...SG COWEN- NEW RECRUITS Introduction SG Cowen is an investment bank which was created in 1998 when Société Générale (an international bank based in France) decided to acquire Cowen and Company (company which was focused on building up its investment banking and M&A Advisory services). SG Cowen’s activity is focused on emerging growth companies especially in two risky but highly profitable areas: health care and technology. For the success of that business, SG Cowen needs talented, committed and strong cultural fit employees. This report has the goal to describe and evaluate the hiring process of that company and also the criteria that is used to decide among the candidates. In the end, based on the criteria used by the company, we’ll decide which two candidates (out of four) we would decide to hire for SG Cowen. 1. Hiring Process & Evaluation The hiring process for a new class of associates begins in fall and consists of internal and external hiring. 1. Internal Recruitment: a. Those employed as analysts and promoted to first-year associates at the end of their third year (without business school education), or b. Those starting out as interns in the summer and then being offered full time employment after graduation 2. External Recruitment: The hiring strategy focused on “core business schools”. However, Chip Rae, the director of recruiting at SG Cowen, has a different strategy when choosing the “core business school” comparing with what...
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...Situation SG Cowen was born when Societe Generale, an international bank in French purchased Cowen and Company in July 1998. Cowen has focused on investment banking and M&A advisory, although the initial main business was a bond brokerage. As SG Cowen, which had is one of emerging banks in the street and did not have the alumni network in New York, they tried to attract more high quality professionals from U.S. top 10 schools. For each school, a team captain is assigned so that students have a constant and familiar point of contact. Recruiting process for new outside associate started from company presentation at “core business schools” on campus which worked as the first screening interview. The next step was on-campus official interview which tested candidates for ability to work in investment banking as well as for cultural fit. Then, qualified applicants took part in “Super Saturday” and have five half-hour interviews with short breaks. Chip Rae is director of recruiting at SG Cowen who had a responsibility for the recruiting process. He tactically changed some recruiting process. For example, in the past the firm defined the U.S. top 10 schools as core school, but he enlarged it to the top 25 schools because the students SG Cowen hired from the top 10 schools are close to the best students in the next 15 schools. Rae asked associates or senior associates to conduct the first round interview because junior bankers are suitable to assess day-to day skills of candidates...
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...SG Cowen : New Recruits (case 1) SG Cowen : Background SG Cowen : Case Overview investment banking Industry 2001 Investment 1. 2. 3. banking Industry 2004 : Consolidation in the investment banking industry was widespread. Targeted Custody Averaging 50% of revenue (the biggest expense on wall street was compensation cost) SG Cowen : Case Overview SG Cowen was born when Societe Generate purchased Cowen and Company in July 1998. One of the world’s largest banks with assets of over $430 billion as December 2000 SG Cowen : Hiring Process Promoted associate after 3 years Hiring an intern after they graduate Recruiting program on campus: 1. Information Interview 2. Assigned team Captains SG Cowen : Rae’s Strategy Paying more attention in the next 15 schools in the top 25. Company Presentation SG Cowen : On – Campus Round 2-3 Schedules of Interviews Open Schedule : selected based on their interest Closed Schedule : selected on the basis of their submitted resumes. Put a detail note one resume Give a test of culture fit SG Cowen : Super Saturday CEO Speech at the dinner. Interview begin at 9 and each interviewer and each candidate had five half hour session with short breaks. Assignment Answer 1. Reflect upon a time you had a negative recruiting/hiring experience. What were the signs the experience was not going well? Body language The questions facial...
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...S9-402-028 REV: JANUARY 19, 2006 THOMAS DELONG VINEETA VIJAYARAGHAVAN SG Cowen: New Recruits We are who we recruit. — SG Cowen professional Chip Rae, director of recruiting at SG Cowen, looked out the conference room window at the falling flakes and wondered how fast the snow was accumulating. Most of the firm’s bankers had come in from Connecticut or Westchester to participate in the Super Saturday recruiting event, and he knew they were anxious to get home before the weather deteriorated and made travel dangerous. The interviews had finished at noon, and the candidates from various graduate schools had left for their flights right away. Now, the bankers were eating lunch, discussing interview results and making decisions. They were sitting in “Giants Stadium,” the bank’s largest conference room, and Rae had set the tables up in a U-shape so that he could stand in the front and still communicate with all 30 bankers. He posted placards with all the candidate names on the bulletin board and moved them around as they came up for discussion. The hiring meeting had moved rapidly through a number of candidates. The decision makers had agreed on candidates who were firm “yeses” and some other clear “nos.” Now was the tricky part: there were four candidates still left. Each person had some strong support among their interviewers but had also raised some questions. To reach the ideal class size after factoring in expected yield, Rae wanted to give out only two...
