You are to choose the new hire between three potential candidates, and they are all the same in terms of everything. Who do you pick? Probably the one who shares the same culture and language as you are. Unless of course you are super rational and objective, which (most of the time) humans are not.
Geography
High-finance roles center around London and this had been the case in recent history (at one time centuries ago it was Amsterdam). Not so much since Brexit happened in ‘20, which meant the UK lost its’ passporting rights and was no longer allowed to serve continental european clients from there and so a lot of jobs had to be moved to regional centres like Paris, Frankfurt and Madrid. Generally the pace of recruitment at these regional centres is much slower than London.
Players
Investment banking in the UK is dominated by a mix of global bulge-bracket firms, elite boutiques, and regional powerhouses. Leading the pack are American giants like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase, which consistently top league tables for deal volume in the EMEA region. These banks maintain a strong London presence, handling high-profile transactions in sectors like technology, media, and telecoms (TMT), healthcare, and energy. European players such as Barclays, Deutsche Bank, UBS, and BNP Paribas also feature prominently, often focusing on UK-centric deals.
Elite boutiques like Rothschild, Lazard, Evercore, Centerview Partners, and PJT Partners excel in advisory roles, offering specialized expertise and attracting talent with competitive compensation. Middle-market firms such as Jefferies and Numis provide opportunities for those seeking a balance between deal exposure and work-life dynamics. Big Four firms’ corporate finance arms and smaller UK-focused banks like Investec round out the ecosystem.
Deals are most of the time much smaller in Europe than in the US. There is one industry that does come close to that of US volume and prestige and that is global markets (aka sales & trading), especially for currency trading, and more recently, quantitative trading.
Connect with me
📍Linkedin www.linkedin.com/in/maxbradleyadams/
📍Youtube www.youtube.com/@wallstreetmastermind
📍Instagram www.instagram.com/wallstreetmastermind/
