Unlocking Early Career Opportunities

No.1 – Contrary to popular belief, not everything starts in September.

In fact, applications for one-fifth of the 600+ early career opportunities we identified are already open. For instance, Goldman Sachs currently has 35 open opportunities, Société Générale has 15, BlackRock has 9 and KPMG has 4. Many more opportunities will have applications open up in the second half of August.

No.2 – Insight days aimed at different diverse groups serve as gateways to internships for students from underrepresented groups.

Many large companies offer structured insight days, or weeks, primarily aimed at first-year students (or second year students of a four-year course), typically scheduled over Easter or summer. Sometimes called spring weeks, these programs are designed with the goal of hiring future interns and full-time graduate roles. In addition to the general insights days open to all students, there are specific ones aimed at female, LGBTQ+ and Black heritage students, as well as those from a lower socio-economic background or those identifying as having a disability:

For Female Students:

• Finance: BlackRock, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Natwest and UBS all have insights days for female students. UBS is holding its next Women in Banking insight day on the 10th of September and BlackRock has its next Women in Fintech insight day on October 21/22 at its Edinburgh office, with applications for both events still open. 
• Consulting: PwC, Bain & Company and EY also have insight days aimed at female young talent.
• Law: Baker McKenzie has a Women Open Day. 

For Black Heritage Students:

• Finance: American Express, BlackRock, Deutsche Bank, Natwest and UBS offer programs for those of Black heritage. BlackRock and UBS are each holding their next Black Heritage Insight day on September 16th, with applications for both insight days still open. 
• Consulting: KPMG, PwC, EY and Bain & Company also offer Black heritage-focused programs with Bain & Company’s program participants having a chance of winning a £10,000 scholarship and EY’s program running in Birmingham, Edinburgh, London and Manchester.
• Law: Herbert Smith Freehills and Baker McKenzie are the two law firms that host insight days for Black Heritage students.

For LGBTQ+ Students:

• Finance: For the last several years, JPMorgan Chase has been running its “Proud To Be” event where students can network with senior LGBTQ+ leaders at the bank, which has over 500 LGBTQ+ Managing and Executive Directors. UBS has a similar insight day which it calls “Investment Banking Pride event”. 
• Law: Baker McKenzie, Herbert Smith Freehills and Latham & Watkins all have insight days where students can meet their LGBTQ+ lawyers.

Students that Identify as having a Disability: 

• Consulting: KPMG’s 3-day program is aimed at students who have a disability or long term condition and are seeking an insight in either tax or audit.
• Law: Herbert Smith Freehills’s MyPlus open days involves hearing from HSF lawyers with a disability and covers the accommodations on offers, and Baker McKenzie’s open day aims to help those with disabilities overcome the fear they may face when applying for graduate roles.

For Students from a Lower Socio-Economic Background:

• Finance: Citi and Deutsche Bank both have insight days to help students from lower socio-economic backgrounds discover where a career in banking could take them. Deutsche Bank’s program is 18 months long and starts with a 4 day event, includes mock interviews where they receive feedback from their graduate recruiters to help build confidence and skills, impressively followed by a mentoring relationship that lasts at least 12 months. 
• Consulting: KPMG has a three-day program and EY has a two-day program. EY partners with RARE recruitment so that applications can be assessed in the context of applicant’s socio-economic background, giving them the maximum possible credit for their achievements in light of their wider personal circumstances.
• Law: Herbert Smith Freehills and Baker McKenzie both host an open day with the goal of giving those from low income backgrounds the confidence to consider a career in law.

At Windō, we know that the absence of disclosed salary ranges for entry-level graduate roles disproportionately impacts those from lower-socio economic backgrounds. Without visibility on starting salaries, they are forced to apply for opportunities that they ultimately may have to turn down due to financial constraints. To address this, we have introduced a Salary Transparency filter in our Early Career Opportunities tracker. Below, you’ll find a list of leading graduate employers committed to salary transparency, with the legal sector leading the way. 

No.3 – Finance and and consulting companies offer some great tech programs

• Finance: To get a flavour of tech in banking, JPMorgan Chase has been organising Code for Good hackathons since 2012, where university students come together as teams and solve a real-world problem for a non-profit in 24 hours. Specifically for women in tech, American Express provides a 2-day insight event, Goldman Sachs offers a 3 day equivalent and HSBC runs a 5-day, paid program. Goldman Sachs also has a Women’s Engineering Academy which provides female students in their penultimate year of studies the opportunity to learn more about technology in finance over two days and is open to all degree backgrounds. JPMorgan Chase takes that idea further with its full-time Tech Connect graduate program for female talent without a coding background. Specifically for Black Students in tech, Bloomberg has been running an insight day for the last 4 years in partnership with Colorintech.

• Consulting: EY has both a Cyber Security summer internship and full-time graduate program open to those who don’t have a technology-based degree. McKinsey has a full-time tech graduate program in their Digital division, open to those who are in their final year of a bachelor’s degree in technical field (computer science, mathematics, AI, machine learning and data science) with applications currently open for this program.

No.4 – Graduate Roles fully focused on Sustainability

• Windō is for people who want to make a difference in a successful company that is doing the right thing for planet and people, so we had to build a way for those that want to work on sustainability full-time to easily identify those early career opportunities. Meet Windō’s “sustainability” role filter. Here are three great sustainability early career opportunities:

• • BNP Paribas: has a 6-11 month internship in sustainable finance with application open at the moment.
  • KPMG: has a full-time graduate role in their climate risk & sustainability division.
  • EY: has both a summer internship and full-time graduate roles in their climate change and sustainability services area.