How the recruiting machine works — and where candidates get knocked out
This module follows the UK S&T application funnel from start to finish. It covers every stage where candidates are screened out, what those making decisions actually care about, and how to avoid the mistakes that end applications before they start. Includes a worked CV and cover letter for a non-finance UK undergraduate.
How the recruiting process actually works
Most candidates think of recruiting as a straightforward meritocracy. It is not. It is partly meritocratic, partly relational, partly the product of timing, and partly institutional. Knowing who decides what, at which stage, changes how you allocate your effort.
At a major UK bank, the S&T summer analyst recruiting funnel for penultimate-year undergraduates looks roughly like this:
The numbers vary by bank and cohort size. The ratios are consistent. Most candidates get knocked out before they ever speak to the desk. The CV screen and online tests eliminate more than half the applicant pool. Investing in interview preparation before your application materials are sorted is working backwards.
Who decides at each stage:
At CV screen, the decision is made by HR — often using ATS (Applicant Tracking System) software that scores applications before a human sees them. At online tests, it is automated. At HireVue, it is usually HR plus occasionally a junior S&T professional reviewing recordings. At the assessment centre, it is entirely the desk — the people you would be working for. The closer you get to an offer, the less HR matters and the more the desk does.
The timeline. UK S&T internship recruiting runs on a compressed cycle. Most major banks open applications in September–October of your penultimate year and close them within 4–6 weeks. Some banks operate on a rolling basis — meaning they fill seats as they go rather than reviewing all applications at once. At a rolling-process bank, submitting in October is materially better than submitting in December. At a fixed-window bank, timing within the window matters less.
In the UK, the pipeline to a summer internship often runs through a first-year spring week (also called insight week or diversity programme). Banks use spring weeks to identify talent early and give priority access to their summer analyst process. Getting a spring week as a first-year significantly increases your odds of getting a summer internship offer as a second-year — because you have already met people on the desk, and a spring week "return offer" can be explicitly or implicitly on the table. This is covered in section 3.2.
Spring weeks, insight days, and the UK pipeline
The UK S&T recruiting pipeline has a feature that does not exist in the US in the same form: spring weeks. These are week-long programmes — usually in March or April of your first year — that give first-year undergraduates structured access to the bank and its people. They include desk shadowing, structured training sessions, networking events with analysts and MDs, and in some cases a mini-case or presentation.
Why they matter: the best ones include a fast-track or priority track to the summer internship process the following year. Even where they do not offer an explicit conversion route, the relationships you build during the week — with analysts, with HR, with desk heads who remember your name — give you a meaningful edge when you apply for the internship twelve months later.
Spring weeks are competitive. At top-tier banks (Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Barclays, Deutsche), spring week programmes for S&T are meaningfully oversubscribed. The application process mirrors the full internship application: CV, cover letter, sometimes online tests, sometimes a phone screen. Do not treat them as a casual fallback.
Diversity programmes are a distinct category. Most major banks run separate programmes for underrepresented groups — Black in Business (various banks), SEO London, 10,000 Black Interns, LGBTQ+-targeted programmes, women-in-finance weeks. These are specifically designed to widen the pipeline and often include more structured mentorship and development than standard spring weeks. If you are eligible, apply. They carry no stigma and often provide better access to senior people than the standard route.
Not having a spring week is not a disqualifying absence — plenty of summer analysts never did one. What it does mean is that you are entering the internship process without established relationships at the bank. The networking section (3.7) becomes more important, and your application materials need to do more work. Going directly to the internship application without any prior contact with the bank is the standard route for most candidates.
Targeting the right banks and building your list
Most candidates either apply to too few banks (aiming only at the top tier) or too many (firing out 20 identical applications). Neither works well. The right approach is a targeted list of 8–12 banks where you have a genuine case, prepared with enough specificity that each application does not read like the same letter with a different name inserted.
