At my undergraduate school, Deutsche Bank, Citi, Barclays, and UBS are the overwhelmingly top recruiters for IB. The majority of kids that land these positions are pretty competitive but considered average overall and it is hard to differentiate among these successful applicants as they are all pretty indistinguishable. The best students land at CS, Morgan Stanley, JPM, and Goldman, but an average kid in my school that aims for IB lands at one of the banks in my title. I realize that depending on your offers, your decision will be made for you, but I would like to learn how these four banks stack up against each other as the quality of applicants that land at each one from my school is pretty much the same. Our school prides itself on being extremely collegial, and kids talk and gossip about their interviews, gpa, offers, etc. Between our undergraduate business school, the econ department, the IB club, and the investment club, everyone pretty much knows each other's business, so though the Morgan Stanley M&A kids are clearly quite different than others, everyone else is pretty much the same.
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Depends on the group and what your long-term ambitions are, broadly speaking I'd go -
1) Citi 2) DB 3) Barclays 4) UBS
have you not been following what is happening at DB?
That they're cutting senior positions and replacing them with juniors? Sounds favorable if you're entering the industry.
Citi UBS barcap and DB. Citi and UBS have a clear and present strategy in the Americas and Asia. They other two do not at the moment.
Citi way ahead of the others, especially in M&A and a couple select groups. The others are all European banks which isn't the greatest at the moment. Depends which group, most likely. They're all hurting right now.
You can't go wrong with Citi or Barclays. DB is in the shitter right now and UBS has reduced its IB presence in America significantly.
Citi is investing heavily in their infrastructure all across the board, from physical to technology. It's a solid place to be.
Barclays is fine right now. They are selling off the Africa retail bank and doubling down on Investment banking in NY and LDN. As long as Jes Staley is around, Barclays IBD is safe.
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