Who Gets In?Research programme of Elite Careers Strategy

Research by Elite Careers Strategy

How the world's most selective institutions choose people.

Systematic, source-led research into how highly selective employers structure early-career access, recruitment and selection.

1,015 observations392 official sources190 employersCorpus updated  · AI rules observed How we verify

As featured in

  • Financial Times

Hassan Akram, who leads this research, has been featured in the Financial Times. Shown for context only. No affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement is implied. The Financial Times did not review or commission this research.

Findings

What the evidence currently supports

The lead finding comes from the 67-employer AI Rules Tracker, observed 23 September 2026. Findings 1 to 4 come from smaller defined sets, each with its denominator and the claim it does not support, reviewed through 13 September 2026.

  1. 30 of 67 employers checked publish a rule on candidates' AI use

    Employers allow AI help on the written application but draw the line at interviews

    Of 30 selective employers that publish a rule on candidates' use of AI, 24 allow AI help with the written application and none forbid it; 17 forbid AI in interviews and none allow it.

    Limit Does not show that the counts describe all selective employers (the list is purposive, not a sample).

    AI Rules Tracker v2.0, observed 23 September 2026. Sector views: banks · law · consulting and Big Four.

    Lead finding · AIR-2.0-F1

  2. 8 of 8 institutions in the defined subset

    Explicit AI rules draw a boundary around candidate-owned work

    Limit Do not generalise 8/8, or the stage-specific 7/8 result, to all selective employers.

    Finding 1

  3. 7 of 7 institutions in the defined subset

    Human judgement remains visible after digital selection stages

    Limit This describes the reviewed subset only; it is not a prevalence estimate for elite employers.

    Finding 2

  4. 3 of 3 institutions in the defined subset

    The same employer can run materially different selection architecture by market

    Limit Not a claim that every multinational employer varies by geography.

    Finding 3

  5. 1 of 1 institutions in the defined subset

    A single BlackRock programme gives London and GCC candidates different application runways

    Limit This is a programme-specific cross-market observation, not evidence that all BlackRock or elite-employer programmes use different regional deadlines.

    Finding 4

All findings, including the frozen report findings

Coverage across five hubs

How deep the evidence is in each of the five cities

The Global Selection Atlas is a depth product, not the research universe. Priority institutions are promoted only where cross-market evidence is deep enough for bounded comparison. A dossier is promoted only where the checked evidence is deep enough for bounded cross-market comparison; the others are held as Evidence records. Every other institution in the register has an evidence record. "Not yet evidenced" never means no.

1015 dated facts (signals) from 392 official source records, across a 190-employer research census, 7 sectors and 5 priority market groups.