How to think about the landscape. For UK-based S&T roles, the relevant banks split roughly into four groups:
| Bank | S&T strengths in London | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Goldman Sachs | Rates, credit, FX, equities, commodities | Most selective. Division called "Securities." Strong culture of intellectual rigour. Recruiting timeline compressed vs peers. |
| Morgan Stanley | Equities (cash + deriv), rates, FX, structured | Particularly strong in equity derivatives. "Markets" division. Known for client franchise strength. |
| JP Morgan | Rates, credit, FX, commodities, EM | Largest S&T operation globally. "Markets" division. Strong in EM and credit. Rolling application process — apply early. |
| Citi | FX, rates, EM, credit | Very strong FX franchise. EM is a genuine differentiator. Less hierarchical culture than GS/MS. |
| Bank of America | Rates, credit, equities, FX | "Global Markets." Strong credit research and issuance franchise. Good graduate programme structure. |
| Bank | S&T strengths in London | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Barclays | Rates (gilts, supranationals), credit, FX, equities | The strongest European bank S&T franchise in London. Rates and credit are top-tier. "Global Markets." Strong sterling rates and gilt franchise specifically. |
| Deutsche Bank | FX, rates, credit, EM, structured products | One of the largest FX operations globally. Went through significant restructuring 2019–2022; now stabilised. FIC dominant over equities. |
| HSBC | FX, rates, EM, credit | Unique EM and Asia-Pacific franchise. "Global Markets." Strongest in currencies and EM fixed income. Good entry point for those with language skills or EM interest. |
| BNP Paribas | Equity derivatives, structured, rates, FX | Best-in-class equity derivatives franchise in Europe. Structured products and cross-asset are genuine strengths. Less well-known to UK undergrads than it should be. |
| Société Générale | Equity derivatives, structured, FX | Strong equity derivatives and structured products. French culture — language not required for London roles but valued for client-facing EM work. |
| Bank | S&T strengths | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Nomura | Rates, credit, equities, EM Asia | Strong rates franchise in Europe and Asia. More junior responsibility earlier. Good for EM Asia exposure. |
| MUFG / Mizuho / SMBC | Rates, FX, credit | Smaller S&T operations in London. Less competitive than European/US peers. Can be good targets if you have Japanese language skills or genuine interest in Asia. |
| RBC / BMO / TD | Rates (gilts, government bonds), credit | Canadian banks have growing London operations, particularly in rates and credit. Less name recognition but often stronger junior culture and earlier responsibility. |
Before you write a single line of an application, you should know: what the bank's S&T division is called, which products it is strongest in, whether it has a rotational or desk-specific programme, and one genuine reason why that bank's franchise is interesting to you. The single best research method is a 20-minute LinkedIn conversation with a first or second-year analyst at the bank — not to name-drop them in the application, but to understand what the programme actually looks like from the inside. That intelligence makes every part of your application sharper. This is what section 3.7 covers.
Applying only to Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and JP Morgan. All three are genuinely excellent but also the most selective. Applying only to them without a realistic backup plan is a high-variance strategy that most candidates should not take.
Applying to 20 banks with identical materials. HR can tell. The cover letter that does not name the division correctly, does not know which products the bank specialises in, or uses phrases like "your prestigious firm" is one of 2,000 applications and will be treated accordingly.
Ignoring European banks because they are less famous. BNP Paribas equity derivatives, Deutsche FX, Barclays rates — these are world-class franchises. The training, deal flow, and junior culture at European banks can be materially better than at US bulge brackets where the S&T division is a smaller part of a much larger institution.
Your CV
An S&T CV has one job: get you through the ATS and the 30-second HR screen to the online test stage. It does not get you the offer. It does not impress the trading desk. It is a document designed to pass a filter, and the rules for passing that filter are well-established.
The non-negotiables: one page, no exceptions. Reverse chronological. Education at the top. Clean formatting with no graphics, no photos, no colour. PDF. Your name at the top, contact details underneath. That's it for structure.
What S&T recruiters look for differently from IBD: In investment banking, the CV is almost purely about credentials — university, grades, internships. In S&T, personality and intellectual curiosity matter more at the margins. An interesting Activities & Interests section that reveals a genuine passion — a competitive sport, a language, a specific research interest — can generate conversation in interviews in a way that a list of finance society memberships cannot. Demonstrated technical skills (Python, coding, statistics) are worth calling out explicitly — more so than in IBD.
The STAR structure for bullet points. Each experience bullet should imply: Situation, Task, Action, Result. You do not need to spell it out in those words. But a bullet that says "Assisted with research" is useless. A bullet that says "Built a Python model to track 300+ EM bonds across 15 countries, used daily by the sales team to identify pricing anomalies" is what gets read.
