I think IB is the generally speaking, the most prestigious. That's really open to debate.

That aside, if you are an undergraduate who's only experience is finance classes. IB is the easiest, but most competitive to get into too. (You dont need much, because your not expected to know much. However, tons of kids are applying)

S&T and asset management is a toss-up. On the one hand, S&T gives desk-specific offers. What that means is that some bank might have 35 trading desks specializing in specific industries and/or securities. These desk may also be categorized in prop/non-prop trading. There might be only one seat on a given desk and you might not have the skill set to even be less than a burden on your team. Consequently, it might be extremely difficult to land a job in say....synthetic products, if you cant do the swop math, build macros, or understand the greeks.

On the other hand, don't sleep on asset management. While this division house private wealth management perhaps easier to get into, you have to consider the special situation groups, internal hedge funds, BB private equity, and merchant banking groups. If your thinking about applying to these groups as undergrad, you might find yourself in a applicant pool with better-seasoned 3rd yr. analyst mobility candidates.....I hope you know somebody, or are just a super star. I don't think that presidency of the university equities society is going to get you very far in this interview.

 

Where do you get this information from? Sankaty recruits full time on campus at Princeton, Harvard, Wharton, Dartmouth, and Yale. Those I know for sure, and I would be willing to bet that they hire full time from other places as well. The Harvard/Wharton circlejerk is getting a little out of control around this website from a couple people. People say here that you can never go to top buyside shops straight from undergrad unless you are at H/W, then you see people at almost all Mega Funds recruiting straight from undergrad who were at Dartmouth, Yale, Princeton, Wharton, Harvard on Linkedin. I don't go to Harvard or Wharton and there are a ton of top buyside places that recruit directly from here. I'm willing to bet that those aren't the only campuses. The misinformation around here is ridiculous.

 

I suppose it could be those groups which are very small in terms of the number of people and so not much information is known about them as a very small number of people actually have first hand knowledge of how they operate.. alternatively it could be groups which are secretive due to the nature of the work, perhaps certain hedge fund groups/strategies?

 

For PE, megafunds are generally more selective as very few people interviewing for PE are going to turn down a MF offer.

Apollo and BX PE hire the fewest from banking. BX because they also take analysts out of college, Apollo because they underhire for whatever reason (~3-5 PE associates/year) so deal teams are super lean and you will get crushed. I was told they were 5 for 5 again this past year so looks like there are still enough masochists out there.

Carlyle and TPG both take 10 or more associates a year, but still very competitive if you consider the literally hundreds of banking analysts who want a job there. I think Carlyle is usually 2 per industry group, and you can interview with multiple groups. TPG I heard has lost a few associates to other MFs these past few cycles.

 

Illuminati. New York and London offices are relatively easy to get into (they take 1-2 kids from Yale's S&B a year) but the Miami office apparently only takes one kid every 75-76 years (when the Halley's Comet is visible).

 
Spin Control:

2-part follow up: Do analysts in Special Situations groups get issued sidearms? Also, who makes more elite guns: H&K or Sig Sauer?

Taking your question as one: H&K, they're all trying to prop up their long bets.

(H&K is a distressed credit)

"After you work on Wall Street it’s a choice, would you rather work at McDonalds or on the sell-side? I would choose McDonalds over the sell-side.” - David Tepper
 

Secret? Like Skull 'n Bones / New World Order or some shit? Doesn't exactly work like that dude, at least as far as I know.

Generally the door into getting these top IBD and PE seats is, historically, pretty clear-cut. These firms / funds in many ways are like exclusive clubs were they prefer to recruit from their "own".

This isn't always the case, however, "outsiders" do break-in with a bit of luck and being in the right place at right time. I know a guy who's become a friend of mine who was able to get in as an associate with Riverstone, which traditionally is a very white-shoe type of shop, coming from a lower ranked BB and graduated from a large Big-12 state school. He had just happened to crush it on a deal as an IBD analyst Riverstone had engaged his group for and performed the best on the case study / modeling test. By his own candid admission, he got "pretty lucky".

The really tough place to get to, were the path to getting a seat is most difficult and opaque is with the top hedge funds. I've had zero success getting too far with those cats even with a solid IBD+PE background in roles where my deal experience was a dead-ringer match for. From my POV, HF PM's and full analysts are very tough dudes to impress.

Ace all your PE interview questions with the WSO Private Equity Prep Pack: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/guide/private-equity-interview-prep-questions
 

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