Goldman Sachs' most junior staff hate emails and phone calls
A great debate in financial services today is the question of hybrid work. Some major banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan demand their staff come into the office five days per week, while others like Citi allow their staff to work from home more frequently. How do Goldman Sachs' interns feel about having to spend all this time in the office?... pretty good, apparently.
Goldman Sachs released the findings from its annual summer intern survey earlier this week, garnering responses from the majority of its 2,600 interns in 2025. A recurring question in this survey since the tail end of the pandemic has asked these interns what their favourite form of communication is for work. Looking at how responses to this question have changed in recent years paints an interesting picture of the psyche of a Goldman Sachs intern today.
In-person work has emerged as the clear preference for communication among Goldman Sachs interns, winning the category in every year it was involved. It wasn't included in 2022, but that year's survey noted that "99% [of interns] believe relationships are best formed in person." The least popular year for in-person working was 2023; at the end of that year's summer intern period, Goldman Sachs pushed for staff in non-revenue generating roles to come to the office five days per week, which may have skewed perceptions of in-person work. Video conferencing, meanwhile, plummeted in popularity almost immediately after the pandemic and has gradually decreased each year since.
Phone calls have been perennially the least favourite communication method of Goldman Sachs interns, with just 2% preferring to use them in each of the last three years. For communications outside of work, phone calls are much more popular; 24% said they would talk to friends over the phone, compared to 35% for SMS and 22% for WhatsApp.
What of written communication channels? (i.e. where do interns most enjoy seeing "pls fix") Team chatrooms were the method of choice for interns this year, while preference for e-mails plummeted to just 5%. It's a peculiar shift; in the past two years, emails were the most/joint-most preferred written communication method. Channels like Teams allow for quicker feedback, even if you're just reacting with 👍 to a message, which might imply this year's interns have had a lot of requests to deal with quickly.
In the section providing advice to future interns, in-person work wasn't directly mentioned, but communication and collaboration was a frequent talking point. One intern said you should "take time to build genuine relationships with the people around you," from fellow interns to senior leaders. Others said you should "show up as your best self" and "take the time to enjoy the company [and] embrace the culture." Just 0.72% of people who applied to Goldman's internship program received an offer, so you might as well make the most of it... just not over the phone.
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