The Hiring Process Used by the Firm - Case Study Example

? What is your evaluation of the hiring process used by the firm? S G Cowen after the merger of Societe Generale with Cowen and Company has now focused on investment banking and M&A consulting services. Though it has now spread far and wide from its initial home in Boston it still retains the focus that has made it a leader in its chosen sector of banking industry. Every year it sets in motion recruitment activities in winter and fall so that by summer it has in place new class of associates that would start their activities for the forthcoming year. This reflects a well thought out approach to hiring process which might yield undesirable results if conducted haphazardly or in a hurry or if started late as that would leave the firm to choose from only the leftovers that have been rejected by all prospective employers that have commenced and completed their entire recruitment process even before S G Cowen had made any moves. S G Cowen already has with them associates who had joined the firm as interns when they were in their first or second year in a business school. These associates had joined the firm in the break between their first and second years in their business schools and were offered full time employment as they completed their internship that started the following summer. Some other associates had never been to a business school but had served as interns in the firm for three years and were promoted as first year associates after they completed their internship. Very often officials of S G Cowen conduct ‘informational interviews’ prior to the actual formal process to gauge the level of seriousness and intent of the prospective candidates. Though this is essentially an informal process it helps the firm to focus on serious candidates and thus reduces unnecessary efforts on those that are genuinely not interested and have appeared just for the sake of appearing. It must be mentioned that prospective candidates have to appear for these informal interviews at their own expense thus automatically segregating those that were seriously interested from those that are rather casual about the whole process. S G Cowen also appointed ‘group captains’ or contact persons at every core business school to ensure students always had someone through whom they would be able to remain in constant contact with the firm. These contact persons are seldom ever from human resource department. Rather, they are professional investment bankers with long years of service with the firm. These people served the twin purposes of locating best possible candidates who would be able to seamlessly merge with the company and also attracting students who though interested in investment banking but are not quite sure as to which firm they would join. So, a contact person available whenever needed would surely be a great motivating factor. S G Cowen also initially concentrated only on the top ten business schools. That resulted in often recruiting middle rankers in those schools. So they decided to go to other business schools too where they were able to recruit toppers of those schools. After all a business firm is interested in talent and should not be that much bothered about where they had studied. The company prefaced their recruitment process with a presentation where they clarified who they were, what they did and what distinguished them from other competing recruiters. All the while the company underscored the uniqueness of boutique bankers in that they had a flatter hierarchy than other large scale banks that not only permitted better exposure and interaction with clients but also better opportunities of career advancement. The firm conducts interviews based on both the resumes it has shortlisted and also holds an open session where students enrolled depending on their interest. This also allows them to have a larger pool of prospective candidates and hence the probability of getting better associates. What is your evaluation of the criteria used by this organization in making hiring decisions? The most important criteria of the firm is obviously to choose the best and most talented candidates but the first criteria is whether the prospective employee had a perfect ‘culture fit’ with the organization. Improper dressing or expressing anxiety about long working hours surely is not viewed positively. The company feels such a relaxed attitude about dressing up for such an important occasion surely reflects either a lackadaisical attitude towards everything that is serious and that includes career and associated responsibility. As regards anxiety about long working hours is in the view of the company an attitude that basically wants to avoid crunch situations. As future investment bankers the prospective candidates would be facing crunch situations day in and day out, so a candidate who is not prepared to put in long hours without bothering about personal sacrifices and discomfort would be the one who would perfectly fit with the S G Cowen’s working ethos. This approach by S G Cowen is absolutely perfect as an employee can only perform effectively if there are no culture clashes between the organization and the employee. The interviews begin at nine in the morning with each candidate and each interviewer having five half-hour sessions with short breaks in between and end with a cocktail dinner where the CEO of the firm speaks. This has a salutary effect on the prospective employees as it is very rare for other recruiters to present their CEO to prospective candidates. However, it must be mentioned that such day long interviews are really tiring for both the candidates and their interviewers. The firm ensures that recruiters do not become overly favorable to candidates coming from their own alma maters or do not relax the standards of recruitment for candidates that would not form a part of their group. This is done to ensure that there is a uniformity in quality of all the new recruits as it is only natural for recruiters to be over-lenient when they are choosing candidates that would not belong to their own groups. The firm sure has a formal approach to the entire hiring process as it hands over tabular sheets to interviewers which they have to fill in with their comments and evaluations of the respective attributes as detailed in those tabular sheets of the candidates they had interviewed. But the most important and surely unique hiring criteria of S G Cowen is often they bend their rules if they feel they have chanced upon a really brilliant candidate who would be an asset to the company if nurtured and trained properly. In such rare cases, they even create a special job or position for such a candidate. If the company feels that they have got a less regimented self starter who has the requisite energy and creativity to be a successful investment banker, they often bend their hierarchical rules and organizational structure to accommodate that candidate. Which two candidates would you select, and why? I would select Natalya Godlewska for several reasons. The first reason obviously is her impeccable educational credentials that leave no scope of any doubt about her knowledge about the intricacies of investment banking. The other feature in her favor is her experience and exposure and experience in software related to investment banking. That puts her ahead of other candidates as in-depth knowledge of related software might lead to her developing software that might be immensely beneficial to the entire company. That she is a hard worker and a tough negotiator has also been echoed by one of her references and this is sure a very desirable quality in future investment bankers. She has also shown enough interest in joining the firm as is evident in her attending the informal pre-interview sessions and it appeared to all interviewers that she is very determined and ambitious individual. The only area where she apparently lagged behind was in her inability to strike up small conversations in the dinner and her apparent stiffness in the midst of other candidates and her lack of fluency in conversational English. Though some interviewers labeled this is a cultural mismatch I would not consider it so since bankers do not gather to have family or coffee table discussions, they come together to conduct serious negotiations regarding finances. So, if a person is adept at such topics, relative inability to engage in social banter is really not that much of a drawback. Moreover, the company has plans to spread in other European countries and an employee exposed to European culture would surely be an asset in such situations. My second candidate would be Ken Goldstein. All the interviewers had no hesitation in uniformly agreeing about his professional competence but the issue where they felt a little unsure was whether he would be able to balance his family life with work pressures at S G Cowen’s that demands 24X7 commitment. But in my opinion the very fact that he has enough experience as a manager in PricewaterhouseCoopers has made him aware of the responsibilities of the job at Cowen and he would not do anything that would jeopardize his family’s economic stability and his wife must also have been habituated to long working hours and lack of weekends as he had worked as a manager at PWC. The other issue that he is possibly ‘too matured’ and might dislike taking orders from his senior bankers actually betrays confidence in his would be seniors rather than in any act of defiance or superciliousness on the part of Goldstein himself. Getting a matured subordinate should actually be considered a boon by any superior as he would be able to shoulder a lot of the burden of his boss. It depends on the boss as to how he would handle his mature subordinate and get the best out of him. Read More