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What banker careers REALLY look like: The DATA
 

bankerella's picture
IB
(King Kong, 1,863
 
Points)
 on 10/22/12 at 7:00pm
Banker-Money-300x300.jpg

Moderator Note (Andy) this was originally posted by bankerella on 9/5/12

All right, folks, got some hard stats here. Read 'em and weep, or rejoice (you know who you are).

Reminder: this is longitudinal career data from a sample set of several hundred bankers in bulge bracket IBD at all levels.

Make sure to see my previous posts in this series: 1. introductory post and 2. schools and promotion rates.

Also, I should say that I got no dog in this fight and couldn't care less where the talent comes from. Just trying to get some hard data out there so that, in the future, people can use it as an objective data point as they consider life choices. And so that working professionals can get back to doing what we truly enjoy doing on WSO: dicking around.

Undergrad

~10% of all individuals in the sample:

Georgetown (Yes, I was surprised too. I scrubbed these numbers personally and stand behind them. I am also not aware of any bias in the sample that would cause this. I think Georgetown might actually place more than anywhere else. Thoughts?)

~8% of the sample:

Penn

~6% of the sample:

NYU

~3-4% of the sample:

Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, Boston, Illinois, Texas A&M, Texas, Michigan, Canada (all schools)

~2% of the sample:

Dartmouth, Northwestern, Cornell, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Emory, Vanderbilt,

~1% of the sample:

Chicago, Stanford, MIT, UCLA, Wash U, Southern California, Berkeley, Virginia, India (all schools), US military academies

7%: Other US private colleges (i.e., Amherst, Tufts, Hamilton, Brown)
9%: Other US public colleges (shout out to Miami, UNC, Wisconsin-Madison, Ohio State)
3%: Other international colleges

Bonus points: First monkey to point out that this adds up to more than 100% gets a monkey shit for displaying MD-level analytical ability far too early in his career.

Graduate school

% of individuals in the sample with graduate degree: roughly 50%.

96% MBA
1% JD/MBA
1% JD
1% MD
0% all else

~15% of MBAs:

Wharton, Harvard

~10% of MBAs:

Columbia

~5-10% of MBAs:

Kellogg, Ross, Booth

~2-5% of MBAs:

Cornell, Haas, Sloan, UCLA, Darden, Duke, Georgetown, Tuck

~1-2% of MBAs:

Stanford

Surprisingly underrepresented:

Stern, Yale, McCombs

You'll notice I'm not sticking exact percentages on this shit. That's because I know you guys love numbers the way I love numbers, and I don't want us arguing over one percent of difference between one school and another. I also don't want some kid choosing one school over another based on some superfluous difference. (Although wouldn't it be funny if our top talent started swarming Canadian undergrads as a back door onto Wall Street due to this thing?)

Direct promote to associate:
~8% of all analysts in the sample go on to become direct promotes to associate (same firm, not necessarily same role/group)
~15% make it to associate or better without MBA in a different role/firm

Exit opps

At the analyst level, of those who exit:
35% exit to MBA programs
26% PE/VC
12% HF
10% other investment mgmt
5% corp dev, corp finance
5% equity research
All the rest:
Strategy/consulting, sales and trading, startup, tech, etc.

At the associate level, of those who exit:
PE: 25%
Corp dev: 20%
Corp finance: 10%
Investment management: 10%
Strategy/consulting: 5%
All the rest:
Startup, tech, other corporate roles

At the VP level, of those who exit:

30% corp dev
15% corp finance
5% strategy/consulting
All the rest:
Kinda disappear. Chicks especially seem to disappear at higher rates here. (Now I wonder why that might be...)

At the director/MD level, exits are pretty rare, but here's what I got:

Corp dev: 15%
Corporate finance: 20% (usually pretty big titles)
Investment management: 5% (I'm assuming they bring clients over)
All the rest:
Disappear, play poker, buy/sell real estate, run for public office, run a charity, sit on some boards of directors, etc. Pretty posh exit opps here.

FAQ:

Why didn't you mention my school? Your data has to be completely full of shit, because my school is a straight-up escalator to the top of the heap. Chill out, my friend. Maybe your school is too baller for BB IBD. Maybe they recruit straight to the buyside.

What's up with Georgetown? I don't know. Somebody's got connections somewhere.

What's up with Boston? Apparently it's the "Jesuit Ivy". Who knew?

What's up with UT Austin and Texas A&M outrepresenting the Little Ivies? The Texas schools are 10x-20x the size of the Little Ivies. I absolutely buy that the guy who is top 0.1% out of 10,000+ at UT Austin would wipe the floor with the guy who is top 10% out of 400 at Amherst. PSA: Before you choose UT Austin as your onramp to BB IBD, just remember how much ass you're gonna have to kick in order to stand out in a class of ten thousand people.

