Introduction:

Socit Gnrale (SG) an international bank based in France and founded in 1864,
nationalized in 1945 and privatized in 1987.
In 2000 SG was the largest bank in the world having assets of 430 billion.
Cowen is founded in 1918 as a small bond brokerage and was acquired by SG in
1998 by paying $600 million.
SG Cowen was in loss for $75 million in its first year and operating profit of $34
million in the year 2000.
SG Cowen investment bankers focused on emerging growth companies on two
volatile but highly profitable areas that is health care and technology.
Kim Fennebresque the president and CEO of SG Cowen believed that the firms
should grow geographically but stay industry focused. Their aim was to extend
Europe, Asia and other part of the world but currently the firm is having a strong
roots in Boston and opened several offices in Francisco, Dallas and London.
As the firm grow and there was concern on that groups should make sure there
were frequent interaction between employee and they should now each others
deals and proposals to make sure them that their client is coordinated actively.
To ensure the above SG Cowen looks for the highest quality professionals who have
problem solving ability, professional attitude with willingness to adapt and remain
flexible and communication abilities, resourcefulness, the drive to succeed, good
learning power, self-cognitive control and loyalty to the firm they are working with.
SG Cowen for recruiting purpose of associate make company presentations at its
core business schools where they participate in the on-campus recruiting program,
and the process consists of multiple "rounds" and begins in the fall of each year and
comes to a close at the end of "Super Saturday". Super Saturday is considered the
final round of the process.
On Super Saturday, candidates from core business schools are interviewed for
position of associates.
They assigned team captains to every school at which SG Cowen recruited on
campus so that students had a constant and familiar point of contact. The team
captains were banking professionals instead of human resource professionals.
Gregg Schoenberg was assigned as a team captain in Johnson School of Business at
Cornell which provided SG Cowen the highest recruiting yield.
When Schoenberg was hired Cornel was not a core school and his advocacy for
making Cornell a cores school converged perfectly with Raes new strategy for
choosing core business schools.
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The super Saturday in fact begin on Friday afternoon as the candidates were
arriving from schools and on the interview were beginning on Saturday morning at
nine, and each interviewer and candidates had five half hour with short breaks.
There were two round of interview.
This year 30 candidates makes to the final round of interview with bankers from
which 20 offers are to be made. Decision on 26 candidates is already taken, out of
which 18 are selected and others are rejected. The remaining 4 candidates from
"maybe" category are Natalya Godlewska, Martin Street, Ken Goldstein and Andy
Sanchez.
The interviewers had a hard time deciding among the four candidates. Problem is
further complicated by different positive and negative attributes that each of the
four candidates had and constraint of hiring maximum of two candidates.

Question and Answer:

1.

Reflect upon a time you had a negative recruiting/hiring experience.

What were the signs the experience was not going well?
Usually in the interview, even if you are applying to the positon where you are
having expertise there is problem in the communication, accent play major role
during the interview.
Before going to answer the question try to understand the question in deep and
acquire more detail if necessary, I personally experienced the situation in an
interview where I have applied for the position of Business Development officer,
the guy in other side of the table asked me a question and it was hard for me to
understand his accent and I take the question in the wrong way. For them my
answer was looking like I am crippling over them and that was the only reason
that I got negative response from them, although I was top in overall tests that
was obtained prior interview.

2.

What are the key decision points used by S.G. Cowen in making
hiring decision? What is your evaluation of the process used by the firm?
Recruiting process had done by the Banking professionals and not human
resource professionals
Team Captains were making a very short formal presentation to inform
candidates to know the company as well as them. There were four question to be
answered who they are, what do they do, what distinguishes them from the
competitors and what are the next steps.

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The company used two round of interview which was beneficial for hiring the right
candidates.
They were selecting 10 and sometime even 25 school for recruiting new
graduates.
They also give a chance to the candidate that they can visit the firm by their own
expenses if they are willing to do so.
My evaluation of the process is that the firm hiring process is quite well, they
were using even 25 school in order to find the talent, and meantime the interview
was done by the bankers that is a positive point that the candidate should be
examined by a person with whom they will work together.
Usually in other firms the HR is responsible for recruiting, selecting and hiring the
candidate but sometime the HR guy is not able to find the right candidate as
many of the applicant can develop the CV that is covering every aspect of the
Work scope but at the end the candidate is not fit perfectly in the job.
3.

What is your evaluation of the criteria used by this organization in

making hiring decisions?
In order to determine the fit between candidate and the job, the company was
specified four types of criteria that is education and experience, intellectual
capabilities, personality characteristics and motivational characteristics.
As we can see in the Exhibit 2, the candidates were also evaluated in
interpersonal skill, commitment to the firm, leadership, technical skills and work
ethics.
All the firm without exception would want to recruit the individual that should
stay for the long period with the company that is what they were evaluating
under the commitment to firm.
As the banking industry is always dealing with client and customer they want
employee to have great interpersonal skills. And According to Raes comment
and the hiring process, we can say that SG Cowen has emphasized selecting
candidates on the basis inter-personal well.
Under leadership criteria SG Cowen is searching candidates who are go-getters,
self-driven individuals who could take initiatives without being given instructions
on what to do.
Candidate should have technical skill so that at the end of the day a persons
technical power, number crunching skills, domain knowledge of Finance &
Accounting, creativity and ability to prioritize is what helped one deliver his
duties.

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4.

Which two candidates would you select if you were a member of the
recruiting committee?
I would select Natalya Godlweska and Andy Sanchez.
In my opinion investment banking is all about being able to learn fast and
commitment.
Therefore in a candidate I would look for someone who has been successful and
willing to commit himself to both the firm and the job. I believe Natalya and Andy
fit these criteria the most.
Natalya was Cornells top student and Andy managed a highly successful
business.
I believe Martin has not made up his mind on where he wants to work, which to
me says he is not willing to commit himself to SG Cowen.
Ken on the other hand has already shown commitment in his previous job. But I
think the hurdle for him are his two very young kids. Having a kid requires
enormous amounts of time, especially in their young years and this cannot be
combined with a job that requires 120 hours a week of your time.

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