For the past few years, the Autumn term in London has become notorious for the UK finance industry’s internship recruitments, beginning a year in advance for university students.
Following a drop in graduate vacancies, 52 finance companies across the UK have announced the ‘The Advanced Early Careers Scheme’, a multilaterally-adopted framework encouraging students hoping to secure an entry-level position to begin demonstrating employability at roughly the same age they developed body hair.
“We are excited to further increase our outreach to young talent,” explained one Head of Emerging Talent at an investment management firm, who also wanted students to start early in “showing consistent stakeholder management skills, commercial awareness, and an unwavering commitment to delivering profit for our clients.”
The scheme includes:
At Year 4, a list of career fairs helping students explore whether they’d be best suited for buy-side or sell-side firms.
At Year 5, a LinkedIn panel on thought leadership posts about monetary policy, artificial intelligence or lessons learned from leading the primary school rugby team.
At Year 6, a skills workshop on how to bypass a company’s AI system that may automatically eliminate CVs due to poor document margins.
And at Year 9, a limited-position 5-day insight programme which makes participants design 215-page slides on a firm’s Corporate Social Responsibility objectives.
UCL’s endorsement of the framework follows growing concerns that graduates are entering university with little more than strong academic records, extracurricular interests and in several troubling cases, “a strong moral compass.”
“We have noticed that some first-year students arrive believing university is a place for intellectual exploration,” said one careers adviser, visibly concerned.
“Naturally, we try to correct that misconception as quickly as possible.”
Instead, students will be encouraged to view university as a three-year assessment centre punctuated occasionally by seminars to exchange LinkedIn profiles in smaller groups.
Trackr, a popular internship tracker platform among university students, has added a new page on their website dedicated to up-to-date openings for the new scheme.
In recognition of the scheme's target demographic, the page will include signposting by a Tung-Tung-Tung Sahur avatar perpetually doing the 67 hand gesture which will guide prospective candidates through the application process.
A recruitment manager at another founding firm recommended that, with the implementation of the The Advanced Early Careers Scheme, current university students should prioritise networking opportunities over non-essential extracurricular activities including sleep, hobbies, and, where necessary, recreational social activities to increase chances of landing an offer.
“I wish this scheme existed when I was 8,” said one economics first-year at UCL.
“Last week I had to leave my girlfriend in the throes because I had an online private equity coffee chat.”
When asked for a comment, the recruitment manager praised the candidate for “demonstrating strong prioritisation skills under pressure” and offered a personal referral for the 2029 graduate applications.
If this sounds like a lot, don’t worry.
The framework includes an appendix stating that the new scheme only applies to children of prospective parents who began networking on behalf of their unborn children during the second trimester. So likely, many are not eligible for the scheme.
Note: Applications for the 2029 Graduate Scheme opened this morning. Unfortunately, they have now closed.