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...SG Cowen Case SG Cowen was a distinctive investment bank because of its very focused approach. The bank, which emerged out of the acquisition of Cowen and Company by Société Général in 1998, focused on emerging growth companies in health care and technology industries. It was a boutique-sized firm with about 1,500 employees, but appreciated the benefit of access to its parent company’s balance sheet. SG Cowen relied on the in-depth knowledge collected through its equity research team, which was already highly regarded for its coverage of its focus industries. Above all things, the bank would remain a pointed emerging growth investment bank. The recruiting strategy employed by SG Cowen consisted of team captains at every school at which they recruited on campus, a group of ‘core business schools’. Professionals at the bank would often conduct ‘informational’ interviews in advance of first-round interviews to gauge enthusiasm of candidates and give them additional information about the firm. The firm’s recruiting strategy centered around focusing on the ‘next 15’ top schools after the top 10 business schools, which historically yielded recruitment of students in the middle of their class. At the next 15 top schools, the firm was hiring at the top of the class and the students tended to be more loyal. Another major advantage of their recruiting efforts was, in information sessions and interviews, SG Cowen professionals highlighted the benefits of being a boutique firm such as...
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...rP os t 9-402-028 REV: JANUARY 19, 2006 THOMAS DELONG VINEETA VIJAYARAGHAVAN We are who we recruit. op yo SG Cowen: New Recruits — SG Cowen professional Chip Rae, director of recruiting at SG Cowen, looked out the conference room window at the falling flakes and wondered how fast the snow was accumulating. Most of the firm’s bankers had come in from Connecticut or Westchester to participate in the Super Saturday recruiting event, and he knew they were anxious to get home before the weather deteriorated and made travel dangerous. tC The interviews had finished at noon, and the candidates from various graduate schools had left for their flights right away. Now, the bankers were eating lunch, discussing interview results and making decisions. They were sitting in “Giants Stadium,” the bank’s largest conference room, and Rae had set the tables up in a U-shape so that he could stand in the front and still communicate with all 30 bankers. He posted placards with all the candidate names on the bulletin board and moved them around as they came up for discussion. No The hiring meeting had moved rapidly through a number of candidates. The decision makers had agreed on candidates who were firm “yeses” and some other clear “nos.” Now was the tricky part: there were four candidates still left. Each person had some strong support among their interviewers but had also raised some questions. To reach the ideal class size after factoring in expected...
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...Case analysis : SG Cowen – New Recruits 1. What are the key decision points used by S.G. Cowen in making hiring decisions? What is your evaluation of the process used by the firm? SG Cowen utilized a well‐developed, tiered process to make hiring decisions on potential candidates. SG Cowen first conducts informational sessions at on‐campus recruiting events to describe the firm, its benefits and steps in the recruiting/hiring process. They use these first‐round interviews, in advance of the formal recruiting process, to assess how serious candidates are about the opportunity. SG Cowen then reviews the resumes submitted by interested students and holds open, on‐campus interviews. The firm also selects some of those interested students specifically for closed interviews. The pool of initial candidates is narrowed down to a few candidates through a second round of on campus interviews. The first key decision point for SG Cowen is to select candidates who are best qualified to make it through the “Super Saturday” final selection process in New York City. Recruiters focus on identifying candidates that possess the skills to succeed in the company’s day‐to‐day operations and have the personality to fit the organization’s culture. During the Super Saturday event, the thirty candidates are each interviewed by five senior bankers. Following the interviews, the senior bankers gather to determine which candidates should be extended offers. At this final key decision point, the recruiters...
