Inside Wall Street’s Recruitment Wars

WSJ What’s News

The Wall Street Journal

News, Daily News

4 • 4K Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

P.M. Edition for July 10. Private-equity firms are using increasingly aggressive recruitment tactics to hire recent college graduates working at big banks. WSJ reporter AnnaMaria Andriotis discusses why the recruits are being wooed away and what banks are doing about it. Plus, investors are down on Google parent Alphabet as it faces threats to its business. Heard on the Street writer Asa Fitch walks us through those challenges and what they mean for the company’s future prospects. And a federal judge issues a new block on the Trump administration’s birthright-citizenship order. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The five-pound meal deal from McDonald's.
0:02.7	Get a cheeseburger or mayo chicken,
0:04.7	medium fries, four McNuggets,
0:06.5	and a medium soft drink for guess what?
0:08.4	That's right, five pounds.
0:11.3	It's not called the five-pound meal deal for nothing.
0:14.8	From 11 a.m.
0:15.8	Not available on delivery.
0:16.8	Carbonated soft drink upgrade fees apply.
0:18.4	Participating restaurants, subjects, availability.
0:23.3	Why big banks and private equity firms are fighting for new college grads?
0:28.0	There is this annoyance that has been there for many years and grown as the PE recruiting tactics have gotten more aggressive of why are we even bothering investing in all these
0:38.8	people? Plus, antitrust battles, AI chatbot searches, are Google's challenges an existential
0:44.3	threat to its business? And a federal judge has blocked the Trump administration's birthright
0:49.7	citizenship order. It's Thursday, July 10th. I'm Alex O'Sullough for the Wall Street Journal.
0:55.4	This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.
1:06.8	Interviews until 3 a.m. job offers that require a response within a day, all for positions that don't start for two or three years. These are some of the aggressive recruiting tactics that private equity firms are using to hire recent college graduates and poach them away from big banks, where they've started their first gigs as analysts. Journal reporter Anna Maria Andriotis is here now to discuss.
1:29.8	Anna Maria, why are private equity firms looking to hire from these banks?
1:33.8	Why are they not trying to hire these recruits right out of college?
1:36.8	Well, a college graduate is going to need a lot of work, a lot of training,
1:41.8	before they're really primed and ready to go for the type of work
1:45.6	that private equity firms want, and quite frankly, that investment banks want.
	...

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