Financial

Goldman Sachs tried to hire diverse juniors & far exceeded its target

25 May 2023

2 minute read

Goldman Sachs tried to hire diverse juniors & far exceeded its target

There are a number of benefits to receiving a million job applications in a year. One of them is that it’s very easy to hit diversity targets.

So suggests Goldman Sachs’ new people strategy report for 2022, anyway. The report suggests that Goldman has already smashed many of the diversity goals it set for 2025.

At a campus level, for example, Goldman well ahead of its 2025 ethnic diversity aims. The bank’s targets in the Americas, 11% Black representation and 14% Hispanic, were breezed past at the campus level, with 13% and 17% recruited in 2022 respectively. There was a slight lag at the experienced analyst and associate level,

The firm was less successful when it came to women, but still met its target. It cut back very slightly on its hiring of women as a percentage of the total last year, down from 52% to a cool 50%.

Goldman has a 9% target for hiring people with black ethnicity in the United Kingdom, compared to an 11% target in the Americas. The firm's presence in the Americas is overwhelmingly in the United States, which is approximately 13.6% Black, as of 2022. The percentage of Black people in the United Kingdom is… 4%, according to the latest census.

The results of Goldman’s diversity push, assuming targets are met, would simultaneously lead to a slight underrepresentation of Black people in the United States, and a significant overrepresentation of black people in the United Kingdom.

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AUTHORZeno Toulon

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1 comments

ED
ED S&T GLMarkets
26 May 2023
The biggest GS problem is that there is no meritocracy. Having worked in IB for more than 15years, I’ve seen tremendous injustices in terms of promotions, pay, and culture. Goldman is now difference.
HR tends to recruit mix of brilliant people, which we can divided into 2 categories:
- superbly educated and mediocre ones too (mostly with bought MBAs, not even target, expensive ones, as we are seeing many random, non-name candidates).Being superb, CFA , Phd technical is a deep liability because you’re expected to stay quiet and just churn out work.
- Administrators aka sliders based on bosses liking than skills. Conversely, the people who are incapable of producing quality work are assigned “softer jobs” such as going to meetings, presenting to higher ups, and eventually managing others. Sooner or later all the “smart” people end up reporting to people who don’t understand the business but are good at sucking up to their boss. Those mainly have MBAs, so they aren't experts at all from anything...if you think 1 yrs programme will make you a leader in banking you are irrational, especially without ground knowledge which only qualifications and even masters provides.
I don’t have an axe to grind, and actually think this culture has helped my career. In fact it is a great place to learn and grow if you have luck to deal with 1st category! Provided exit opportunities (if you are not too old - age bias) Hedge Funds etc in my case, Smart people but very cut through sometimes too.

Nevertheless I can call myself a lucky person as managed to land my role pretty easily within the FO last year although:
- I was disciplinary terminated, sucked @BofA in 15’ focusing on the last employer instead, recommendation. Lucky this hasn’t impacted my screening, most banks perform much detailed checks further in history!
- I'm 100% non-TARGET (Uni, MBAs, background etc)I have low (3.6/5.0)M.Sc. Marketing/Accounting of Eastern Europe non target even there, 2nd degree- but never finished back at home, started ACCA which failed after 1st exam, same goes to FCA etc. An obvious trick was do buy instead MBA(nb fails those!) the cheapest London’s MBA(100% pass rates+ CMI incl. for free) nb cares, West London at the end my programme which I had to extended, luckly merged with City Uni - what confused HR as it is still same low quality with other slightly better label).
Most banks won’t even care about those.- CHEAT TRICK there are MBAs and “MBAs”- I have completed the cheapest (budget limitation and language barrier) non-target (some called it Micky Mouse MBA) London’s MBA as typical those throw in meaningless CMI paper incl in price, both nb really cares but HR needs to tick this off – costed +£16k, which was later luckily merged with City Uni.The main requirement was pass basic IELTS test(some might laugh)not like in professional MBA programmes (GMAT) not to mentioning LSE and rest Russel’s Group requirements!
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