Is IB on its way back to its pre-2008 standing in reputation and desirability? I know that comp has increased in the last few years since 2008 and it seems like more and more undergrads want to go into IB out of undergrad than near post-crisis. Of course I’m sure only time will tell, but underwriting and trading revenues were up hella during the peak of the pandemic and Q3 was crazy for M&A, I read this article that was like “the Investment Banks are back baby” and wondered what you guys’ thoughts are on this?
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At least from my school consulting seems to be gaining more popularity, especially if you can get MBB.
Damn that’s an L, ppl at my target are barely getting into big 4 and shit like FTI consulting with 3.9+ GPAs
We have about 25 going to MBB combined each year and at least a few of them each year are people that had banking internship prior and then moved to consulting.
Ya, at HYP and MBB is wayy more popular. Also, direct placement to HFs and PE and VC/GE are more common, especially HFs. Tech continues to pull a lot of talent too. Apparently a lot more than normal are going into politics too, but not sure that pulls much from the IB crowd.
Not at ivies least. MBB and tech are highly desired, and in finance people want to go to EBs or investing roles
Agree, a bit biased cause I've been exposed to more EB than BB people, but I feel like most of the finance from day 1 kids, and the smartest kids tbh, end up at the EBs.
Has anyone noticed that MBBs are taking significantly undergrads for their analyst classes now? There are a ton more people from my alma mater these days going into MBB
This isn't really true tbh (ex: BCG basically slashed all hiring this year). Your school has probably just become more in demand as a recruiting target.
Well either way, they're taking more duds now than I've ever seen...
Yeah MBB, Tech, and Law are super popular at my target. Also, the people who are going for finance tend to be more attracted to M&A/RX at EBs or direct buyside rather than bulge bracket IB coverage or ST.
Not sure about this. At my target, seems like MBB and tech are exploding in popularity.
Not saying IB is done but it certainly no longer attracts the best and brightest. Tech and consulting offer similar pay, exits and optionality without the toxic work culture. Also it’s no longer cool to be a banker, in fact just about everyone looks down at you for being one. I don’t blame them either.
Highly debatable
You're getting MS because this is the banking forum, what you're saying is completely true though.
You’re just saying that because you’re in consulting. Totally true though.
Haha they can throw all the monkey turds they want as they are butt hurt, still won’t change the fact that my post is 100% truth.
Consulting is lame, zero value add. You guys used to make group projects in school take forever because you would beat a dead horse (powerpoint) until the sun came up.
Have friends in consulting. Culture is just as toxic as IB but with lower pay at junior levels, and even pay potential at upper levels is very much eat what you kill. Tech seems to be the way to go
What is tech? It sounds so dumb to say but honestly??? I've heard the PM gig thing, but what are career paths in tech and what do you even do?
How do they offer similar pay?
This is accurate. Unfortunately you are getting MS because the majority of this forum would give rimjobs to senior citizens if it meant landing a PE internship
This central bank-induced boom in underwriting and S&T revenues is temporary and likely will not be repeated next year
Agreed.
Sure but there's likely going to be a ton of market vol in the coming years which is always good for traders
A lot of talent goes to MBB and tech, and those still interested in finance strongly prefer to go for EB or buyside. This was at an ivy though, wouldnt be surprised if BB IB/S&T was growing at state schools
Really curious to know why you mentioned that they choose EBs over BBs.
Not OP but in a similar situation. EBs offer more responsibility early on, more exposure to senior people, potential client interaction, and are overall more selective and pay better. Also focus more on M&A or potentially RX, which is much more interesting than capital markets type work. You work harder though, but for the hardcore finance people at my school that isn’t much a concern.
Also, and this is more relevant to senior bankers or people interested in being career bankers, but really feels like the industry is moving more towards these independent advisory shops for M&A/RX advice. BBs are more conflicted and a ton of top bankers have moved to EBs. Not sure how long this trend will last but this is just the way it feels as a junior person and what these places say in their networking events.
(EB) Would you rather work with a small firm and tight knit team that has the smartest in the finance industry.
(BB) Would you rather work with a large corporate group where ass kissing is commonplace, and you work with washed up Ivy grads who majored in East Asian studies. Or low GPA engineering majors who did not get into a PHD program. A lot of "how will I make my rich daddy proud of me" students are in BB to.
Wishful thinking much?
Do you mean wishful thinking in regards to IB Coming Back to its Golden Days or wishful thinking in regards to the people on this page saying IB is not coming back is wrong and it is wishful thinking of them to assume that banking isn't on its way back to its Golden Days.
I mean I don’t think it will ever come back to the “golden era.” The shift post 2008 is most likely permanent.
At my semi target, much more people want consulting which is odd since we place better at BBs than MBB, and the school focuses more on IB placement.
I mean, I’m sure that most decent schools have better placement in IB due to the sheer fact that there’s about 3x more BB firms to land in, while you only have 3 shots at MBB for FT and then you are shit out of luck (If you are gunning for MBB that is, of course you still got T2s if you are going for consulting as a whole).
You also have several options functions inside the banks, not just M&A or S&T, while in consulting you have just one path (Assuming you ignore the more digital/data analytics focused ones, which requiere a different background from a generalist). Also MBB are just smaller firms as a whole. I wouldn’t be surprised if just GS,MS and JPM took in as much people for IB as the 3 MBBs do every year in the US.
I’m probably overestimating, to be honest.
All my homies hate banking.
