SG Cowen: New Recruit

There were several different key decision points used by SG Cowen in making hiring decisions on each stage of recruiting process. During the informational interview, team captains assigned to each schools weren’t particularly evaluating possible candidate. However, it did served two purposes: -To gauge some candidates are more serious and enthusiastic than others -To give candidates chance to learn more about the firm and industry before the interview that they will be evaluated. During on-campus rounds, recruiting bankers really started evaluating different aspects of the candidates: -Team captains looked for candidates who are more eager.

-Used younger first-year bankers to evaluate the basic skills of the candidates. -Tested for cultural fit in the company. Test cultural fit could be something as simple as asking about how comfortable one is about relocation. Super Saturday is when the interviewers looked for more key decision points. These includes: -Is the candidate attracted to SG Cowen and want to work here? -Is the candidate who love technology and emerging growth of the firm? -Do the candidate like working in the industry? Even if they are good at investment banking, it was very important that they are willing to work in the industry passionately.

-Is the candidate a self-starter?

-Is the candidate versatile enough to fit into the culture of SG Cowen? I would evaluate overall recruitment process as effective. And there were many positive aspects to their hiring process. -Each interviewers were responsible for their candidate’s quality. If had the interviewer brought to Super Saturday a lower quality candidate, it would’ve reflected badly on their ability and image.

Therefore, each interviewers were intrinsically motivated to find the best candidate possible to bring to Super Saturday. -The process of recruitment is very standardized. It is designed to select high quality candidates, and interviewers have fairly good idea about what kind of traits they should be looking for in interviewees.

However, there were also some areas that could use improvements. -Team captains and interviewers are banking specialists and are not human resource management specialists. This could put too much weight on candidate’s skills and knowledge rather than their cultural fit in the corporate structure. -At the end of the recruitment process, the group decision making seems to be inefficient. In the situation of the case, where every interviewers are itching to go home, there might be pressure for conformity. Moreover, because each interviewers have different candidates they supported from the earlier recruitment process, they might have biases on their candidates, which could prevent them from looking at the whole pool. Currently 6 criteria are used to make the hiring decisions: commitment to firm, judgment/maturity, interpersonal skills, leadership, technical skills, and work ethic. Looking at all these criteria would definitely help SG Cowen to choose the best candidate but there is also issue with this criteria.

It is difficult to numerate on each criteria. How much leadership skill would be considered 6 and how good of work ethic could be considered 4? Due to difficulty in numerating interviewee’s personal traits, interviewers could subjectively decide on number that may be biased. Moreover, certain interviewers could find one criteria more important than others, so, for example, an interviewer could choose a candidate with very good technical skills over a candidate with very good work ethic. There might be too much room for biases in these criteria.

If I were to select two candidates, I would choose Natalya and Sanchez. I would choose Natalya Godlewska because, -She has excellent technical skills and work ethics. Her analytics skills and experiences in M&A modeling software shows her strength in technical skills and her GPA from Cornell shows she has developed patterns of successes that SG Cowen is looking for and shows that she has excellent work ethics. Moreover, she had been a graduate teaching assistant at Cornell, which shows she has experiences in leadership positions as well. -Only downside of Natalya is her possible lack of interpersonal skills, because her English may not be perfect. However, as some bankers thought, “most of clients think Wall Street types speak too fast anyway,” she should be fine. I also chose Andy Sanchez because,

-He is a self-starter. He has very strong entrepreneurial spirit, which would assist him in the industry, and he is very enthusiastic and personable, which would also make him perfect cultural fit. He had already connect with some of alumni from USC to talk to him about their experiences, and seems to be learning more investment banking and committed. -The biggest concern with Sanchez is his low GPA, which makes us doubt his work ethics and technical skill level. However, he had been an entrepreneur since he was undergraduate and his business’s success shows that he had invested much time into his venture. His success story speaks for his ability itself.

I would not choose Martin Street because,
-Mostly because he has high possibility of not selecting SG Cowen. Despite his leadership ability and other capabilities, if he chose other firm over SG Cowen, it would be costly for SG Cowen. He doesn’t seem to be loyal, and he also doesn’t have much business experience, which makes him less attractive candidate I would not choose Ken Goldstein because,

-Because he wouldn’t be a good cultural fit in the company. He had been his own boss for a long time and bankers aren’t sure if he would be a good subordinate. Moreover, he is already married and has kids, which would make him less likely to work many hours like most investment bankers will have to. His unwillingness to work could disrupt other bankers who would be working 24/7, making him a bad cultural fit.