IB Recruitment in Frankfurt/Paris/Zurich/Amsterdam/Dublin
I am a Canadian citizen at a T5 Canadian university looking to break into IB in Europe. I do not want to work in North America as I have been here my whole life. I know London is the main hub and very competitive, but I want to hedge my bets and see if Frankfurt, Paris, Zurich, Amsterdam, or Dublin are realistic alternatives.
For context, I interned in audit at a Big 4 this past summer, worked as a corporate banking analyst last summer at a small regional bank, and before that summered at a fintech.
From what I understand Frankfurt, Paris, and Zurich usually require German or French for front office roles. Amsterdam and Dublin are more international with English as the working language, but the deal flow and number of seats are much smaller than London. I likely would not need sponsorship since Canada has youth mobility agreements with most of these countries.
Do I stand a realistic chance of recruiting in these other cities without speaking the local language, or is London essentially the only real option even if I want to hedge?
No. If you're not an EU citizen and you don't speak any other language than English then it will be insanely difficult. The main reasons is the competition - most people do not know any Canadian schools unless its McGill and even then, you are competing against Masters students from HEC, Bocconi, INSEAD, and WHU. Realistically, why would they choose you over Europeans who have had multiple internships already.
Mid market London will be way easier to get into than elite roles in the smaller hubs - roles there will typically kept within very tight networks (ie bankers sons or the elite European schools)
Once you’re on the ground in London (in any sort of role) then you can work hard on your networking if you want to trade up (although not as easy to network as the US, still by far easier here than mainland Europe)
Thx for the insight. Are MMs not as stringent in London about your school, provided you have a well-formatted resume and decent experience? I think I do have better experience than a good portion of candidates. Any benefits to networking with these MMs or does it just not help in UK?
For context my uni is great in Canada but no one in the UK really knows it
University not so much. High school (read: social class) more so (if the team are mainly Brits, which most of the MM will be).
Although as a Canadian this shouldn’t really be an issue, they won’t be able to tell. If you can sell your experience well, you’ll be okay.
In terms of networking, London is a lot more of a recruiter led market - so find the best IB recruiters and let them guide you
Following
might be worth to get into a target masters here then you would have a shot
any info on london processes?
A few things:
Why not Dublin? It's the only country in the EU that speaks English as its native language which is relevant for OP. Yes there's no BB IB there, but plenty of M&A boutiques. DC Advisory have an office there. Outside of IB, there's quite a few other front office roles too (Susquehanna, Virtu Financial, Blackstone, KKR Guggenheim, to name a few)
Thanks for the insight. Do Dublin offices pluck their talent from Irish schools only or are they also open to the UK? I see some DC analysts there went to school in the states but that could be them being shipped to Ireland based on headcount needs?
If you're a non EU citizen and not studying there already its going to be a uphill battle. Your best bet is doing a MIM (or wait for a few years to do a MBA) at a supertarget school in Europe. For IBD, it really is only Insead and LBS. You need to get into 1 of those 2 to stand a shot through formal recruiting - otherwise it is going to be tough for you.
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