Are there good IB opportunities in London and Paris for the next 3 years?
I'm considering moving to London or Paris (I'm fluent in French) after graduating due to how hard the full-time job market currently is in the U.S. I know that I will be legally allowed to work in London but would still need to do some further research for Paris. I just finished an IB internship at a foreign bank in NY but will not return (headcount + cultural fit).
I know that comps are lower in both cities than in NY but I would like more details on other aspect. Career-wise, would that be a viable option or would that close doors if I ever want to come back to the U.S.? I have heard that, in London, banks would only work with much smaller deals, involving U.S. offices with larger deals. Is IB in London and Paris just working as a satellite for the U.S.?
Not in the industry, so please take my words with a grain of salt. For the London offices of international banks I've interviewed with, their IB coverage normally is EMEA region. Some offices support the NY office on their deals but I would be very surprised if the London office of any bank is a pure satellite for the NY office due to the time-zone gap and the different geographical offices.
For career prospects, I've seen a couple non-US citizens jump across the pond to NY and I have seen plenty of US citizens start in London and then move to NY, either for the same firm or from IB to PE.
If you're finding US recruiting hard you don't want to attempt London...
London is definitely not some type of satellite office to NYC. This might be the case for banks with a super small presence in Europe. For example, Qatalyst has 10 people in total in their London office so I would imagine that if they get a few large deals at once then they would require some help from the US. I would rather say that cooperation is handled within Europe. For example, if you're on a sell-side for an Italian tech company you might have a few guys from Italian coverage in Milan and then a few guys from the TMT team in London on the deal. I'm at a US BB and we have never really had anything to do with the US offices, even on $10bn+ deals. We've done some expert calls with research analysts and MDs in the US to learn more about certain sectors / peers / potential buyers but that's it.
London recruiting is absolutely brutal. Every kid in Europe wants to go to London, so you are competing against the entirety of Europe rather than just the UK. The structure in continental Europe is very different from the US. People here don't do a summer internship in their pen-ultimate year at GS and then start FT. You will often see people with 5 internships across IB / PE before they start FT in IB and a lot of people read a master's. It is especially difficult in this market. Several of the large banks didn't even recruit for FT positions last year and I highly doubt that this year will be easier.
I think France might be even more difficult. I'm not in France myself but have several French friends. From what I hear, the standard is to do 6-month internships before having a shot at full-time with a bank. Moreover, it's pretty much impossible to get anything if you only have a bachelor's as most have attended a master's at a top uni like ESCP / HEC or went to LSE / LBS / Oxford / Cambridge in the UK.
Sorry, but the European market in general is absolutely brutal because the finance sector here is so much smaller than NYC but you have a very large pool of highly qualified candidates.
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