Are Canadians still get jobs in the US?

Has the Canada - US lateral market died off? I’m still occasionally seeing one off moves but sure where things are.

Evercore / Moelis / PJT etc can anyone confirm.

41 Comments
 

Based on the most helpful WSO content, Canadians are still making moves to the U.S., though the lateral market may not be as robust as it once was. There are still opportunities for Canadians to secure roles in top U.S. firms like Evercore, Moelis, and PJT. Programs like "Coming Home" initiatives from recruitment firms (e.g., Vlaad and Co) also help Canadians transition back to Canada after gaining U.S. experience, often with a title bump. However, visa concerns remain a significant factor, as highlighted in discussions about Canadians turning down local offers for more prestigious U.S. roles.

While one-off moves are still happening, the overall market dynamics may vary depending on individual circumstances, visa policies, and firm-specific hiring trends.

Sources: IBD Barriers to Entry For Canadians and How to Overcome Them, Canada to NYC Lateral, Any fellow Canadians going to the States in 2019 for FT/SA start? How confidant do you feel about your visa?

I'm an AI bot trained on the most helpful WSO content across 17+ years.
 

Never was and am not against international students getting jobs in the United States, as I do believe the upside of being able to host worldwide talent outweighs the trivial consequences. However, amongst all minority groups, from white women to Indians, Chinese, Blacks, Koreans - you name it, Canadians are the only group that explicitly and exclusively helps themselves out and despises other minority groups, especially from overseas. If you are at a bank with Canadian presence, whether at Evercore or Moelis, you will often times see answer feeding interview questions to their alma kids as well, which is far more disgustingly excessive compared to some frat bro / finance club alum teaching technicals to their alma kids. So, its good that the Canadian pipeline is coming to an end. 

 

Prospect in IB-M&A:

Never was and am not against international students getting jobs in the United States, as I do believe the upside of being able to host worldwide talent outweighs the trivial consequences. However, amongst all minority groups, from white women to Indians, Chinese, Blacks, Koreans - you name it, Canadians are the only group that explicitly and exclusively helps themselves out and despises other minority groups, especially from overseas. If you are at a bank with Canadian presence, whether at Evercore or Moelis, you will often times see answer feeding interview questions to their alma kids as well, which is far more disgustingly excessive compared to some frat bro / finance club alum teaching technicals to their alma kids. So, its good that the Canadian pipeline is coming to an end. 


If our alumni didn’t help us get jobs would any of us really be here ? American or otherwise, like seriously. Second off, I know Canadians that help American students all the time, especially from non-target schools, because they know what it’s like to grind when you’re not part of that target bucket.

 

As a Canadian this isn't entirely off base. Can't really speak to the racism stuff (may be true just haven't seen much of that) but it's well known here that western queens kids will cheat in every recruiting process. Huge alumni favouritism. Extremely excessive. 

With that being said kinda sad because there is a ton of finance talent in Canada. Broadly speaking Canadian bankers r rly sharp and produce high quality work. Someone working at CIBC is genuinely at or near the top of the pile. So just shutting down that career optionality 100% is rly sad 

 

This simply is not true. I went to Ivey/Queens and was part of the finance clubs. We did not get anything that any other kids from "target" schools weren't getting. Standard process of upper years doing mock interviews with sophomores, helping select kids for accelerated process list via school recruiting captains, club mates sharing questions they received from the interviews they had done in prior years. None of this is any different from a finance club at H/W/P or any target school really

The systemic cheating you are referring to are via those Chinese career prep societies (ie. OSG) who store question banks from processes that year and then feed it to their paying customers and have "mentors" complete all the students case studies for them. This is an American company with >90% of their customers in the US

 

It sounds like you're just mad you paid all that money for an ivey league just to get beat buy a kid from Laurier BBA

 

Canadians are the worst group of people on the street. I am so happy they are getting their pipeline cut. Always the biggest sweats and are socially incompetent. I think they were the worst group I interacted with in both IB/PE. There is no special skill needed for Investment Bankers from Canada versus Americans. Canada is not even a super poor country to where we are getting their best and brightest, we seem to get their middle-of-the pack at best.

 
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VP in PE - LBOs

Canadians are the worst group of people on the street. I am so happy they are getting their pipeline cut. Always the biggest sweats and are socially incompetent. I think they were the worst group I interacted with in both IB/PE. There is no special skill needed for Investment Bankers from Canada versus Americans. Canada is not even a super poor country to where we are getting their best and brightest, we seem to get their middle-of-the pack at best.

Hard to believe you're entrusted to do DD with that logic; if the US is the most desirable place to work in finance, with the most upside, then it stands to reason that the 'pipeline' of Canadians would include the very competent all the way to less competent but ambitious.  It's then the hiring bank's responsibility to hire the best candidate.  We do hire Canadians and are able to get the top 1% of their applicant pool - there's definite talent arbitrage.  There's literally a thread on WSO from a couple years back about why there are so many strong Canadian bankers on Wall Street; it's because there's a ton who want to come here and you get to pick the best.

 

financeax:

How are the Canadian buyside exits so insane? See a ton of them at SLP, Ares, BDT & MSD out of undergrad and know of many other incoming MF / UMM associates. Also vastly overrepresented at SM L/S equities seats. 


Don’t forget BX and KKR, its selection bias though. Typically only the strongest Canadians make it to the US, so once they’re here they end up continuing to place extremely well. If you get out placed by a Canadian in on cycle - don’t come here to bitch. Work harder.

 

What are some of these SM L/S names?

You are getting the cream of the crop Canadian applicants, however. These are typically dual citizens, but if not, the smartest kids in a country of ~40M with private education and having gone to very competitive universities.

Americans succeed in all realms. Further, the best schools in Canada serve as a pipeline into high finance. It is the be all end all. Harvard creates a much more well-rounded and successful student body who excel in high finance and other fields (also a "pipeline", if you can call it that, for founders of multi-billion dollar companies).

 
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There’s a reason they keep getting hired. It’s because the average American IQ is so low that there is somehow a shortage of people smart enough to write formulas in excel and make slides look pretty 

 

Most people I know are trying to get jobs in London given the US is a mess and on the decline. 

It's over. The Golden Period was 2 decades before us sadly. 

 

Classic Canadian arrogance (as a Canadian myself) on display right here. The U.S. has trended upwards while the UK has trended downwards for the last 10 years. But you think you can just call it right now that the trend stops here? 

The U.S. was and is the place to be for finance. The UK and Canada to a lesser extent used to be decent places for finance. Now they're officially bad places to work in finance.

 

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