Where are all the masters in finance? Not in BB IBD.

Where are the black colleges? Sorry. There are essentially no black colleges in this data set. But while I was scrubbing, I personally observed that a whole bunch of the Harvard undergrads are black. So my best advice is: if you are black and headed for IBD, don't count on Morehouse (or no house) to get you there. Suck it up and go to Harvard.

Where's the Little Three? Amherst seems to do okay. The other two are no-shows.

Where's Oxbridge? Somewhere over there. Not here.

Any more pressing questions you guys would like me to answer? What's still a priority at this point?

Love,

Auntie

See my other WSO blog posts
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Comments

AndyLouis's picture

who has a good theory on

 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 12:49pm

who has a good theory on Georgetown at ~10% ? sb for best answer

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Beretta's picture

Can you break it down by each

ST
(Orangutan, 358
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 12:58pm

Can you break it down by each bank? Some banks have more people from certain schools than others. I'd like to see those results.

For example, my school is popular with JP Morgan but weak with Credit Suisse.

mitchr2's picture

Great data set, thanks! I

(Monkey, 39
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 1:07pm

Great data set, thanks! I find it interesting that ZERO associates leave for an MBA. This touches more on the direct promotes (as obviously the post MBA associates have already acheived the degree). Where do direct promos end up? Just foregoing the MBA totally?

jpmoranmonkeysachs's picture

So masters in finance, no go?

(Baboon, 149
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 1:08pm

So masters in finance, no go?

Gomez Addams's picture

No clue why it is so popular

CO
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 1:08pm

No clue why it is so popular in banking. But it is, without a doubt, an excellent school. I remember reading that Ted Leonsis and something like 5 other major league team owners are Georgetown Alumni, it might be first in that category too.

fiji water's picture

thank you for this

ER
(Chimp, 11
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 1:17pm

thank you for this

someusername's picture

Great work pulling up the

 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 1:20pm

Great work pulling up the stats. Thanks.
Just curious, what is the size of the data set (you say several hundred, but anything more specific?) and also the distribution among levels(like 50% analysts, 30% associates etc)?
Just to get an idea of how much to read into the stats :)

Thanks for the work again bankeralla.

esbanker's picture

By "Boston" I'm assuming

PE
(Gorilla, 577
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 1:23pm

By "Boston" I'm assuming you're referring to BC and not BU.

The Georgetown number seems too high to me. Even though a fair amount of undergrad Gtown students get IBD roles, i'd say a large amount of the BB opportunities are ultimately wealth management and middle office gigs - OP, perhaps some of those roles are being conflated?

Overall, great insights tho, so thanks for sharing.

Capitalist

TechBanking's picture

Is this data for a single

EN
(King Kong, 1,105
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 1:31pm

Is this data for a single bank or aggregated across multiple banks? All banks? If it's one bank, then the Georgetown over-representation might make more sense (a senior HR alumn or something similar).

At the two BBs I worked for Georgetown was represented, but at nowhere near the level that's indicated above.

That_Aston's picture

Thank You!

CF
(Gorilla, 573
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 1:35pm

Thank You!

Here to learn and hopefully pass on some knowledge as well. SB if I helped.

Pienaar21's picture

Give it up to Rutgers and

(Baboon, 101
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 1:39pm

Give it up to Rutgers and Georgetown. Talk about punching above their weight.

bankerella's picture

esbanker: By "Boston" I'm

IB
(King Kong, 1,863
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 1:45pm
esbanker:

By "Boston" I'm assuming you're referring to BC and not BU.

The Georgetown number seems too high to me. Even though a fair amount of undergrad Gtown students get IBD roles, i'd say a large amount of the BB opportunities are ultimately wealth management and middle office gigs - OP, perhaps some of those roles are being conflated?

Overall, great insights tho, so thanks for sharing.

Nope, there are zero wealth management, zero middle office roles here. Only IBD. That's the point of the whole exercise -- to get it down to front-office IBD roles only.

See my other WSO blog posts

crazylikeafox's picture

If you're going to name a

HF
(Chimp, 13
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 2:04pm

If you're going to name a school the "Jesuit Ivy", Georgetown would be the right way to go, no? Look at Rutgers coming in hot...

“We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. We are monkeys with money and guns.”

hamm0's picture

Interesting about Associate

AM
(Baboon, 173
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 2:06pm

Interesting about Associate exit ops. Its so commonly reported that your exit op is to VP or to a new career.
Was there any clarity in the data about how many of the Associates that exited (from your other post, it looks like this is 10% of all Associates) were direct promote, vs. MBA -> Associate?

