You don't necessarily need a college degree to get hired at Goldman Sachs — the bank is hiring high-school grads for roles in Salt Lake City

• Goldman Sachs is hiring for operations roles in Salt Lake City that only require a high school diploma or GED, according to job postings.
• Goldman typically hires through college campus recruiting and laterally across the industry for experienced professionals.
• This "Alternative Staffing Model" was rolled out last year in Salt Lake City, a Goldman Sachs spokesperson told Business Insider.
• These hires perform traditional operations functions like trade processing and reconciliations.
• Salt Lake City is one of Goldman's many "high value" locations, and the bank has been shifting roles out of hubs like New York to these lower-cost cities for years.
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You don't necessarily need a college degree to work at Goldman Sachs. 

The investment bank has posted job openings for roles in its operations division that require a high school diploma or GED. 

"Last year we rolled out an Alternative Staffing Model in Salt Lake City to meet demand around optimizing our coverage of financial exchanges for markets around the world," a Goldman spokesperson told Business Insider in emailed comments.

The "process coordinator" roles are part of the firm's operations teams which support Goldman's various business lines, including sales and trading as well as investment management. 

It's a new role, according to the job description, and while a high school diploma is a basic requirement, an associate's degree is preferred.

Process coordinators perform traditional operations functions like trade processing and reconciliations, according to the spokesperson.

Goldman opened its Salt Lake City office in 2000, where it now staffs people across the majority of the firm's divisions. For years the bank has been moving roles out of high-cost hubs like New York and London to "high value" cities like Salt Lake and Dallas.

But employees in these locations are still supporting businesses based in cities like New York, so their hours can skew early.

While the process coordinator jobs are full time, the hours may be adjusted to be in line with hub locations.

"As these roles have alternate working hours, often starting very early in the morning or later in the day, we've seen high demand from job seekers who need flexibility in their work schedule," the spokesperson said.

Process coordinators are hired through a typical interview process which includes meeting with leadership of the team, the spokesperson said.

Goldman Sachs has long been known for its rigorous interview process, and landing a job at the prestigious investment bank is not easy. Of the 1 million job applications received each year, the firm hires just 5,000 of them, an acceptance rate of 0.5%.

While many of these applicants are vying for roles in the firm's revenue-generating divisions like investment banking or sales and trading, prospective hires across all divisions have to go through similar interview processes to get an offer.

For college grads, landing an internship or entry-level role is more about academics and culture fit. The bank is looking for curiosity and drive, as Dane Holmes, former head of human capital management, previously told Business Insider. 

Lateral hires — usually meaning mid-level employees with experience at other firms — need to demonstrate technical skills, too.

These new process coordinator jobs fall somewhere in between. They aren't necessarily "entry level," as the firm is looking for previous experience in a "business process-oriented" role. But not requiring an undergraduate degree is a new approach for Goldman.

Typically, entry-level roles at Goldman are filled through college campus recruiting efforts and its pipeline of summer analysts, many of whom are offered full-time roles before returning to school for their senior years.

And Goldman's employees have tended to come from top-ranked schools, according to LinkedIn data.

But Goldman's approach to hiring has been changing. In 2016, the firm stopped visiting colleges to conduct on-campus interviews, instead having applicants complete their first-round interviews via pre-recorded video platform HireVue.

"As we've built offices in new cities and geographic locations, we've needed to recruit at more schools located in those areas. Video interviews allow us to do that," Holmes wrote in the Harvard Business Review.

Editor's note: Shannen Balogh was previously an employee of Goldman Sachs in New York. 

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