Not All Goldman Sachs Summer Intern Applicants Worthy Of Face-To-Grundle Time With Gary Cohn, Says Gary Cohn

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Updated:: Jan 14, 2019
Original:: May 31, 2013

Out of 17,000 applicants, just 350 college students made the cut and will begin their investment banking summer internships next week at Goldman Sachs offices around the world. That is roughly the same yield as prior years, a 2% acceptance rate. It’s easier to get into Harvard or Stanford...Applicants also had to submit a resume and a 300-word cover letter describing the qualities they would bring to Goldman and their motivations for applying. And of course they had to survive a round of interviews. “We have no problem attracting people,” Gary Cohn, Goldman’s president, said at a conference on Thursday about the applicants to the program. “I won’t say they’re all highly qualified, but the vast majority were highly qualified kids that wanted to come to work at Goldman Sachs for the summer and do the internship program.” [WSJ, related, related]

As many of you know, here at Dealbreaker we consider ourselves the preeminent scholars on Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn's grundle. Specifically, the grundle-to-face conversations he reportedly enjoys having with employees on the trading floor. So we were more than a little delighted to hear that Greg Smith's book, Why I Left Goldman Sachs, contained a passage describing Cohn's preferred position to assume while havin' a chat. Sayeth Smith: Gary had a very distinctive signature move, one he had become famous for within the firm; I must have seen it ten or fifteen times in action. It didn't matter if the person he was talking to was male or female; he would walk up to the salesman or saleswoman, hike up one leg, plant his foot on the person's desk, his thigh close to the employee's face, and ask how markets were doing. Gary was physically commanding, and the move could have been interpreted as a very primal, alpha-male gesture. I think he just thought it was comfortable. For those who have made claims that Smith's book is light on details that any exposé worth its salt would include, please note that reporters at investigative powerhouse Bloomberg News would probably nod approvingly at the above, based on an article they penned last year. Cohn, 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, can be intimidating, two former colleagues said. He would sometimes hike up one leg, plant his foot on a trader’s desk, his thigh close to the employee’s face, and ask how markets were doing, they said. Earlier: Succeeding Blankfein at Goldman May Be Hurdle Too High for Cohn

An unprecedented act of generosity has taken place.

As opposed to the face-to-how-dare-you-f*cking-look-at-me basis they'd grown accustomed to.

Just added another week to your wait time. (Getty Images)

You'll find out when Goldman is good and ready for you to find out.

Are you among the people who mistakenly believe working for Goldman Sachs has lost its luster? That the youth of America no longer spend nights dreaming about what it'd be like to bask in the glow of Lloyd Blankfein? That a guy who couldn't tie his shoes 'til he was 22 was able to ruin the picture they had their minds of what it would be like to one day, if they worked really hard, have Gary Cohn hike up one leg, plant his foot on a their desk, his thigh close to their face, and ask how markets were doing? Then you don't have a clue. Goldman’s program has grown so big that the firm has to break their start date into two groups. This week welcomed the lucky few selected for “revenue” businesses, like investment banking and trading. Next week brings “services” workers, COO Gary Cohn said at a conference Thursday. Vampire squids, Greg Smith and Delaware judges can’t keep the applicants away. “Our application pool this year was greater than it ever has been,” Cohn said. Goldman Sachs Still Hot With The Youths [Deal Journal] Related: Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn Likes To Speak To Employees On A Grundle-To-Face Basis

Banking interns in Europe and some lucky ones in the U.S. are getting paaaaid (more money than they expected).