Houlihan Restructuring Internal Mobility (Transfer to other offices)

Anecdotally, it’s difficult and near-impossible, but I know two people who transferred from regional locations to NYC in HL RX. I also know a handful of people who’ve tried, whether it be from the offices listed to NYC or even from Corp Fin/M&A to RX, and all had to lateral for full-time.

1) All needed to forfeit their return to the regional office and had to interview with the NYC team, as if it was a lateral position. Not sure how many bridges were burned here, but I think it’s a thin line since the regional office can tell HR or the NY team stuff to try and sabotage. Oddly enough, bankers take transfers to NY quite personally.

2) Both successes had really good ties to the NY RX team so there was internal pull from the junior team there (i.e. school, networking, etc). Matters a lot since HL has a pretty tight knit culture where VPs will listen to the junior team when it comes to this kind of stuff.

3) Both successes needed a really good reason beyond “NY has better exits” or “all my friends will be in NYC.” The assumption is you’re transferring for branding purposes, which they won’t allow, so you need to find a more legit reason to convince them.

4) Both successes were considered “better” or “smarter” than nearly everyone in the existing summer analyst class, as in they would’ve gotten the job anyways if they had recruited junior summer. Neither had really tried for NY the prior summer, so it was a clean slate. Coming from internal likely hurts you more than if you had just cold-emailed from a lateraling pov.

Long story short, I wouldn’t bet on it at all. Frankly speaking, the NY team has a much different bar and pedigree than the other locations, and it’s well-known internally. The reason why most summer analysts want to transfer to NY is obvious, but people automatically assume you’re just not a strong candidate because you’re coming from a “lesser” location even if not true from a job perspective. I’d consider looking at other NYC RX opportunities if you really want to come to the northeast.