Wall Street veteran Jamie Dimon has made his opinion clear: Grads accepting an analyst role at JPMorgan but intending to leave for private equity within a few years is “unethical.”
And a few months later, JPMorgan has told incoming graduate employees if they accept future-dated roles they will be fired.
The reasoning was clear: To get on at the financial giant, “your full attention and participation are essential.”
Continuing its no-nonsense outline to junior talent, the memo adds that training sessions, meetings, and obligations are mandatory. If they are missed, then, again, the individual may be let go.
While the memo didn’t explicitly state where these future-dated positions may be offered, the boss of the bank with a market cap of some $730 billion has made his thoughts on such a phenomenon clear.
Of course, the statement and subsequent action risk ruffling feathers with PE, which accounts for a significant chunk of JPMorgan’s business.
“It puts us in a bad position, and it puts us in a conflicted position,” Dimon added. “You are already working for somewhere else, and you’re dealing with highly confidential information from JPMorgan, and I just don’t like it.”
JPMorgan declined to comment further on this week’s update.
It told previous incoming cohorts they “had an obligation to disclose” accepted roles in the future with their managers.
Moreover, banks are bringing forward their hunt for talent to the extent that some are even recruiting before students have declared their major.
But speaking last year, Dimon countered, “You’re going to be facing ethical decisions like that. Think for yourself.
“How would you feel if you’re on the other side of that thing? Or do you want to be treated that way? Is it fair?”
But amid a war for the brightest brains in the future of finance, JPMorgan is making steps to make it more attractive for upcoming talent to stay with the bank.
For example, analysts will now have the opportunity to be promoted to associate within two and a half years of joining the training program, as opposed to the previous time frame of three years.
“I don’t think sitting around crunching Excel spreadsheets is a job that will exist in a material sense in five years,” Ed deHaan, a professor of accounting at Stanford Graduate School of Business, told Fortune.
