I hear a lot about how people overrate how important your firm's "brand name" is and underrate the importance of groups. To what extent is this true? Is the top group at DB/WF/UBS better than a mediocre group at a Citi/Barclays/CS? Better than a bad group/capital markets at JPM/GS/MS?
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Top group at DB/WF/UBS won't be better than mediocre group Citi/Barclays/CS. Citi/Barclays/CS/Baml each have a couple of groups that place as well as GS/MS/JPM.
If anything it's the opposite (at least for on cycle PE recruiting). No one has deal experience at that point anyway and no one really knows / cares what groups have the best deal flow so brand name tends to carry the day. The exception is M&A groups, but in general I'd rather be in some random group at MS than a strong group at a meh BB if I were gunning for MF type exit opps.
Off cycle stuff tends to even out and deal experience matters much more.
Curious about the exception around M&A groups – does this just apply to M&A groups where the other groups outsource their modeling to them? And how would a group like this at a lower tier BB compare regarding exit ops?
Seems like there’s this fallacy that only top groups at top banks place MF. Know many people at mid tier BBs that placed UMM or MF.
Yes top groups place well but it’s more correlation of stronger talent in those groups in the first place than it is causation of being from those groups.
You’ll get HH calls and interviews from any strong BB group, top or mid tier, you just need to stand out more
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