Worked example — annotated CV
Fictional candidate: Amara Osei, second-year History & Politics undergraduate at Bristol, no prior finance internship, one non-finance work experience, genuine markets interest built through self-study and societies.
linkedin.com/in/amaraosei · Bristol, UK
- Relevant modules: Global Political Economy, Financial History of the 20th Century, Quantitative Methods in Social Science
- Languages: French (conversational) 4
- Shadowed rates sales and FX sales desks across a 4-day programme; attended morning meetings and client call briefings
- Completed a group presentation on ECB policy divergence and its impact on EUR/GBP, presented to a panel including the head of European rates sales 7
- Managed client communications for a portfolio of 40+ properties; handled daily enquiries and coordinated viewings across three senior agents 8
- Redesigned the agency's property tracking spreadsheet, reducing weekly report preparation time by approximately 30%
- Bristol Finance & Investment Society — Markets team; prepare weekly macro briefing distributed to 200+ members 9
- Bristol University Rugby Club — Starting prop, men's 1st XV; trained 4× per week alongside full academic load 10
- Interests: West African economic history; building and backtesting systematic equity screens in Python (personal project, 6 months) 11
Annotations
The cover letter and written application questions
Cover letters are read by fewer people than candidates assume. HR checks for obvious red flags — bad writing, wrong bank name, motivation that does not add up. A handful of superday interviewers read them to prepare questions. People overestimate how polished these need to be.
That said, cover letters still fail in ways that are entirely avoidable. The most common failure modes: writing more than one page, using generic phrases that could apply to any bank, expressing interest in a specific desk rather than a broad area, and having a motivation story that does not make logical sense.
The structure that works: three paragraphs. First: who you are, what you study, and one sentence that establishes your credibility as a serious candidate. Second: why S&T (genuine, specific, not "I love markets since childhood"), and why this bank specifically (one concrete thing about their franchise or culture that is accurate and non-generic). Third: one sentence connecting your background to the role and a brief closing.
Written application questions are a separate format used by banks that do not ask for a traditional cover letter — Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and increasingly others. These are 150–300 word responses to questions like "Why S&T?" or "Tell us about a time you used data to make a decision." They deserve more attention than cover letters because they are more carefully read and are harder to recycle across applications.
Worked example — annotated cover letter
Same fictional candidate: Amara Osei, applying to Barclays Global Markets.
Bristol, UK · 15 October 2024
I am a second-year History and Politics student at the University of Bristol, currently on track for a 2:1, and I am applying for the Global Markets Summer Analyst programme at Barclays. I attended Barclays' spring week on the Rates and FX Sales desks in April, which gave me a direct view of the client franchise and the pace of the floor — and confirmed that institutional sales and trading is where I want to build my career. 1
My interest in S&T grew from the intersection of markets and political economy that I study at Bristol — specifically how central bank divergence, sovereign debt dynamics, and EM political risk translate into real market moves. I follow this through a weekly macro briefing I write for the university finance society, and through a personal project backtesting systematic strategies in Python. What draws me to Barclays specifically is the strength of the sterling rates and gilt franchise: being the primary dealer on the BoE's gilt operations is a different proposition from most other banks, and for someone interested in UK rates and macro, it is genuinely distinctive. 2
My background is not a conventional finance profile, but the skills that matter in sales — precision under time pressure, the ability to synthesise and communicate complex information quickly, and the relentlessness required to compete in a first XV — are ones I have developed genuinely. I would welcome the opportunity to contribute to the Global Markets team. 3
Amara Osei
"I have always been passionate about finance." Every cover letter says this. It means nothing and takes up space.
Wrong bank name. More common than you think. If you are recycling cover letters, change the name. Every time.
"I am interested in the [specific desk] desk." Naming one specific desk signals overconfidence, raises the risk of follow-up product questions, and limits your appeal to the programme as a whole. Say a broad area (rates, credit, FX) or two broad areas at most.
More than one page. Nobody reads the second page.
Online tests and screening gates
Online testing is where the majority of UK S&T candidates who pass the CV screen get eliminated. It is the most mechanical part of the process and the one that rewards direct preparation most reliably.
