Goldman drops its two-year boot camp

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NEW YORK, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- Goldman Sachs is eliminating a program often described as a boot camp to prepare investment bank analysts for lucrative careers, the New York bank confirmed.

Many graduates of the financial giant's two-year program leave the bank for other jobs and the bank recently fired several young investment analysts for moonlighting at other firms, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

The two-year program is the first step at Goldman for college graduates on their way to careers that could culminate in positions with multimillion bonuses.

The program has a reputation as something of a financial career boot camp, with young analysts poring over reams of data to find companies worthy of the bank's attention.

Young bankers have been known to work through the night, or end up sleeping in their offices, a starched white shirt tucked away in a desk drawer for the critical presentation for Goldman Sachs management.

"We think the historic two-year program is no longer the best approach for hiring and developing the careers of analysts in our banking and investment-management divisions," said a bank spokesman.

"Making this change allows us to emphasize the longer-term career opportunities available at the firm," the spokesman said.

"Banks are now seriously questioning the payback," of the boot camp approach to training new staff, said Richard Stein, a partner at Caldwell Partners, an executive recruiting firm.

Goldman is keeping the two-year contract for other bank divisions, but for investment analysts it is giving up on the present two-year contract with bonus plan.

With the economy wobbling and bank profits trimmed by new regulations banks are now looking to hire " an even smaller group of elite graduates," Stein said.