BBs/EBs that are known for good culture?
What banks are known to have a good culture (work life balance, seniors that look out for juniors)? If there are specific groups within these banks that would also be helpful.
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There is no Work Life Balance at BB/EB's
For work-life balance, your best bet is broadly capital markets.
For culture, Barclays is the one bank that consistently (besides tech) has a good culture (seniors care about juniors, etc) across the firm. Have heard that MS and BoA are probably next best of the BBs, JPM allegedly has worst of the BBs (I know of at 3 people who received FT return offers from JPM & turned them down to re-recruit because of the culture)
Can confirm that Barclays has probably the best across the board culture. Otherwise, you likely have to try and find certain groups that have good cultures.
Met someone who works at JPM who was proud to be back in the office and he basically insinuated working from home was "weak". LMAO
It's brutal everywhere you go
My friends at Rothschild seem to enjoy it. I think every other EB will work you into the ground.
Among the BB's - it is group dependent.
Barclays
Moelis bro
Barclays and Morgan Stanley are known to have good culture-- nice, open to PE recruiting, not toxic. BofA is also known for good culture, but they are larger and each group is very different (more fratty but that just may be my alumni base).
I wouldn't confuse culture with work/life balance tho...you'll still be working hard across BB/EBs unless you're at a very weak group or ECM/DCM. The stronger the group in terms of deal flow, the worse the hours are (generally). There are a few groups that are very strong AND have a more relaxed culture (Sponsors at many banks).
All are pretty rough but have heard anecdotally that PWP (at least among the EB's) has a pretty good culture across most groups. But also could really differ from group to group and office to office.
What about centerview
May be beating a dead horse but would also have to 100% say Barclays.
Two of my friends at evr work on average 15~20 hrs per week shorter than me
Sorry, what? They do like 60?
anyone have info on culture at qatalyst?
Q grinds really hard
BofA is obviously group dependent but very strong culture across the board (which has been improving in recent years). Probably not quite Barclays good but could be getting there. Also strongly agree with the statement that work life balance does not equal good culture, deal flow correlates with longer hours and many groups at lower tier banks have no deal flow and horrendous culture
Can you give some examples of no deal flow & bad culture? (UBS, DB, etc)?
Was thinking WF and UBS. Anecdotally I’ve actually heard good things about DB culture-wise
I've heard of multiple people quitting UBS during the year, and I've heard good things about DB culture
Have heard from one person that PWP is quite good, but may just be specific to her.
You're not going to get good answers because this is usually group specific, and is highly dependent on what your definition of 'good culture' is. Do senior people respect junior staff and help mentor/teach? How are the hours? Those are obvious questions that don't depend on your definition of culture, but what about how the group interacts outside of work? Do you want a group that goes out for drinks every Friday? Do you want a group that let's you live your own life when you're not getting crushed? Is it nerdy or broey? Some banks have a sort of political lean as well. Whether those are good or bad things is going to depend on what you want.
If you care about culture, my advice is to get off of wso and find people at your school who interned and grab coffee with them. Its good networking practice and it'll give you a better feel for what its like to work at a place than the prospects here who bring up that moelis email from however long ago or whatever they just saw on litquidity
Yeah, I agree with this guy. You will never really know the culture of a bank unless you work there and even then, it is group dependent.
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