The main test types used in UK bank recruiting:
| Test type | What it tests | Key providers | How to prepare |
|---|---|---|---|
| Numerical reasoning | Interpreting tables, charts, and data to answer multiple-choice questions under time pressure. Typically 20–30 questions in 20–25 minutes. | SHL, Korn Ferry, Cubiks, Arctic Shores | Practice SHL-style tests until the format is automatic. The maths is not hard — the time pressure is. Speed matters more than the difficulty of calculation. |
| Verbal reasoning | Reading passages and selecting true / false / cannot say. Tests precision in comprehension, not vocabulary. | SHL, Talent Q | The "cannot say" category is where most people lose marks. If the passage does not explicitly support the statement, the answer is "cannot say" — not "probably true." |
| Situational Judgement Test (SJT) | Workplace scenario questions where you rank or select the most/least effective response. Tests judgement alignment with the bank's values. | Developed in-house or by SHL | Read the bank's values and graduate programme materials before taking the SJT. The right answer usually reflects: escalate appropriately, communicate proactively, take responsibility. Avoid answers that involve unilateral action or ignoring a problem. |
| Pymetrics / Arctic Shores game-based | Cognitive and personality assessment disguised as games. Tests risk tolerance, attention, memory, and pattern recognition. | Pymetrics, Arctic Shores | There is no direct preparation. The best advice is to complete them in a focused state, not exhausted at 11pm. Be consistent — erratic behaviour across games is flagged. |
| Video interview screening (HireVue) | Pre-recorded answers to structured questions. Assessed on content and sometimes by AI facial analysis tools (controversial, declining in use). | HireVue, Spark Hire | Covered in section 3.8. |
Most candidates either do no practice tests or do one or two the night before. The candidates who consistently pass screening do 10–15 timed practice tests before the real thing — to the point where the interface, question format, and time constraints are familiar. Free practice tests are available directly from SHL, Talent Q, and Cubiks — use them. Time yourself strictly. Work on eliminating the hesitation that comes from unfamiliarity with the format, not from inability to do the maths.
The correct answer on a bank SJT is almost never "handle this yourself quietly" or "say nothing." Banks are testing for: communication up the chain, professional conduct under pressure, client-first thinking, and compliance instinct. If a scenario involves something that looks like an ethical concern, the answer always involves informing a supervisor or escalating through proper channels — not confronting the issue alone or ignoring it. Internship-specific scenarios (someone asks you to do something you are unsure about, you notice an error in a client document) follow the same logic: tell someone immediately, be transparent, do not try to fix it unilaterally.
Networking
Networking is the part of recruiting that most candidates either skip entirely or do badly. The candidates who do it well — at the right time, in the right way, with the right questions — turn what looks like a purely meritocratic process into one where they already know people at the firm before the assessment centre. That matters.
Why networking matters in S&T specifically. S&T is a relationship business. The desk head who had a 20-minute call with you and thought you were sharp will notice your name when HR sends the shortlist. They may not actively advocate for you — but they are less likely to pass without a second look. In a close call between two similar candidates, the one who has had a genuine conversation with someone on the desk has an edge.
Who to contact and how. LinkedIn is the standard channel. Your target is first or second-year analysts at the bank, in the division you are interested in — not MDs. Analysts have time, are close enough to the process to give genuinely useful intelligence, and often remember what the application was like because they just did it.
Your message should be short, specific, and low-ask. The worst networking messages are long, request "a quick call to learn everything about S&T," and make the recipient feel like they are being used. The best ones are two sentences: who you are, what you want to know, and a clear indication that you have done your homework first.
"Hi [name], I'm a second-year History student at Bristol applying for the Global Markets summer analyst programme at Barclays. I've attended your spring week on the rates sales desk and am particularly interested in the sterling franchise. Would you have 15 minutes to share your experience of the assessment centre process and what you found most useful to prepare? Happy to work around your schedule."
What makes it work: it is specific (spring week, rates, sterling), it is low-ask (15 minutes, not a full mentoring relationship), it shows genuine prior engagement (spring week), and it has a clear question. It will receive a response more often than a generic message asking someone to "tell me about S&T."
What to do in the conversation. Ask specific questions that demonstrate you have thought about the role: what did you find most useful to prepare for the assessment centre? What surprised you about the desk culture versus what you expected? How much product knowledge were you expected to have on day one? These questions get useful answers. "What does a typical day look like?" does not — everyone on the internet has already answered it.
After the conversation. Send a brief thank-you message the same day. Save the name and context in a document — you may need it. Do not ask them to refer you or endorse your application unless they offer. It should feel like curiosity, not like you are trying to use them.
Using careers events. Banks run university presentations, on-campus events, and virtual information sessions throughout the autumn. These are the easiest access point to bank professionals without a cold outreach. Prepare one or two smart questions in advance — not questions Google can answer, but ones that show you understand the product or the desk. A good question at a careers event creates the same impression as a good networking call and is lower friction for both sides.
Contacting MDs with cold messages. They will not reply. Even if they do, you have wasted the access. Start with analysts.
Asking questions that reveal you have not done basic research. "What does the rates desk do?" to an analyst who works on the rates desk signals that you did not read the module before the call.
