Incoming analyst at top/mid BB, various reasons made it not so ideal to stay in the group I interned in/planned to return to (culture, senior exits, etc). Full-time recruitment is pretty much over, so I was considering lateraling as an alternative and was wondering if anyone has any advice on an ideal way of approaching this process?
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Give it an honest go until Thanksgiving. You 100% need to seem eager, committed, fun to be around so that people don’t think you’re a flight risk, otherwise, no one will bother to train you. Maybe your team isn’t as bad as you think, maybe you you get staffed on something interesting, maybe someone takes you under their wing, etc. Regardless, you need to be seen as the favorite.
At thanksgiving, if you still want to lateral, dust off the resume and put all the dumb first year tasks you do. Don’t lie, everyone knows you aren’t holding the pen 3 months in. At this point in time, you’re being hired to do the grunt work so just make sure it’s on there. Come up with an articulate reason why you need to lateral at this point in time - it needs to be crisp so you don’t look like a flight risk or weren’t able to handle your last group (group is all leaving, realize you just want to do M&A / want a full service bank, if you’re in cap markets - want to be lead left, want to be a career banker and bank with a balance sheet, generalist vs specialist etc) It just can’t be “prestige” or “culture” or “toxic”
Start applying. You can literally just do it online - feels like everything is on LinkedIn. You’ll have 0 leverage so really consider if you’re willing to repeat the first year depending on your situation. Firms love to back people. The sooner you lateral, the less likely you are to repeat the year.
FWIW I lateraled 6 months in just cold applying. Not sure how much it was really worth it in the short run as lost all my political capital, got the short end of the stick on staffings (wasn’t trusted), really struggled getting up to speed as all the internal processes were different, and all the other first years had already been taught so people were tired of teaching. Got a prorated 1st year bonus, second year was meh and tbh I was pretty miserable. Didn’t make top bucket until my 3rd year rather than if I hadn’t lateraled, would have been an early promote, top bucket a lot earlier. In the long run, it was the right move as it’s a much better career banking platform and I’ve got some incredible opportunities but the first 1.5 years were incredibly hard and if I didn’t plan on staying for another 2 years at a minimum, don’t think it would have been worth it
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