  • Employers in research census 190
  • Priority market groups 5
  • Selection question families 14
  • Employer Census denominators: see the research scope
Institutions by hub, with evidence state
InstitutionLondonNew YorkHong KongSingaporeDubai/GCCPage type
BlackRock5 verified of 5 hubs12 city observationsVerifiedVerifiedVerifiedVerifiedVerifiedDossier
Goldman Sachs5 verified of 5 hubs12 city observationsVerifiedVerifiedVerifiedVerifiedVerified. Scope note: Current official Goldman Sachs recruiting evidence establishes a named 2027 Dubai Investment Banking Capital Solutions Group Seasonal/Off Cycle Internship. The route is for undergraduate students, includes training and real responsibilities, and publishes a four-business/location application limit per recruiting year. Evidence is route-specific and is not represented as a universal Dubai or Goldman selection model.Dossier
JPMorganChase3 verified, 1 partial, 1 not yet evidenced of 5 hubs8 city observationsPartialVerified. Scope note: Current official 2027 Global Investment Banking Summer Associate evidence establishes New York as a programme location, with all listed groups available there, a nine-week programme, four days of orientation/training, MBA eligibility and a resume-based application review. This is the MBA Summer Associate route and is not silently treated as the undergraduate Summer Analyst route.VerifiedVerifiedNot yet evidencedEvidence record
Morgan Stanley4 verified, 1 partial of 5 hubs8 city observationsVerifiedPartialVerifiedVerified. Scope note: Current 2027 Investment Banking Industrial Placement / Summer Analyst route covers Hong Kong, Singapore and Seoul; Asia excluding India candidates may apply to up to three opportunities per recruitment year.Verified. Scope note: Current 2027 Dubai Investment Banking Off-Cycle Internship runs six months from January 2027; deadline 18 October 2026; rolling recruitment.Dossier
Clifford Chance5 verified of 5 hubs16 city observationsVerifiedVerified. Scope note: Current official New York/US evidence now covers application materials, first-semester-grade update timing, rolling review across US summer-law-clerk recruiting and a bounded cross-office interview route involving a New York attorney.VerifiedVerified. Scope note: Current candidate-facing 2027 Summer Internship page publishes the 29 January 2027 deadline, online application, Watson Glaser, associate/Graduate Recruitment interview, additional partner/counsel interview for Practice Training Contract applicants, and an internship-to-Practice-Training-Contract interview route.VerifiedDossier
Freshfields5 verified of 5 hubs15 city observationsVerifiedVerified. Scope note: Current official US law-student evidence establishes a ten-week New York summer-associate programme and publishes callback architecture plus practice-interest matching; US callback evidence is not assumed identical across every route or cycle.VerifiedVerified. Scope note: Current Singapore IAG Summer Internship 2027 evidence establishes the 1 October-31 December 2026 application window, three-to-six-week Singapore placement and required CV, cover letter, legal writing sample and transcripts.Verified. Scope note: Current Dubai/MENA evidence establishes office-specific screening, a Dubai Dispute Resolution Internship application-review-to-interview sequence, and a 2027 Emirati Internship with application, interview and offer stages.Dossier
HSBC5 partial of 5 hubs3 city observationsPartialPartialPartialPartialPartialEvidence record
UBS5 partial of 5 hubs6 city observationsPartialPartialPartialPartialPartialEvidence record

Show one hub

VerifiedVerified in the official sourcePartialPartial: evidence exists but is not programme-level for that hubNot yet evidencedNot yet evidenced: a research gap, not evidence of absenceVerified with a scope note: the Atlas bounds this cell to a named programme or route; open the dossier or record

Of 40 institution-by-hub cells, 27 are verified, 12 partial and 1 not yet evidenced.

All 164 institutions with evidenceMarkets and hub comparison

Recently observed

The latest observations, by institution

The three institutions with the most recent observations in the register. Updates feed: RSS, JSON.

A&O Shearman

32 observations in the register; latest

BCG

5 observations in the register; latest

SIG-1024 Official source BCG

Registration opened 14 October 2026, closes 29 March 2027; portal closes 6 April 2027.

US/Canada · Launch 2026-27 · Timing · Observed 16 October 2026 · Verified 16 Oct 2026 · Source SRC-397 (careers.bcg.com) · source record

BlackRock

12 observations in the register; latest

SIG-126 Official source BlackRock

BlackRock's 2027 EMEA Full-Time Analyst programme publishes 30 September 2026 for London, 30 October 2026 for Edinburgh and 31 January 2027 for Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Riyadh.

EMEA · 2027 Full-Time Analyst Program EMEA · Geographic deadlines · Observed 27 September 2026 · Verified 27 Sep 2026 · Source SRC-080 (careers.blackrock.com) · source record

All release notes and observations

Reports and data

Read, download or check a figure

Who Gets In? is the research arm of Elite Careers Strategy

Who Gets In? is the research arm of Elite Careers Strategy. We examine how the world's most selective institutions choose talent. The programme exists because the rules of elite selection are not secret, but they are scattered across institutional pages and unevenly understood. It collects them, codes them against a published method, and publishes every source so that any figure can be checked rather than taken on trust.

Elite Careers Strategy is a private advisory firm working in the field this research examines. That interest is disclosed. The research uses official public sources only and contains no client evidence.

New research publication · Observed 23 September 2026

AI & Elite Hiring Observatory

What do selective employers officially say about candidate AI use? A source-derived, stage-specific analysis of a purposive 67-employer check, with precise denominators and explicit limitations.

Read the AI & Elite Hiring Observatory · Examine the official-source tracker

Employer evidence profiles

AI rules, by employer and selection stage

Read source-bounded employer evidence, with official guidance, programme-specific limitations and dated observations. These are not complete application guides.

Read the AI & Elite Hiring Observatory