Name-dropping in applications as if it constitutes a referral. Mentioning that you spoke to "[analyst name] on the rates desk" in your cover letter implies a warmer relationship than a 15-minute LinkedIn call. Only reference someone if they have specifically said you may, or if you met them at a structured bank event.
The HireVue and first round
The HireVue is a pre-recorded video interview. You see a question on screen, have a short preparation window (usually 30 seconds to 2 minutes), then record your answer (usually 1–3 minutes) with no human watching. The recordings are reviewed asynchronously by HR, sometimes with AI scoring, and the best ones move to a live first-round interview.
What HireVue questions cover: mostly behavioural (STAR structure), some market awareness, occasionally a motivation question. The specific questions vary by bank but tend to cycle through the same themes: why S&T, tell me about a time you worked under pressure, what market are you following, describe a time you persuaded someone. The bank publishes its values and they correlate closely with what the HireVue is testing for.
How to prepare: record yourself answering practice questions out loud before the real thing. The transition from knowing an answer to delivering it clearly on camera, with no notes, in under 2 minutes, is a skill — it requires practice. Most candidates go in underprepared and sound visibly unconfident on camera. The standard for the recording is not television polish; it is professional confidence and clear communication.
They do not record practice answers and watch them back. Watching yourself on video for the first time — if that first time is the actual HireVue — is uncomfortable and affects your performance. Do a full dry run with a recording device two days before. Watch it. Note where you hedge, where you trail off, where you use filler words. Then record again. The purpose is to make the camera feel normal before it is real.
The live first round. Where banks use a live first-round interview rather than (or in addition to) HireVue, it is typically 20–30 minutes with an HR professional or junior S&T employee. The composition is roughly: 70–80% behavioural, 10–20% markets/motivation, a few minutes for your questions. This is not the technical interview — that comes at assessment centre. The first round is primarily a screen for communication, basic market awareness, and fit. You should be able to answer "why S&T?", "why this bank?", and "tell me about a market you're following" fluently, specifically, and in under 90 seconds each.
At the end of every first-round interview, you will be given time to ask questions. Ask two. The questions should demonstrate genuine curiosity about the role or the desk — not about the offer timeline or compensation. Good questions: "You mentioned the desk has been growing its EM franchise — what does that mean for the kinds of clients a junior person would be working with in year two?" Bad questions: "What is the salary?" or "What are my chances of getting an offer?"
Between offer and start
You have an offer. The internship is eight months away. Most candidates do almost nothing in this period and arrive on day one behind the people who did. The gap is not large to close — but it is real and it matters.
What to do in the months before the internship starts:
Build product knowledge for the desk you are likely to sit on. If you know from your assessment centre conversations that you are going to the rates desk, work through the rates section of Module 4 in depth. If you are going to credit sales, read Module 4.2b on credit until you can explain spreads, duration, and the IG/HY distinction without hesitation. You do not need to know everything — you need to know enough that the first week is absorbing rather than overwhelming.
Follow markets daily. Section 2.9 of this course covers the daily workflow. Start it now, not the week before you start. By June, you should be able to have a fluent conversation about where rates are, what the curve has done over the past month, and what the main macro driver of any given week's market moves was. That fluency is not possible to fake — it has to be built over months.
Read the bank's research. Most major banks publish some public-facing research or market commentary. Goldman publishes macro outlooks. Barclays publishes Gilt Weekly and credit research. Deutsche Bank publishes FX research. Some of it requires a Bloomberg terminal; some does not. Find what you can access and read it in the voice of the bank you are joining.
Maintain your offer contacts. The analyst you spoke to during recruiting, the HR contact who managed your process, the person who ran your spring week — send a brief message when you accept the offer. Not to network aggressively, but to keep the relationship warm. The floor operates on relationships, and the ones built before you arrive are genuine advantages.
Nobody expects you to trade or give client advice on day one. What the desk wants is someone who is engaged, absorbs information quickly, asks good questions at appropriate moments, and does not create problems. The most useful thing you can do before you start is know enough about the product that the desk's morning meeting makes sense to you. If you join a rates desk having read the rates section of this course and tracked the gilt market for three months, you will follow the 7am meeting. That puts you ahead of at least half the cohort.
Knowledge test
12 questions covering process, targeting, application materials, screening, and networking.
Your CV has been reviewed at least once with honest eyes, your cover letter opening is specific to the bank you are targeting, and you understand what happens at each stage of the funnel and why candidates get cut there. Module 4 assumes your application is already in — it is entirely focused on performing in the room.
Module 4 — Interview Prep →