Goldman Sachs wants a new investment banking analyst. 900 people have applied

Good news for junior bankers hoping for an opportunity to switch-up their careers: Goldman Sachs is looking for some new investment banking analysts in London. Unfortunately, candidate interest in the new roles looks overwhelming.

Get Morning Coffee ☕ in your inbox. Sign up here.

Goldman is currently looking for a new natural resources analyst and a new industrials analyst in London. Both jobs are in the coverage teams. The natural resources role requires up to three years' experience. The industrials role requires up to five. On LinkedIn, the industrials job alone has nearly 900 applicants.

Recruiters say the surge in interest reflects the current state of the investment banking jobs market. "We recently put up an advert for four or five hours for a junior banking job and got hundreds and hundreds of applicants," says the head of one London search firm. "There are a lot of people out there who are not happy and a lot of people who have been cut."

The deluge comes as Big Four firms are cutting advisory staff and as banks like Barclays and Jefferies and Rothschild have been cutting juniors. "There are a lot more people out of the market than you'd think," says Barney Mundell, a London headhunter who specialises in jobs at vice president (VP) level and above. "There's positive noise from clients, but it's not translating into hiring just yet. There's a huge backlog of people just waiting."

February data from LSEG Deals Intelligence shows global M&A rising 75% year to date in February versus 2023. However, almost all the increase was the result of mega-deals in the US, where targeted M&A was up 147% on last year. By comparison, European M&A was up 88% on 2023 but "lower than every other January to February total since 2019."

In the circumstances, headhunters say London M&A jobs are still few and far between and that whenever one is advertised, applicants are many. This is especially the case in regard to Goldman Sachs which has a "special pull" in the words of one.

Relevant candidates can, however, draw some consolation from the thought that most of the applicants will be inappropriate, especially on LinkedIn where applications are, anecdotally, out of control. "You can probably put a line through 860 of them, who will be utter unrelated dross," says one headhunter. Another says he's had midwives applying for investment banking jobs advertised on LinkedIn: "She was applying for a healthcare banking role, but I don't think she knew much about modelling."

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com in the first instance. Whatsapp/Signal/Telegram also available (Telegram: @SarahButcher)

Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libelous (in which case it won’t.)