a) What are the dimensions of the recruiting process at SG Cowen ?
Informal Interviews: SG Cowen used informal interviews to gauge the interest of
students. Each core school had Team Captains who would usually be the alumni of these
schools and were responsible for interaction with the candidates. This was extremely
beneficial as it gave the students a chance to learn about the banking industry. However,
students at non-core business schools did not have such an option and had to approach
bankers themselves for conducting these interviews. This process was difficult and
cumbersome as usually the bankers would have extremely busy schedules. The process of
informal interviews might thus create an undue advantage to people from core business
schools
Candidates were also tested for cultural fit in these interviews. This helped to select
candidates who would be able to work efficiently and satisfactorily in the organization.
At the end of the first round interviews, the two or three people who were interviewing
candidates discussed their observations about the candidates and compared their notes
about the different candidates. They had a fixed number of candidates to be chosen after
this round, i.e., 6. The focus of interviewers was to quickly conduct a second round so
that they could be conducted on the same night for the 6 shortlisted candidates.
Super Saturday – post lunch process – collective decision making the collective decision
making process lacks a proper structure. The process is more qualitative than
quantitative. The process relies on the recruiting skills of the bankers who are more
suitable to evaluate the job talent of the candidates which forms only a part of the
objective of recruitment process. One managing director gets turned off by the “salesy”
