Banking careers less popular with business students: Deloitte survey

The popularity of a banking career among business students has fallen since the 2008 financial crisis and banks must change to attract the best graduates, a survey for accountancy firm Deloitte showed yesterday.

The popularity of working in the average bank fell five places to 35th out of 100 employers in the five years to 2013, according to the Deloitte Talent in Banking Survey 2013.

Though banking was more resilient than manufacturing and engineering, which saw popularity fall by twice as much, industries such as software and computer services are more popular. Accounting also fell, by six places, but remained the most popular career among business students.

The research, a survey of almost 108,000 business students from 1,350 universities in Asia, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, found students interested in banking ranked professional training and development as the top job attribute.

"This survey is a wake-up call for banks," Deloitte said, emphasising changing attitudes following the crisis, rate-rigging and mis-selling scandals and regulatory pressure to overhaul the corporate culture.

"Banks must respond decisively if they are to continue to attract the best graduates and it is in their interests to recognise these changing attitudes and highlight attractions other than pay," said Kevin O'Reilly, a partner at Deloitte.