I've noticed that in banking - and I'm not talking about investment banking, or high-finance in general, but regular consumer banking - there's been a trend to basically hire woefully overqualified people for the lowest positions around - I'm talking about bank greeters, customer support, and what not, and then train them from there.
This could very well be a local thing, but there are so many people today qualifying for these jobs - lots of BBA and MBA candidates out there, willing to do pretty much anything to get a foot inside.
When I was interning for a bank, even the greeters (basically the person that just greets the clients, and forwards them to the right people within the bank - a receptionist, really) had a Bachelors degree, many were working on their Masters.
The more sought after positions had been re-labeled "graduate programs" or "trainee programs", and were aimed at the top-shelf students. While the rest pretty much had to get a foot inside by working their way up from the bottom.
So you suddenly have a ton of highly educated candidates applying for jobs that only 15 years ago required a HS diploma, if that even.
Then when they're first inside, they tend to get moved around internally - as a lot of positions only get posted internally.
It's almost the same way with internships. Internships are there to practically train and select future company workers. If you do well, you get a return offer - if not, well, at least you have some experience.
With the rising number of graduates, I can foresee a future where candidates are being divided into the regulars and the elites. The regulars will, no mater how qualified they are, will have to start at the rock bottom, proving themselves for $8.5/hr, while the elites are trained for leadership/management-track positions.
It's the same thing in law, the best advice to give to an aspiring lawyer is to go have a chat with a practicing lawyer at a non-elite firm.
I look at internships before grades and the school.
When I interview fresh grads, if they have internships, that's what we talk about.
When I have interns on my team, my goal is to hire them. At one large tech firm I was at, we had a goal of hiring 50% of our internship pool. It was the primary way we brought in new talent.
Lots of Big Tech is in that general range. I actually don't know of any top companies where the offer rate is ~30%.
One of them I had an internship and they never told me to leave, so I just kept working (and getting paid) until eventually they hired me full-time!
Well, not at JPM, but most everywhere else.
[1] https://getatechinternship.com/2020/04/27/why-do-i-need-an-i...