"There are no white working class bankers in M&A"

I come from a white working class background with accompanying thick accent. During my studies at Oxford in a STEM subject, I applied for numerous IB grad schemes and always passed the online tests. As soon as it got to a phone call, it was always a rejection.

Interestingly, the furthest I got was McKinsey, who had an even tougher test where you had to attend an in-person assessment centre. After I passed that, I was interviewed by a partner from the midlands, who passed me.

There is still a huge bias in the UK against white working class men. Just look at Parliament for example. It's almost like we don't exist. I feel odd having made it, because I'm the sore thumb exception rather than being anything close to representative of the country at large.

Starts article with correctly remarking that success in IB is more correlated with commercial abilities than intellectual ones. Concludes that hiring in IB should be based on an IQ test. As usual, the IQ obsessed crowd proves itself to be the dimmest one around.

Not even going to touch the racist undertones here, because why would an intelligence test uplift white people more than people of color?

First of all, “intelligence tests” are part of some of the application process for these banks. Second, these banks aim to recruit at the top schools. It’s rarely ever working class BAME who manage to attend, but those from more elite/confortable families. What you see at play is classism, so I’m not sure I understand the need to pit white working class against BAME as if those BAME people were automatically working class just cause they are BAME. They’re definitely not.

Well women do make up slightly more than 50% of the population. Historically, front office investment banking was 99% white male. I find it hard to believe that that the bulge bracket investment banks in London are made up predominately by BAME women in M&A. I have never seen one BAME woman M&A Banker. Although I have seen BAME women in sales, trading, and equity research.

Women do make up slightly more than 50% of the population. So when 99% of M&A bankers were men, it highlighted that there must be systemic discrimination. If you can find BAME women well, you get even more representation (BAME + Women). It potentially makes it easier for men in the 50% pot becasue you can claim diversity by having more women who are BAME.

That being said, if 50% of M&A roles went to men that is still a lot of M&A roles available. I remember when I went to Manchester I met a white working class M&A banker who was looking for diverse candidates (which included white working class men) to recruit during a firmwide campus visit.

My advice to you if you want to maximise your chances would be to ensure you go to a university which recruits on campus for M&A (eg. firmwide presentation) or find an alum ideally within the M&A team to champion your application.