Best Banks and Groups to Become a Banker for Longer Than 2 Years?
To anybody out there who has made it in banking for a bit longer than the typical 2 year stint, how has your experience been? I really like the evolution of the role from technical execution as a junior to building and maintaining relationships to win mandates for your team once you make it to director and above, so would love to hear if any of you who have made it are in good groups for that or if you wouldn’t recommend it.
blair
How come?
great culture, great wlb
Everyone in the Charlotte office wants to kill themselves and comp is below street. Maybe if you can position yourself in a coasting scenario its a good place to be
My uninformed / inexperienced take is that brand name would matter more if you want to stay in banking long-term because once you have to start winning clients from director and above that can be very beneficial having a very-respected logo and balance sheet behind your name
I think the issue though is the more successful a bank / group is, the more difficult it might be to thrive as a junior due to workload so you have to balance good group with good culture as well
Not necessarily (I'm 12 years in). A bank with a brand name also carries a lot more pressure to win deals and your ability to be seen as a truly outstanding banker is much harder. Yes it is "easier" to win deals, but that's exactly because you have the brand name, and that will be taken into account when reviewing your P&L. And if you underperform your budget, that will also be taken into account (especially if you lose a deal to a bank with a weaker brand name).
At a bank with a worse reputation, if you truly have differentiated expertise and client relationships, you will be a superstar (and paid commensurately - much worse for the bank to lose you than for a BB / EB). If you somehow bring in a $40m fee when the IB floor's budget is $100m, you will have incredible leverage (not just financially but in how your interact with other MDs, etc.) You're one of many at a BB / EB.
So I think a smaller bank is a better place to be if you're above average / maybe superstar. A larger bank is a better pace to be if you're average / below average / can coast a bit. To be honest if you're a superstar you're fine wherever you are.
Yeah that makes sense, appreciate the perspective
Great perspective. When you say "smaller bank" do you mean like MM firms or the LMM / boutique firms compared to the Bulges? As someone who wants to be a career banker, a) I don't like the whale hunting model of BB, and b) this was kinda my thought process, standing out in a MM to UMM firm would be "easier", which obviously even making it to MD is not easy I know.
Lincoln. Lots of deal flow, lean teams, great culture, good wlb. Something like 25% of MDs started as analysts or associates here and stayed. Have several people who lateraled to GS, JPM, etc and came back.
Gugg
The middle market platform overall
Lazard Frères
lol why?
Del
Misinformation lol
Unless you're extremely type A, ultra motivated ambtious "love working every waking hour" of the day person (which I assume you're not from the nature of the question) - which is usually what you need to long term success in a coverage/M&A seat long term - would suggest an ECM/DCM/other cap markets role.
By no means a 9-5 or "easy" job by any means but the general hours/WLB are usually meaningfully better (anectodtally heard less Saturday and post 1-am ultra late night work) and being on the "product" side of the house tends to be slightly lower pressure.
Are the hours also so bad from D and up?
CVP, PWP, PJT
Capital Markets at a BB
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