Honestly tech is the place to be now in my opinion. And if you can combine finance and tech you have something that looks like Vista Equity. One of the few financial firms that I would work with.
Finance will never return to its hookers and blow type of culture we had from 1970-2000's. Management is just too PC to let a guy who railed 4 lines off a stripper with a slap on the wrist. You would get fired now.
Techies know how to party too X^x for those who know.
Could you expand on this? I was originally pursuing IB but switched to Product Management (Visa/Mastercard) and was wondering if you knew which companies are the places where people party?
I feel like Visa/Mastercard are a little too old school for things to be that lit, but I wanna use the experience I gain at this tech role to eventually move to something like FAANG or a growth stage startup. What have you heard about tech kids partying? When I’ve visited tech offices it’s mostly just lit cuz of the huge game rooms and free Alc, but is it kinda getting like the old WS days too?
I live in SF. Partying is a big thing for the mid 20s tech people here, especially doing vast amounts of cocaine. People call it the Yay Area. Part of the reason that rent in SF is so expensive is because people want to live here for the social activities rather than commute in. I will say that it's probably not even close to the partying that is done in NYC, I mean the bars close here at 2 and it's a relatively sleepy city (not easy to eat out after midnight)... VS NYC which is alive day and night.
As is the case with competitive college admissions, demand for high finance jobs will continue to go up as well and will continue to get more competitive. There has definitely been a break through for semi-target and even some non-target schools which has dramatically increased the applicant pool since 2006/2007 (when target schools soaked up the vast majority of spots)
Our applications for summer analyst programs continue to go up every year (at an EB) where we get thousands of applications for less than 50 spots. Go to any bank information session and you'll see hundreds of kids show up.
Applicant pools are very different too - software engineers/CS majors don't have much overlap with finance kids (who aren't just business majors) and while there is overlap with consulting/direct investing roles, the quantum of these spots is so much smaller that it is relatively insignificant
For those of you saying tech, do you mean finance roles in tech or that smart people majoring in CS and going for software engineering positions? Cause I think the former would be a reasonable comparison but the latter is just a completely different field so idk how many people seriously decided between finance vs comp sci rather than just doing it cause they wanted it from the beginning.
I think by tech people mean roles that can be more or less be done by "anyone", like PM which only requires that you know something simple like Python. Finance roles at tech companies don't pay that much better than finance roles at F500 companies, so I think the comparison is more of people who go to BBs with no real knowledge of finance other than studying the BIWS guide to people who go into APM roles at tech companies where they need to have a little technical knowledge but also use a lot of the skill you learn in business school. Tbh its just a comparison of the three really good jobs you can get out of a good MBA, Consulting, IB, PM.
ya i dont really know what "tech" is supposed to mean lol???
tech refers to the engineer/pm/design at top tech companies/unicorn that starts >100K per year.
I think at the analyst level it probably still holds a lot of allure. Grind for two years to open many many different types of career doors. Plus at the analyst level banks seem to be focused more on improving lifestyles with protected Saturday/pencils down types of policies. At levels beyond that I don't think it is nearly as attractive as it once was. Decreased pay, promotion politics and a life on the hampster wheel don't warrant the chaos it brings to your life. Don't get me wrong-- some people live for this job and the perceived prestige it brings, but at the end of the day you're still bringing home a W-2 and I think people are figuring out that there are more fulfilling ways to try to make a small fortune.
Would you say for people trying to break into tech, the analyst level doesn’t provide any advantages?
Agree with this...investment banking pay scale is certainly not what it used to be in the early 2000s. Anecdotally, I remember hearing a story of a first year getting a bonus that was 150 percent plus of base at that time period. This simply does not happen anymore and it isn't uncommon for first years now to get a 40k bonus and a 60 percent bonus to base ratio is considered pretty damn good for second and third years.
it doesn't open many door. And not many of those doors are not even worth opening unless you're willing to take a paycut.
Startup is out of the question since ib skills are practically useless at that level.
Realistically, only buyside finance make sense. Or maybe mba -> career change if you end up really hating finance.
It's hard for me to comment specifically on tech-focused analyst exit opps-- so let me preface any thoughts with that. BUT, what I have seen is people do two years in IB, two years in something else, go to b-school and then land super cool (at least to an outsider) tech roles in everything from PM to strategy to "report to the CFO" type finance roles at earlier stage startups.
It's also important to caveat that this completely depends on what types of roles you are seeking. Someone who pursues a PM or non-finance focused tech role as early in their career as possible is probably going to be pretty miserable in IB regardless and potentially vice versa--I think it just comes down to how your brain is wired. If you like finance then the analyst stint at an IB will probably be good experience, but if you like tech because you like creating a product and enjoy things like coding, I think you'd likely be unhappy in IB at any rank.
Apologies if that's a bit of a roundabout answer but I hope it helps in some way? Feel free to PM me if you're looking for something else--happy to try to elaborate/clarify.
From what I have observed, consulting and tech are generally more popular than ib (assuming you can do all 3 to begin with)
This is certainly true at the b-school level. I'm pretty removed from any undergrad recruiting but interesting to see the trend there as well.
Would you consider a PM role at Visa/Mastercard “tech”, ppl on this thread have had varying opinions on what that term means
bro you gotta relax you landed a sick job... get off WSO and enjoy it
Yes. FT companies like the ones you mentioned and Square, PayPal all pay very similar amounts as FAANG. More exciting projects too imo (unless you are at FB or Google, which are in a league of their own).
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