F. Ro Jo's picture

What level did most of the

 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 2:18pm

What level did most of the Georgetown folks get in at? Analyst, Associate or above?

Unforseen's picture

AndyLouis: who has a good

(King Kong, 1,099
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 2:36pm

Check out my Blog

illiniPride's picture

bankerella: Read 'em and

IB
(King Kong, 1,099
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 2:29pm

Leadership can be defined in two words: "Follow Me"

illiniPride's picture

Also, this could legitimately

IB
(King Kong, 1,099
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 2:31pm

Leadership can be defined in two words: "Follow Me"

BTbanker's picture

F. Ro Jo: What level did most

IB
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 2:35pm

"A man generally has two reasons for doing anything. One that sounds good, and the real one." - J.P. Morgan

bankerella's picture

F. Ro Jo: What level did most

IB
(King Kong, 1,863
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 2:36pm

See my other WSO blog posts

happypantsmcgee's picture

Only know one chick at Gtown.

O
(Almost Human, 9,621
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 2:39pm

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford

Spreadsheet_Ninja's picture

Georgetown MSB and the SFS /

IB
(Chimp, 13
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 2:39pm
Pienaar21's picture

illiniPride: Also, this could

(Baboon, 101
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 2:41pm
mongoose's picture

Bankrella, are you taken

O
(King Kong, 1,028
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 2:43pm
cibo's picture

bankerella: Where are all the

(Baboon, 163
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 2:51pm
BTbanker's picture

Would you consider doing some

IB
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 2:50pm

"A man generally has two reasons for doing anything. One that sounds good, and the real one." - J.P. Morgan

bankerella's picture

JamesHetfield: Bankrella, are

IB
(King Kong, 1,863
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 2:52pm

See my other WSO blog posts

bankerella's picture

BTbanker: Would you consider

IB
(King Kong, 1,863
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 2:53pm

See my other WSO blog posts

Steve Mallory's picture

Georgetown? I wouldn't let my

ER
(Monkey, 64
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 3:00pm
prospie's picture

bankerella: Read 'em and

(King Kong, 1,674
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 3:03pm

Financial Modeling Training
Guide to Finance Interviews
Banking Resume

F. Ro Jo's picture

Is the analyst:associate

 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 3:04pm
Going Concern's picture

bankerella: JamesHetfield:

(King Kong, 1,689
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 3:14pm

And I think it's gonna be a long, long, time

ladubs111's picture

I'm disappointed that an

IA
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 3:18pm
bankerella's picture

ladubs111: I'm disappointed

IB
(King Kong, 1,863
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 3:23pm

See my other WSO blog posts

is-t's picture

thanks bankeralla. what is

IB
(Baboon, 132
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 3:33pm
ladubs111's picture

bankerella: ladubs111: I'm

IA
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 3:33pm
Plato's picture

AndyLouis: who has a good

(Baboon, 166
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 3:33pm
State of Trance's picture

Bankerella, u missing duke,

PE
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 3:37pm
HarvardOrBust's picture

Probably less HYP cause they

PE
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 3:46pm
bankerella's picture

gofedwinAus: Bankerella, u

IB
(King Kong, 1,863
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 3:47pm

See my other WSO blog posts

melvvvar's picture

what's the breakdown of

(King Kong, 1,693
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 3:50pm
Going Concern's picture

melvvvar: what's the

(King Kong, 1,689
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 4:00pm

And I think it's gonna be a long, long, time

rufiolove's picture

bankerella: JamesHetfield:

IB
(Neanderthal, 3,218
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 4:00pm

1/2 of the WSO Bash Brothers
"Licensed to Ill It"
We all know Bro J did it...

melvvvar's picture

Going

(King Kong, 1,693
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 4:00pm
rufiolove's picture

bankerella: ladubs111: I'm

IB
(Neanderthal, 3,218
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 4:03pm

1/2 of the WSO Bash Brothers
"Licensed to Ill It"
We all know Bro J did it...

Going Concern's picture

melvvvar: Going

(King Kong, 1,689
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 4:05pm

And I think it's gonna be a long, long, time

melvvvar's picture

Going

(King Kong, 1,693
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 4:08pm
Hoya2WallStreet's picture

As an alum of Georgetown

(Chimp, 10
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 4:14pm
BCbanker's picture

Someone else asked about

IB
(Gorilla, 633
 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 4:44pm
someusername's picture

melvvvar: what's the

 
Points)
 on 8/29/12 at 4:45pm

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