Honest PWP outlook?

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PWP is overrated. The truth is that the gap among EBs has widened, and I would peg PWP closer to a Greenhill than an Evercore / Lazard.

EVR, CVP, PJT = PWP, LAZ, MOE (M&A)

PJT, EVR, LAZ, PWP = CVP, MOE (Rx)

All great firms…Depends what you want, PWP is the smallest (aside from PJT) but pulls more US Rev than half the firms. Exits are simialr at all, with EVR having a slight edge. Places like CVP, PJT, and PWP retain a lot of "career bankers" (probably because of high pay and tight cultures). PWP has poached many top bankers (Ex GS, JPM, LAZ) recently and they're rapidly growing (going public). I think the outlook is great and looking better as time goes on.

An unbiased opinion would say they are obviously an incredible firm (learn about recent exits, global league tables, comp, culture). Ranking EB's is not the same as ranking BB's, except on WSO lol. Any EB (PJT/CVP/EVR/PWP/MOE/LAZ) will give you the SAME exits and it is entirely dependent on you as a candidate. Sure, PJT CVP and EVR may have a slightly marginal more prestigious factor, but any EB is incredible. Typically, people would take these over any BB but the GS/MS/JPM trio would be a toss up based on group, culture, ect. Hope this helps! :)

Experiences varies by team/office yadda yadda:

Good:

• Weekends are respected. If MD/Assc working on weekend then you are too, but no BS work or deadlines. Friday-Saturday is almost always pencils down, no emails
• Seniors I've worked with so far are awesome. Some aren't super pleasant to work with but several are rockstars. Most are willing to call you or email you and explain simple comments too. Some egos but generally not much attitude at all and taking vacation time is respected and utilized by juniors. A partner pulled me aside and said "I had some jerks as seniors when I was younger, I want to make sure everyone on our team has a life, SO, etc. outside of work and we respect that as much as we can" Obligatory but most seniors know what they are doing and are good at their job. Great leadership overall & access to seniors, this is the most unique part of PWP
• Have seen exits to startups, UMM PE, MF PE, VC. All seem to be decent names, with a few big ones
• Super lean teams, some deals are like 4-5 people. Very high exposure to actual work, less gruntwork (ex. comps) compared to peers at other firms
• 110 an1 base with 70-90% base bonuses from what I hear (don't care too much about analyst salary though cause salary scales fast in this industry)
• Our group's seniors like WFH a lot, we'll see how it plays out

Cons:

• Nature of every banking job -- you are chained to desk and even when you're out something could pop up at any time
• Certain offices/groups have better dealflow than others, make sure you do your DD
• Lean teams mean a lot of responsibility on you when it's crunch time / during fire drills
• No exposure to 100s of people like at a BB, I could have made more connections elsewhere
• A bit more pitchwork / internal work than I would like

tl;dr

would take it over almost every bank except for EVR, PJT, GS, MS. As good culture as banking gets, upper quartile exits from what it sounds like on this site/friends in industry.