Greenhill Investment Bank: Long-Term Internship Scheme

The Summer Internship is the primary talent pipeline for Greenhill’s Graduate Analyst Programme. As such, the scheme underpins all of the bank’s early career hiring in the UK. Freshminds was initially approached to deliver the Summer Internship in 2013 and we have been a trusted partner ever since. Since starting the partnership, we have built out the internship scheme to increase the application rate and overall conversion to permanent entry-level Analysts.

“Freshminds really understand what we’re about as an organisation - what our culture is about, what our objectives are - and that gets reflected in the candidates they put forward to us. They are entrepreneurial, they are focussed on doing things in a lean, agile way and again that’s exactly like us: there’s a real resonance in the business models.”
Dean Rodrigues, Head of UK M&A, Greenhill & Co

Our Approach

This is a fully outsourced, bespoke scheme and we look after everything from Greenhill’s on-campus brand presence to application management and interviewing, to hosting all final assessment centres.

Reflecting Greenhill’s collegiate, collaborative culture, our process is designed to allow potential applicants to really get to know the bank. We deliver a brand awareness programme that runs throughout the academic year and includes targeted advertising through university societies, sponsorship programmes and headhunted on-campus events.

"I actually thought I wouldn’t be interested in banking, but I went to the Greenhill insight day organised by Freshminds and changed my mind! I applied for quite a few internships and was offered very quickly by one of the bulge brackets – it was a great opportunity, but I didn’t feel any connection there. Ultimately, I chose Greenhill because the process had allowed me to engage personally with the team and to really ‘see’ the business: it was the place I felt I’d be happiest."
Faith Nagra, 2020 intern, upcoming analyst 2021

1. Attraction: We run a number of highly targeted events across UK universities, leveraging our existing relationships with relevant societies and universities or selectively headhunted for. These events are typically attended by senior individuals within the bank.

2. Selection: Freshminds takes full ownership and responsibility for the thousands of applications received for the internship programme. We reduce this number down to 20 for the assessment centre via a rigorous process of online testing (via our proprietary maths test, Mapped) followed by a series of around 180 telephone interviews and 60 to 70 face-to-face meetings.

3. Assessment: We plan, organise and manage completely customised Assessment Centres that meet our client’s specific needs – typically attended by 20 prospective candidates.

A transparent process

We work extremely hard to deliver a transparent, quality process where all applicants are given equal consideration, reviewing every application. Interviews are run by our experienced early-career team and are carefully structured to put applicants at ease and ensure consistency of experience. We also offer feedback to everyone after their face-to-face interview, irrespective of whether they are selected for an assessment centre.

As Greenhill's is one of the few boutique M&A schemes that offer the opportunity for genuinely broad sector exposure, intellectual diversity is a priority, and we are committed to attracting applications from as wide a range of academic backgrounds as possible. Mapped, our proprietary analytical benchmarking tool, is designed both to eliminate gender and socio-economic bias and assess core analytical aptitude irrespective of discipline studied.

A trusted partnership

We work closely with Greenhill to evaluate each year’s success and make adjustments and improvements for subsequent intakes. Having built high levels of trust together over the years, in 2020 we were able to transition seamlessly to a fully virtual process and find another cohort of outstanding undergraduates. Greenhill’s deals are regularly front-page news and it’s a source of real pride for us to know that there are analysts who started out as Summer Interns working on all of them!

Key Results

70+ interns hired to date
35+ conversions to permanent Graduate Analyst hires
2020: 3500+ applications; 300+ telephone interviews; 100+ face to face interviews

Find out more about our graduate scheme hiring here- we work with investment banks and corporate companies to manage graduate and internship schemes throughout the year. Services range from full-service scheme creation and development with your requirements, to bespoke top-up for a few extra hires that may be needed for an existing programme.

Get in touch to find out more. We offer a free, impartial and no strings attached consultation to understand your requirements and assess if we can help with your graduate hiring or scheme management.