When Jaimi Goodfriend was hired as the head of professional development at Point72 about 10 years ago, the hedge fund was at a key inflection point in its approach to talent recruiting.
Hedge funds and other buy-side firms have traditionally relied on investment banks as the primary source for culling entry-level talent. That’s because the big banks were historically best positioned to find and recruit the brightest undergrads and train them in financial modeling and other skills required of a trader or dealmaker.
But when jobs at Big Tech and hot startups became the new pull, firms like Point72 realized they were too dependent on such programs to find their top talent, Goodfriend told Business Insider. In an early phone call about the role, she discussed that problem as a challenge she’d tackle, she said.
“That’s kind of driving from the backseat of the car,” Goodfriend said of the traditional recruiting system. “So the question became, what if we took the front seat? What if we took the wheel? Could we develop a program that recruited directly out of undergrad and was able to train people in the way that we wanted them to grow up in our business, in our model?”
She accepted the challenge. Ever since, Goodfriend and Point72 have built summer internship and post-grad training programs for aspiring investment analysts that aim to do just that — “take the wheel” in molding young talent for themselves.
On Monday, June 10, 55 fresh-faced college students will start the first day of an eight-week summer training at Point72 — the firm’s largest ever. BI sat down with Goodfriend to discuss the Point72 Academy Investment Analyst Summer Internship program, what it entails, how it has evolved, and how it can lead to a full-time job at the $33.9 billion hedge fund.
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The summer ahead
This year, Point72 received a record of more than 30,000 applications, giving the Point72 Academy Investment Analyst Summer Internship an acceptance rate of under 1%. But there’s still a long road ahead for the lucky few who made it because Point72’s Academy program is just the first phase of a multiyear training process for students who aspire to one day work for the hedge fund.
Successful summer interns — who are college students between their junior and senior years — are invited to return to join the Point72 Academy after graduation. There, they embark on a 10-month crash course in how to be investment analysts at the hedge fund. Academy graduates are placed onto investment teams at the firm full-time. (BI previously reported tips on how to get into that program here.)
“It’s a critical part of our model in the sense that a lot of our full-time hiring is done through this eight-week program we do in the summer,” said Goodfriend. “They have a quick introduction to things, but then a real trial by fire in terms of everybody has an experience on a team and gets to see firsthand what it’s like to work with us to work in this model.”
Interns rotate through more than 35 different investment teams across the firm, as BI previously reported. On their respective teams, they do everything from basic modeling to industry research and end each rotation by pitching an investment idea.
This week, though, things will kick off with intros and basic training sessions in a classroom setting.
“We’ll be doing everything from evaluating modeling exercises to talking about what a great business is to reminding them how to be professional,” she said. “It’s really a soup-to-nuts week.”
It will be a packed schedule for the college students, Goodfriend said, and they’ll get a taste of the long days required of investment professionals in the industry. For example, this first week includes getting assigned their first project on day one and attending a Mets game (CEO Steve Cohen is the owner of the NY baseball team).
“I’ve never really been a fan of overselling or sugarcoating what this is. This job is hard. It’s a lot of work,” said Goodfriend. “It’s rewarding for those who find it rewarding, who love markets, who have passion for this, who are obsessed with companies. And if that’s who you are, that’s what we want to show you.”
Photo courtesy of Point72 Asset Management
How to turn the experience into a job
This summer’s interns will be spread across 10 global offices, with the majority in New York City. Others will be placed in Stamford, Chicago, San Francisco, West Palm Beach, Miami, London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Singapore. Goodfriend said that over the years, they’ve recruited interns from more than 75 universities around the world.
Goodfriend pointed out that every summer intern has an opportunity to get a full-time job. At some firms, interns compete to make an impression because there are fewer full-time spots than there are interns. Point72 takes a different approach, Goodfriend said.
“I don’t believe in hiring more than what we can handle. I think that’s not good practice for anybody, and I don’t think it’s productive for a young person to agree to that value proposition,” she said.
It doesn’t mean every intern will make it to the next stage, however. Last year, about 74% of the interns got a return offer to join the full-time Academy, and 97% accepted, Goodfriend said. As BI has previously reported, getting the offer can lead to jobs as a senior analyst and even a portfolio manager. But you have to really want it, Goodfriend added.
“We can hire everybody. It’s just a question of, is this what you want to do? Is this what you should be doing? It’s generally a mutual decision at the end of the summer. I don’t think there are a lot of surprises.”