Hassan Akram

Founder and Principal Adviser, Elite Careers Strategy

Bio

Credentials

1. Recruitment and review experience

Across recruitment work and ECS advisory, Hassan Akram has reviewed more than 10,000 applications and related candidate materials, across investment banking, private equity, venture capital and corporate law. It is his own count of the material he has read, not a dataset or statistical sample; the patterns ECS publishes from it are practitioner observations. Seeing that volume of applications, across sectors, is a different vantage point from the applicant's, and from a single-sector view.

2. Documented outcomes

106 documented outcomes and selection progressions across 53 candidate journeys, including outcomes and progressions at Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, White & Case, Kirkland & Ellis, Freshfields, Clifford Chance, Morgan Stanley, Citadel, Ropes & Gray, Akin Gump, Baker McKenzie, UBS, HSBC, BNP Paribas and Point72. Outcomes include offers, internships, insight programmes and recruitment-stage progressions; an assessment centre or Superday invitation is recorded as a progression, not an offer.

ECS is based in London, with documented outcomes in New York, Hong Kong and Singapore. Outcomes are documented on file and anonymised by default; the following candidates have consented to be named publicly: Karam Kahlon, Kalen Harrald, Aden Laszlo, Isnan Raiyean, Vivek Edulakanti, Vivek Patel, Haniel Nduka, Morgan M.

3. Speaking and writing

Hassan has given invited sessions for MBA student clubs and student communities at Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan and Yale School of Management, and a talk at the Festival of Education at Wellington College. These were student-club and event invitations; they do not imply any university appointment, affiliation or endorsement. Kristin Irish endorsed him publicly while serving as Deputy Director of Career Development at Yale SOM.

Hassan has written for The Times of India, with pieces published between November 2023 and February 2025, including "How to join the 1%: A practical guide to entering KKR, McKinsey, or Goldman Sachs" (14 February 2025).

4. Origin

Hassan grew up in Derby, in a neighbourhood (Derby 016A) ranked 74th of 33,755 in England in the 2025 English Indices of Deprivation, among the most deprived 1 per cent in England. His father died in prison. He attended a state school. He achieved A*A*A at A-level. He graduated from UCL in History. He played cricket for Derbyshire as a teenager. He now works from Mayfair, London.

It is a background Hassan draws on when working with candidates who do not have inherited networks in these professions.

The proprietary frameworks Hassan authored

Together they form the ECS framework suite.

STAR-3 - advanced competency interview framework. Three categorised actions, three categorised results, firm-specific Link.
PEAL-3 - Why Law and Why Sector framework. Point, Evidence, Analysis, Link, repeated to three depths of evidence.
PEAL-X - Why This Firm framework. Every sentence anchored to a verifiable firm-specific fact.
VTMR - CV and written application framework. Verb, Task, Metric, Result.
BDC - assessment centre group exercise framework. Began, Developed, Confirmed.
Commercial Fluency - commercial awareness methodology.

Definitions and worked examples are published on each framework hub under the framework guides.

Kristin Irish endorsement

"The strongest career strategist I have encountered - anywhere in the world."

Kristin Irish, Former Head of IB Campus Recruiting, UBS Investment Bank New York | Former Deputy Director of Career Development, Yale School of Management.

The endorsement is reproduced verbatim wherever it appears, and is never paraphrased.

Press

Times of India. Contributor, November 2023 to February 2025. Pieces include "How to join the 1%: A practical guide to entering KKR, McKinsey, or Goldman Sachs" (14 February 2025) and further articles on entry to elite careers.
Harvard Business School. Invited session for an MBA student club.
MIT Sloan School of Management. Invited session for an MBA student club.
Yale School of Management. Invited session for an MBA student club.
Festival of Education, Wellington College. Talk.