Does prestige of your bank matter for ER?
Current rising junior interning at an upper MM bank and I enjoy the culture and people here. I think I have a pretty decent shot at interning here again next summer but was wondering if the prestige of my bank mattered for my career? Personally I don’t care about prestige but I’m wondering if my career would get a better start if I recruited and signed on with a BB bank.
It more or less depends on the quality of your analyst over the prestige of your firm, especially if you want good exit ops to hedge funds etc. BB's are a good place for ER, specifically MS and JPM.
Thanks! I’m interested in exiting to the buy side. How do you make sure you get placed with a good lead analyst after your summer internship?
For more elaborations, read Deciding On Sell-side Offer
Agreed - worked for an analyst who barely understood who the true allocators of capital were (i.e. thought the New York pensions saying they were exiting fossil fuel investments would trigger a sell off in our coverage) but understood the nuts and bolts of the operations and regulatory side of our business better than anyone. Need to sanity check your EBITDA forecast? We were not the shop. New court ruling about construction on a pipeline and how it impacts the P&L? She had you covered.
Would also help to be in a coverage group for a vertical that is growing. Almost took a role with an analyst at a MM group in a super niche (but rapidly growing) industry verticla and he is the only one on the street who knows what he knows and at least until everyone catches up can help the buysiders generate alpha just by pure information sharing. That is the place to be imo.
I am in intern in ER at a MM, and what I’ve been told is the following, but since I am, indeed, an intern, take this with a grain of salt:
• ER isn’t like IB, in that “poor deal flow” isn’t much of a consideration — the work you do (and experience you gain) is the same everywhere, so it’s not as if you benefit from bigger/more complex deals —> more skills at a BB
• Analysts (and by that I mean MDs) are quite mobile, and carry their own “personal prestige” in a way IB MDs do not — there are even II rankings for them, and so being under a “good” analyst goes a long way
• Outside of ER, name brand probably matters more, as many people aren’t fully familiar with what ER is/does, but the name “Goldman” speaks; within ER, this doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem
If you like your analyst and group, I’d accept the offer if you intend on staying in ER…especially in this economy
Honestly everyone keeps saying your bank doesn’t matter but that is simply not true. JPM will always be better than RBC. If you have a superstar analyst at RBC then you’ll probably be well off. Still, I rather work for a ranked 5 analyst at a top BB than a ranked 3 analyst at a bad research firm. Yes if we’re talking extremes where year after year your RBC analyst ranks first and it’s between that and a shitty analyst at a top BB then yes the ranking of the analyst matters more. Still the blanket statement that I see here all the time that “analyst is what truly matters” is not correct. A BB will offer you a way better network, exposure and also the chance to switch between teams or even the industry. You could even argue more important than firm and analyst ranking is the importance of the sector. Just because you work for a top BB and a top analyst doesn’t matter much if you’re covering an industry nobody cares about.
Thanks for the insight. How does recruiting for full time offers at a BB for ER work? Would it be similar to IB?
Saw some job posts from Jefferies. How does Jefferies compare to BBs? I see that they’re climbing the II rankings pretty seamlessly.
The insight I have might be biased based on hearing it from people at a BB. Basically Jeffries probably preferable over for example Wolfe, but known to a sweatshop and people wonder why they really bother with ER. I think with the right MD it’s a good deal but just not on the same level. Hope this helps in any way.
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