Canadian Student Help (McGill OCR, MTL VS TO, Automation)
Hey everyone, I'm a Canadian student in need of some guidance. I'm currently attending McGill with a B.comm majoring in Finance and I have a few questions for established professionals.
1) How much of a target is McGill B.comm? I'm aiming for IB or CB and not really interested in moving to the buy-side.
2) Montreal VS Toronto. Montreal has a lot of pros because I attend University here which means I'll get more on-campus recruitment (I assume), my friends/family live here and it's generally regarded as a more "fun/party" city which is always a plus. Toronto, on the other hand, is a far more important city financially and globally with higher comp but also higher COL so it's a tough choice. What would you do in my situation? I value a good career but should I value it so much that it comes before entertainment/family/friends?
3) Will I be taking a serious hit in comp being in Montreal compared to Toronto? How big of a gap is it? 10k, 20k, 50k?
4) Lastly, with all the hiatus in the news about AI/automation, I've been pressured into thinking about learning a programming language just to make sure I can't be threatened at all by these new innovations. Is this actually a worry I should have or are finance careers like bankers never going to be replaced?
Thanks a lot!
I don't go to McGill (I go to one of the two bigger undergrad business programs) but I have friends there. I don't think they OCR is as good as Ivey or Queens but people get jobs in Toronto and (rarely) in NYC. I don't think there is much IB in Montreal, going to Toronto in your analyst years will make a big impact on your career
McGill is not a target school for most banks, but a quick LinkedIn search can get you to find kids in Moelis, Evercore, PJT (one incoming this summer and another one full time) and JP NYC who got in through personal efforts so it's definitely a known uni in the NYC IB scene. I can confirm that Moelis and Evercore don't have OCR in Desautels and PJT doesn't recruit in Canada at all. Unless you have Ivey/Queen, I would still choose to stay in McGill/MTL for the reasons you've mentioned.
Evercore does have OCR at McGill
Also at a Canadian finance undergrad. My opinion is you should absolutely choose Toronto over Montreal. Toronto is the most important financial hub by far in Canada and one of the largest in the world and it's not even close. You will make the most connections in Toronto to help you later in your career. Also, the party scene is really good in Toronto, I prefer Montreal but its still great. If you want to go back to Montreal later in your career that should be no problem, the reverse is not necessarily true.
In regards to McGill, your school has a good reputation on Bay Street. You should have no problem finding lots of alum to connect with at all the to banks and abroad in NYC. You should try to get involved with the student-managed investment fund at McGill, they have pretty good placement.
You wouldn't take any significant hit doing IB in Montreal, the pay is pretty much the same for all IB analysts at the Canadian banks. The real problem as mentioned above is there is little to no IB in Montreal (Maybe National Bank?).
Learn to code if you want, it isn't necessary for finance. Bankers aren't going away anytime soon so don't worry about the paranoid musings of idiots.
Not quite true that there's no IB in Montreal - all the big 5 are here as well as a couple globals. The offices are smaller but larger than somewhere like Vancouver. There are a lot of very large companies in Quebec - take a look at the largest Canadian companies and you'll see how many Quebec companies are in the top 20. Now from a young professional perspective, Toronto is far better for networking, PE etc so that part is true.
Depending which bank you're at, they may grind you even more than Toronto because a lot of the execution is handled out of Montreal. Pay is equal to Toronto, I heard BMO paid even more because they have high turnover due to the grind.
Heard that hours at BMO are absolutely brutal.
Graduated from Ivey and currently at a big 5. At the junior level (speaking strictly to big 5 comp), it's pretty consistent across Canadian offices so you definitely won't be taking a haircut working in Montreal. However, I have heard that pretty much all Montreal offices grind hard, much more so than the average Toronto banker (not sure what they're working on, my group never interacts with the MTL team).
McGill's HIM program places just as well as Ivey/Queens in terms of most sought after firms (i.e. the EVR/GS/PJTs of the world), but less in headcount given how small the program is compared to a class at Ivey/Queens. Speaking to TO placements, it shouldn't be a concern at McGill as the alumni network, on campus recruiting and placements on Bay Street are all strong.
Montreal is definitely smaller than Toronto in terms of IB activity. But I disagree with most comments above saying that there is almost no IB activity in Montreal. Most big 5 banks have active teams in Montreal. For example, BMO has quite a large team (about 5-6 analysts full-time + summer interns, associates, VPs, and up). RBC is also very strong. National Bank has a team here, Scotiabank as well, and even Desjardins (although much smaller).
There are also numerous boutiques in Montreal. The Big 4 is also very active, although its Corporate Finance teams are smaller than the large IBs.
Thanks so much for the answers guys, dropped a couple SB's for your time.
Though I've only gotten one response to my last question. Just wanted to get the general consensus of this site, is automation a worry or no? From my knowledge of any finance jobs, the lower levels like analysts could possibly be automated but above them, it's all human/relationship driven so it's safe. Should I worry about analysts being "phased out"
No career out there is completely safe from automation in the long run. The areas that are going to be hard for automation are the ones where human input is required - ie consulting services, which is really where investment banking falls under (I'm referring to classic IBD, not loan syndications or something). That said, there is no reason at all to not learn programming if that's what interests you. It certainly would be a very useful skill to have and who knows when it'll come in handy - certainly down the road if you decide not to stay in i banking.
I tend to disagree with the idea of "learning to code as it will be useful". If someone is truly interested in a career in IBD, then there is really no use in knowing how to code. It is simply not part of the daily job of building CIMs, assembling excel models, and building relationships with clients. That's just the truth.
And regarding the fact that learning to code may become handy if OP decides not to stay in IB, do you really think that learning to code at a very basic level now will enable OP to compete in the IT/Software market in the future? Coders nowadays have been coding since they were 15 years old, they studied it at university, and now do it everyday as part of their job. How could an IB analyst who learns to code as a hobby ever compete with such people?
That's just my opinion, and my comment isn't meant to diminish yours. But I feel that just because coding and IT skills are becoming increasingly important in the labor market doesnt mean that everyone should start learning it. You need to recognize your strengths, and capitalize on them. If your strength isn't coding or programming (but rather soft skills, for example), how can you hope to compete with a 23 year old CS bachelor who has been coding for years and is getting better by the day?
We just had an analyst in my office write a python code to scan earnings releases for our tech clients. Not an every day skill around these parts and as a result it tends to stand out - I don't expect that someone would go into a developer role post IB but my brother became the head of digital strategy at a global asset manager (after IB) and is always commenting on how hard it is to find people with both business experience and some level of coding - he himself wishes he picked it up earlier. But anyway, I agree it's not core to IB and it would only be something OP or anyone should pursue if it interests them on a personal level.
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