Trying to lateral for the past couple months and not finding as many opportunities as my peers did who recruited last Fall.
Also wanted to know how lateraling would be as a first year who hasn’t been one year on the desk yet.
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The larger banks have stopped recruiting from tier 3 / tier 4 firms, they are poaching more from specialist boutiques (Shea, Allen, Spurrier, and others) as a lot of the analyst and associate hires they made from the tier 3 / tier 4 names did not work out.
It is still active, but banks are being more targeted in their recruiting efforts. It seems like people in the Cowen / Baird sort of bucket are unable to go to an EB or top BB, but could move to a similar sized firm or into a specialist boutique.
Unfortunate reality when firms hire a bunch of busts...
So guys at Piper can't move to a BB / EB. Are those mostly looking for laterals from other EBs?
Yes and from specialist boutiques seems to be the recent trend
Thats not true. 3 people on my time left for BB in less than a year and 2-3 more from another team in the same office
I'm talking about the last month - 6 weeks.
Here is a write-up from a solid recruiter - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mo-money-problems-ib-recruiting-brief-me…
If you literally read that post, it does not say that BB/EB are not looking at candidates from lower tier banks. It is a recruiter complaining about two clients.
1. The first being a Associate at a "3/4 tier bank" that started 7 months ago and only wants to be shown BB/EB banks. My guess is that she reached out to the candidate being a recruiter and asked if he was interested in any of her open roles, and he said something along the line of "I would only consider opportunities at bigger banks". I don't want to put completely discard her story, but I have literally had that conversation with recruiters before where they want me to interview for a job that is a worse position for me.
2. The second being a "4 tier bank" that only wants A2A promotes or 2nd year associates for 20% under market pay. Once again, not really saying anything about the state of the recruiting market.
All I am saying is your source uses anecdotal stories, does not paint a full picture, and uses arbitrary rankings for banks - I have no idea what a 3/4 tier bank would even be. Is it Wells Fargo? A Lincoln international? A no name boutique? (no hate on WF or LI).
How bad do you mean by bust
What I've heard is a lot of analysts they hired were a year behind the firms hiring them expected them, and many Associates were performing more at a senior analyst level than at an Associate level.
Not at all. Have a friend who was recruiting across LA, NY, SF and was in 6 different processes in the last month
I had interviews with 4 banks in early Febuary and got an offer 2 weeks ago coming from a no name boutique
Can you disclose what tier/level of banks you interviewed for and received offers from?
Also, how were you able to be so successful at it? Would really appreciate it.
Bank of America, TD Securities, Wells Fargo, and Truist.
I applied to the groups that were similar to what my boutique was focused in which was Tax Equity financing and renewables investing.
It has slowed down compared to what is was a year ago, but I just finished a process with 5 different banks - 1 EB, 2 BB and 2MM. Received 3 offers (1 BB and 2 MM). This was for A2.
Did you network?
Just with the EB and that didn’t go anywhere
If you didn’t network, how did you get into process?
Headhunters and jut straight up applying to the bank's website. It's not that hard - for context I came from a LMM (Oppenheimer/Stifel/Truist)
VP and just got an offer at a BB. Been talking to several MM and EB. BB had been harder to get traction but got one to go through.
What type of bank are you moving from?
EB / top MM
Lol Blair is not an EB. No other bank fits the top MM / EB line.
Def slower than last year. Last year was super easy to move up/get-in. Now it looks like candidates have a slightly tougher process.
The lateral market was at an all time high last fall, remains hot but probably not going back to that level
More opportunities will open up around 1 year, especially around September/early Oct once people collect a bonus and leave (takes a bit to get job posting up externally through HR, hence the ~2mo delay)
Still ringing true?
Lol prob not. There will still be some lateral postings, people always leave, but would expect low spots and a high level of scrutiny
When might things improve?
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