Honestly, how much better is a GS/MS than a lower tier BB?
Hey guys,
As a student going through the recruitment process, I wanted to ask a question to people who are actually in the industry - is there a meaningful impact on one's career if he ends up at a high-tier vs. low-tier BB?
Obviously, going to GS would be a far better career move than going to some no-name boutique. However, how different really are the opportunities for someone at GS/MS vs. a supposedly less prestigious, but still BB, bank like Barclays, Citi, BaML, etc.
Are there meaningful differences as far as exit opportunities to PE/VC/MBA, the quality of people at the firm, the weight of the name on the resume? Or is the difference between a GS and a Citi overblown by college kids?
Thanks!
Most important factor for exits and experience is the group - not the bank. Obviously, in general, MS / GS looks better on a resume. But select groups at the other banks will be just as good
At the analyst level all that matters is that you’re at a top group regardless of bank. You’re unlikely to exit to a megafund from a mediocre group even at GS/MS. Can’t speak to impact on career long term but hopefully someone more senior can chime in. I’m curious as well
It’s all about deal experience - this is what goes on your resume and will lead to other opportunities. Having a couple m&a deals will make things infinitely easier for you than if your resume consists of underwriting debt/equity. People have written about this extensively on this forum.
So with that framework in mind, GS/MS as a whole do more m&a than other BBs (haven’t checked the league tables in a while, but I think still true..) so by definition there’s more m&a work to go around. Another interesting feature is GS does not have a separate m&a group so you are more likely to get modeling work in an industry group. Have anecdotally seen them double staff analysts on live deals, which dilutes the experience somewhat but at least let’s you put something on your resume. This is a much better set up than somewhere else where maybe your group does ~2 m&a deals a year that get allocated between 15 analysts in your industry group and the separate m&a team does 100% of the work. Other thing to consider is the banks like GS/MS have to rely on more strategic work to make $$ versus relying on the balance sheet like a Citi/BofA. At the balance sheet banks the fees for underwriting debt deals are great for the MDs, but generally require less interesting work and therefore not good experiences for the analysts.
TL;DR GS/MS probably better on average, but the best group at a “lesser” BB where you have a very high chance of being on m&a deals is likely better than being at a shittt GS/MS group and not doing m&a deals. Follow the deals!
Can you give an example of "mediocre" groups for all the non-bankers reading this?
Hard for me to do, there are 6-7 BBs and ~10 groups at each one so with 50+ groups it’s hard to segment them. Someone else here can probably give you a better/direct answer than me.
It might informative to look at the 5-10 most recent sizable m&a deals in an industry of interest and just tally up which banks are involved and with what frequency. That should give you a sense who is most active.
You can't pay off a bar tab with prestige.
Are you sure about that?
Depends how good you are at getting the ladies to pay for you
+1 SB though haha
and the corollary, "There is no GS discount at the bar"
From an experience perspective, I agree with other folks’ sentiment that group sometimes more than bank.
However, from an exit ops perspective, many mega funds won’t give you a look unless you’re at a MS / GS / JPM / Elite Boutique. Sometimes folks from lower tier BBs place well, but it’s significantly rarer. Why does prestiege matter? Because headhunters and certain funds say it matters. Doesn’t matter if the work that you do is similar.
Bump
I would say no because it makes recruiting a lot harder (unless you are doing O&G recruiting in Houston) since you aren't near NYC where the top funds are headquartered
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