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...Summary: SG Cowen is a investment banking firm based in the United States, born when Societe Generale (France) decided to expand into the EEUU and bought the firm Cowen and the company in 1998.They are a relatively small firm, more focused on the quality and service of their product than in the volume. The recruiting committee of SG Cowen is facing an important decision in regards to selecting two persons from the pool of four remaining candidates after all definite “Yes” and “No” have been identified. The company has held a meeting where they must decide among 30 different candidates, they faced with the last four, with the dilemma of which ones to employ for the last two places. The hiring process for new associates used to begin in the fall. The process after that can be broken up into three stages. Each of these stages helped the company make a decision about the candidate and is a key decision point for the firm. The working process is mainly divided in three stages: The purpose of the first one is to see if the candidate has real interest on the company by conducting informal interviews with students in the office in advance of official first- round interviews. These interviews were not part of formal process,that process was to know how serious and enthusiastic the candidates were and a chance to learn more about the firm. In this round interviewers are also instructed to test for culture fit. In the second one the candidates have an interview with an associate who will...
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...SG Cowen has shifted its strategy of attracting graduates from the top 10 core schools in the states to the next top 15 schools in the top 25. SG Cowen realized that they do not have the brand name and resources to compete aggressively with the other giants in the finance industry. Hence by shifting their attention to the B-listed schools, they would become a relatively bigger player and receive more interests from the top talents in the school. Secondly, SG Cowen send their banking professionals and no human resource professionals to the schools. There is a potential problem as demonstrated by Gregg Schoenberg where he desires Cornell graduates to obtain investment positions in the wall street. Hence there is personal preferences kicking in here which may result in a bias and tainted first round selection. Thirdly, there is the informational interview before the formal interview. Although this filters out the pro-active students from the less initiative ones, this would give an unfair advantage and competitive field to the entire process. Hence SG Cowen might need to consider tweaking the informational interview. On-campus round, it is evident that there is no standardization on the criteria used to benchmark the applicants against one another. Some bankers were tough while others were especially easy and generous. Also, what should be the extent of involvement of the HR department in the hiring during the first-round interview? It seems as though only Rae is part of the selection...
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...SG Cowen: a Case Study Group One Patrick De Nava Sean Fagan Chelsea Green Leonard Keefer Rose Martinez sg SG Cowen: a Case Study Group One Patrick De Nava Sean Fagan Chelsea Green Leonard Keefer Rose Martinez sg “We’re looking for a few good men.” The Marines have been using this slogan for well over two hundred years, and while the message is the same, the recruiting methods have changed dramatically. We’re going to look at how one company, S.G. Cowen, goes about the business of filling its employee roster. Recruiting Process SG Cowen is an investment bank that was formed by the acquisition of Cowen and Company, a small but well respected investment bank known for quality research and equity sales, by Societe Generale, an international bank based in France. The new firm is comprised of about 1,500 professionals who specialize in health care and technology. The firm looks to hire about 30 associates each year, with about many of them coming from third year analysts being promoted. Some of the new recruits are business school students who start as interns after their sophomore year in school and are hired after completing two years of summer internship. Other associates are recruited from top business schools. SG Cowen’s process for recruiting new employees is both strategic and well developed. SG Cowen begins the recruiting process each fall by holding informational presentations at its core business schools, such as NYU, Cornell, USC, and Notre Dame. ...
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...SG Cowen: New Recruits 2011120259 정유진 1. What are the key decision points used by S.G. Cowen in making hiring decisions? What is your evaluation of the process used by the firm? Key decision points: Paying more attention to the next 15 universities in the top 25 - They used to compete with big firms like JP Morgan and Goldman for recruiting new employees, but it was hard to get the best students from the best schools. Because competitors got most of the best students with huge recruiting budgets, brand names and much larger hiring needs. So they decided to extend candidate schools’ boundary to compete big, giant competitors. They could even find good candidates who have high loyalty, commitment, and cultural fits from next 15 universities. In the process of campus recruiting - Rae tries to match up alumni with their own school and also reduced the time and effort on making presentations and focused on the informative talk with applicants. So it helps for applicant better understanding of what really have to do in that job position and can get real advice. Super Saturday – I think the purpose of it is good, but it is a little wasting process. Actually it costs a lot and takes too long so bankers are usually tired and distracted when final decision making. So I suggest it should be more simple and less exhausting process for example, just using the weekday’s dinner time not to sacrifice bankers’ Saturday that discourage them to assess candidates. 2. What is your evaluation...
