Where did this MD go wrong and how come headhunters won't talk to him anymore?
I'm in Asia-Pac, but I heard MDs in Wall Street usually only last around 18 months on average. How come headhunters won't talk to this guy?
https://www.efinancialcareers.com/news/2021/04/he…
Two years ago, I was a managing director at a major international bank in London, running a team of multiple in MDs. It was the culmination of a three decade career in finance during which I worked across major European and major U.S. investment banks.
Now, headhunters won't talk to me.
I walked away from my past job following a difference of opinion and a mutual parting of ways. In truth, it was a kind of half-cocked business which made half-cocked revenues. They were able to hire a lot of bankers cheaply after the financial crisis, but wouldn't pay adequately later on. We did a lot of pitching but had a very low hit rate for M&A - only 1% of our pitches came off in EMEA, far below the bank's success rate of closer to 5% or 10% in the Americas. I always pitied our juniors: Europe is a horribly over-banked market, and we weren't really positioned to compete.
My educated guess:
3 decade career + what this person admits was not a great firm (success rate on pitches etc) + 18m out of work + most likely high comp (or desires high comp).
The questions I would be asking is whether headhunters won’t talk to this person or they won’t talk to this person for the roles they are interested in. You rarely see someone with that much experience walk away (without something in hand), so something went wrong. Then they don’t have a strong track record (inferring from the post and what they describe the business as) and if they are wanting to “upgrade” their role, why would a bank be interested?
Take the other side, you run a successful IB. Someone who was an MD (probably pretty senior considering they were running teams of other MDs) wants to come in at a senior level, why would you take this person over someone internally or someone currently in the business at a more successful place? Especially when this will cost you lots of money, of course this is all assuming that is what this person is looking for.
If they are looking for a more junior MD role then of course you’ll get the questions as to why someone would take this, whether they still have relevant contacts (low deal flow and out of the business for 18m), etc.
I’m not trying to say anything negative about this person, I’m mostly making things up as it is hard to get much based on this post. But at the end of the day, there are not many open MD positions (and fewer senior MD) positions, so the competition is extremely high. If this person doesn’t have a great story, resume, etc you don’t just become an MD somewhere else because another firm (self described as a not great place) had made you one.
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