Next Generation Diversity Symposium Review

I thoroughly enjoyed attending the Jefferies Next Generation Diversity Symposium (NGDS). It was a great opportunity to learn more about the divisions at Jefferies, e.g. IBD, Research and S&T. It was a held virtually but I believe that there were not any technical difficulties and the event ran very smoothly. Sitting by your computer for a long period of time did make it a bit difficult but I believe that the breaks were helpful with this regards.

There were many different opportunities to ask questions by raising your hand on the Zoom participants section and waiting for the host to pick your name to ask a question. This was somewhat effective at making us feel valued as our questions were answered and we were given a more detailed insight into the firm. However, with the great number of people putting up their hands, there wasn't always an option to be picked. Therefore, many people were not able to ask a question.

During this virtual experience we received an adequate level of guidance and support during the symposium as well as before and after it. Before the symposium it was very clear on how to join the program and who to contact if we had any issues or concerns. During the program there was multiple members from HR present to speak to or ask a question. In addition to this, the Q&A sessions allowed us to voice our questions and receive further advice.

The Jefferies diversity symposium gave us a great amount of information about the firm, the divisions and the industry in general. While this was very helpful and useful for when we want to learn more about the firm or industry, or apply to positions at Jefferies and similar firms, it does not directly relate to our degree subjects, which is understandable as they accept students from an array of degree backgrounds. I believe Economics/Finance students may have found it much more relevant to their degree.

The event was very well structured in the virtual environment. The panellists they selected had various backgrounds with many of them coming from different divisions, different teams and different levels of seniority. Some were the head of certain teams and others had just started out. It was clear that there was a good balance of these people from different divisions so that no division was left out and each was adequately covered by their respective people representing them.

The general atmosphere was very pleasant. Many of the people on the panel were very happy about working at Jefferies with many of them having positive experiences there so far. There wasn't an opportunity to directly speak to other attendees but judging from their reactions on the screen, they seemed to be enjoying the program and seemed engaged. Many of the questions they asked also seemed to stem from a point of motivation and curiosity, which further developed a positive atmosphere.

This event was absolutely brilliant in helping us understand what it would be like to have a full time role within Jefferies. We were exposed to people from many different divisions and positions, right from Managing Directors to new Analysts that only joined a few months ago. Their insight and the Q&A session provided us with a great opportunity to learn more about their day to day roles as well as see the broader environment/working life of people at Jefferies in general.

Attending the virtual symposium made it very clear about their culture as it was clearly displayed during the beginning and echoed again by other people working at the firm. They clearly valued Entrepreneurial habits, collaboration skills and creativity very highly and this made clear by the panellists even going further to demonstrate what all the three points meant in conjunction with each other by sharing a story of how he approached and pitched an idea to his MD.

The symposium was very useful in terms of deciding which division I want to apply for when I am looking at summer internships in the finance industry. Initially I was a lot more interest in the Investment Banking division, specifically M&A. But now Equity sales and Research has grabbed my attention a lot more and I have been motivated to do more research to see whether I might enjoy exploring summer opportunities in other divisions that I might like.

During the Jefferies symposium there were HR staff members hosting the Zoom session and different panellists joining at their specific allocated times to give an introduction to their roles and divisions. We were given an opportunity to ask questions but with many Zoom hands up, not many people were able to ask questions due to time constraints. This could have been improved if there were no technical difficulties with the breakout rooms and we could be placed into smaller cohorts.