Best Banks for culture?
Which do people think are the best banks for cultures
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Career Resources
BX, GHL, EVR, GS HC
HC?
health care, i think. what about centerview partners? i really liked people i met.
the reason GS HC is great in terms of culture is that (from what I've heard), the head of the group limits the page count of the books to a pretty reasonable # (maybe ~20). It forces the MD's to understand the products that they are pitching that much more in depth, since they can't refer to 100 appendix slides - the side effect is less work for the analysts.
Hahaha...no. Whatever you heard the page number limit is wrong. I don't work at GS but at my bank the most basic of basic pitchbooks for introductory quick meetings are ~25 pages. Moderately serious books are 50-60 pages. Very serious books with multiple product ideas (Lev fin, ECM, M&A) easily exceed 80-100 pages. Would be impossible to flesh out a serious idea of one product alone let alone two or three in 20 pages without making overwhelmingly dense slides.
different strokes for different folks
Lazard
Ghl & Blackstone.
HW&C, WF
GS
Pretty much none of the above can touch Lincoln International's Culture.
Is Lincoln actually a good bank though?
Lincoln is a good MM bank... yes.
Of course it is. It's growing at a very fast rate relative to its competitors. Has about 130 advisory bankers here in the US, another 130 throughout a dozen countries. Number of transactions increases every single year. Junior bankers have major opportunity to move up in the firm quick and work closely with senior bankers. Completely different culture than a BB if that's what you're into.
I think JP is constantly ranked very high on these best places to work for based on employee satisfaction rankings. No idea how accurate these are, but maybe there's some merit to it.
Problem with those rankings for a gigantic full service commercial/retail/IB which employs hundreds of thousands of people is 99% of those people don't work in IBD. If JPM's retail and commercial bankers are happy that will massively outweigh the happiness of IBD.
Yeah I agree, that is very true. However, have you ever heard that someone said sth severely negative about working at JPM?
BX Advisory (M&A/R&R). Not PE. Have heard good things about JPM too. The top groups at MS and GS are all sweatshops as far as I know. Especially GS FIG
Anyone saying GS literally has no idea what they're talking about. It's a great bank but the culture of most groups is pretty awful.
BX, on the other hand, seems to have a good culture. Note: this is based purely on conversations with people who work there.
Heard great things about RW Baird. Their CEOs Moto is no assholes allowed, also they are a good MM shop
I think the worst stories in terms of culture I have ever heard are all about Rothschild. Moelis and BX surprisingly good. Same goes for JPM and Greenhill. Solely based on how happy the people were whom I know there.
just curious, how would you define good culture? does it mean senior bankers care about analyst work/life balance and don't pound them with work on friday evenings? or does it mean that they have a lot of office parties, social outings, etc.?
Where people may actually sometimes like their work/office/colleagues.
I think culture is a lot difference than work life balance. There are plenty of people who are miserable at their 9-5s because everyone there is a backstabbing dick.
Culture means that your colleagues, both junior and senior are there to work with you rather than against you and that they appreciate you and are invested in helping you learn and advance. This can absolutely still be the case while working 100 hour weeks.
Which banks offer the best lifestyle? (Originally Posted: 05/02/2010)
I did some searching around this, but haven't found much. From your personal experience, which banks have the shortest hours and the friendliest culture?? I'm not interested in pay, prestige, or anything else. I'm looking into making a switch because I feel like I'm at a point in my career when I'm more than happy to get paid slightly below street so long as I can take (at least some of my) weekends off and not get yelled at 24/7. On the other hand, I am not willing to switch to a F500 corp-fin job since that would most likely mean a pretty drastic pay cut from an IB associate position. And yes, I am aware of PE and considering it as well, just wanted to hear some ideas on banking first.
Thanks.
they are mostly rough, some are just worse than others
Rothschild
i thought lazard m&a was pretty brutal
spacejam was trolling if you didnt notice
quit banking and go back to red devil sports club to train for Werdum!
PWM. hahaha its true bro
Look at little boutiques that are regional. These will pay less, be less prestigious, and won't provide nearly the same exit opps as well known firms, but they also are more likely to promote you up. Its not nearly as hard to go from analyst to associate.
I know a guy at one of these places and the bank has a softball team and many nights the analysts can be out by 9. Pay isn't all that bad either, I think as a first year he raked in about $90k, and given the cost of living being drastically lower, may actually come out on top of analysts at big banks.
Varies by group. Heard Centerview was good though.
Nice picture PaperTrail
I heard Greenhill was good?
Doesn't working the shortest hours in the friendliest culture defeat the purpose of banking in the first place? Short hours = no deals = no experience = no exit opps.
^ yeah but if you're not looking for exit ops than there's no problem. People only kill themselves becasue they know they are going to move on.
sweet.
Although good culture can lead to a better work life balance. Examples come to mind:
-Seniors actually think about your time and do their best to at the very least get you started on your work if possible so you can finish earlier rather than browsing the internet until they drop shit off on their way out at 8pm on a Friday -Seniors don't give you false deadlines so that you don't end up working until 5am to get shit done that could've waited until the morning where you had nothing to do anyway -Seniors take the time to explain things to you and spell out clear instructions which may take an extra 20 minutes of their time but save you 4 hours of deciphering what they really want -Face time. If you finish at 9pm every once in a while and know that your associates actually like you and will be happy for you if you get some much needed rest you won't feel pressure to stick around browsing the internet until midnight+
Anyone who says anything GS is crazy. I am friends with a lot of people in HC and, yes, while that whole you can't come in on Saturdays is great and all....you leave every other day at 4 consistently. People there are all chill...but I don't care how chill you are after 2am. JP HC/TMT/M&A all get worked very hard. EVR was fantastic from what I've heard in terms of hours this summer. And actually, my friends at Lazard didn't get worked that hard at all this summer. People I know in their Rx group are consistently leaving before 10 these days too. Not really sure where the whole "lazard is cultural death" reputation comes from.....
i heard lazard's rx group is falling apart - that would prob explain why your friends were consistently leaving before 10.
i've also heard EVR has fantastic culture and they recruit heavily on personality
Is that a joke about fantastic culture at EVR? I had a meeting with an MD this summer and he specifically said the culture suck, in not so many words. He said that they only hire based on skill set and do not look at personality, which he said he does not like and wished it was different.
I dont think the rx group at Lazard is falling apart. I could be wrong...but leadership is just changing there as the older guys step down. I still thought they were doing most the restructuring out there. I assumed the lighter hours in RX there was a result of a stronger economy as my friends at BX and EVR Rx are also not working too hard.
do you guys think the tide will shift in the next few years such that bx m&a will overtake r&r in terms of deal flow? seems like a logical sequence
While M&A may over take Rx over the next couple of years, to me thats not necessarily a bad thing for people that want to do Rx. I mean your hours a going to be great and the Centerbridges and Oaktrees of the world will still have to hire from the LAZ and BXs. As long as you get that one cool deal to work on for bschool and interviews, I really don't see why the thriving economy is a huge negative for people currently thinking about restructuring.
i still don't understand this discussion. "culture" is not materially different from firm to firm. why would it be? this is one of the highest turnover industries in the world and people at all levels have moved around constantly bringing and taking "culture" with them. at this point the BBs all have a common wall street culture at the firm level.
there are obviously groups with much better "culture" than others but that is independent of the firm they operate within. perhaps there are HR policies specific to certain firms that positively/negatively impact culture in a meaningful way but i can't think of any. i'm mostly referring to BBs - boutiques can have good/bad culture in the same way a group can at a BB.
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