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...1. What is your evaluation of the hiring process used by S.G.Cowen? S.G.Cowen uses the same pattern as the majority of Wall Street companies by making hiring decisions during the early winter and spring of each year so that the new associates can begin in the summer. Besides a full hiring process, the company selects some associates that already worked or are still working to S.G.Cowen utilising, therefore, internal sources of recruitment. First year associates selected internally can be analysts that after three years of collaboration (without attending a business school) are promoted or summer interns that attend a business school and are offered a full-time contract at the end of the internship. The hiring process of S.G.Cowen in terms of new outside associates (that had never worked for the company before) underlies on presentations made by bankers in “core business schools” (for example NYU or Cornell) to inform the students about their work environment and conditions. The aim of these presentations is to make sure that four questions are answered: “who are we, what do we do, what distinguish us from competitors and what are the next steps”. This ensures that everyone receives a clear, complete and similar message from all bankers. The next step is to focus on informational interviews to help them understand how students felt about working in a company like S.G.Cowen. These interviews are highly efficient because they work like a previous self-selection process. Only the...
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...Case Study of SG Cowen: New Recruits The recruiting committee of SG Cowen is facing an important decision in regards to selecting two persons from the pool of four remaining candidates after all definite “Yes” and “No” have been identified. Being the member of the Super Saturday hiring group from the company I would have to make a decision that would have a dual effect: Being an associate of the company I am vested in its success which depends in a great degree on the quality of the employees working for the firm, including the quality of the new hires. Potential mistake in identifying the right candidate who makes both functional and cultural fit for the company, especially giving approval to the candidate who turns a wrong fit later, might bear some negative impact on my credibility and reputation among the colleagues and supervisors. Based on the two premises outlined above, I believe that the most suitable of the four is the first candidate, Natalya Godlewska. Not only does she have very strong academic credentials both from her MBA and undergraduate studies, but she also has excellent references from her previous employee. Among other positive characteristics of this candidate are her determination, ambition, and readiness to work hard. She also made an impression of a go-getter with a “can-do attitude” who radiated positive energy. The reservations of the two members of the recruiting committee about her stiffness, being uncomfortable during small talk, and her...
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...1. Key decision points used in making decisions: Informational interviews: In this phase, SG Cowen invites candidates to its office for an informational interview to get a clear understanding of the firm. Through this it assesses candidate’s interest level in the job. On Campus round: In this round key decisions point is checking if the candidate possess necessary skills to perform the job. Though the cultural fit is checked in this round the kind of questions asked will not reveal anything about the candidate. Super Saturday: In this round culture fit takes primary importance. In the five sessions of half an hour each, apart from the cultural fit, candidates are also tested for their skills, how they can handle pressure of attending 5 consecutive interviews, love for work, will the candidate accept the offer if given, commitment. 2. Evaluation of hiring process * Assigning a team captain to every school (its alumni) will help in engaging the students with the firm. * With the informational interviews they are able to create awareness among the students about their company. This is beneficial to the company also as it allows students to make an informed decision thereby reducing the potential for bad hiring. * By making the team captain liable to the quality of candidates they bring to Super Saturday, they have eliminated the risk of biasedness. * All interviewers were encouraged to take notes about the candidate during the interview. * They...
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...* ------------------------------------------------- HOME * ------------------------------------------------- MBA RESOURCES * ------------------------------------------------- GWSB * ------------------------------------------------- MBA PREPARATION * ------------------------------------------------- * ------------------------------------------------- * ------------------------------------------------- PART-TIME MBA IN DC * ------------------------------------------------- SIDE NOTES * ------------------------------------------------- * ------------------------------------------------- * ------------------------------------------------- * ------------------------------------------------- BUSINESS SCHOOL CASES * ------------------------------------------------- BEST MBA TEXTBOOKS * ------------------------------------------------- SUBSCRIBE Part-time MBA Degree in DC Blog on in and out of class experience of part-time MBA student at GWU School of Business Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group Case Analysis APRIL 12, 2011 The presented case of Deloitte and Touche Consulting Group engagement with SKS Manufacturing is offering invaluable lessons in team and project management. It briefly touches upon all major facets of the consulting company involvement with client projects, such as: • Engagement planning • Team selection • Roles and responsibilities of team members • Background and qualifications...
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