What’s the Investment Banking scene like in lower tier cities like OKC, Charlotte, St Louis, Indianapolis and Atlanta??
I’m from a semi target and I would like to move to one of the cities above post graduation as I would love to move somewhere where the lifestyle is less competitive as I grew up in a big city(wouldn’t mind staying though)
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There are several tiers of cities for IB - a lot you listed are not like the other
Tier 1: NYC/SF (Tech only)
Tier 2(a): Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston
Tier 2(b): Charlotte, Los Angeles (Just very niche)
Tier 3: Anywhere else (I know Stifel is in St. Louis, but most of their IB practice is in NYC - I didn't even know OKC or Indy had IB TBQH)
Going from a semi-target to a non-Tier-1 city is a good idea if you have a good narrative to support it. For example, if you went to Florida or Alabama, and you've made some connections in Atlanta, you've got better odds for a few reasons: (1) They actually do OCR there, (2) The people in the office know they'll get 2 analyst years out of you on location. This is a big deal to them - almost an advantage. They know someone who's pretty smart and capable coming out of a semi-target that has ties to the region isn't going to punch a "transfer" button on them. Honestly, they get a big leg up as a tie-breaker with even some higher name-brand schools.
You can always transfer offices after 2 years, and if you do good work, the MDs/Directors will generally support it. A lot of them spent time in NYC but then moved to a Tier 2 Investment Banking city for quality of life/family reasons. At our bank, we have several heads of the practice located in both Atlanta and Chicago.
The hardest part of getting into banking is the first job. After that, you're kind of on the Ferris Wheel. If you've got a narrative that supports a city outside of NYC or SF, I would very much encourage it.
Would it jeopardise my career if I start out at a low tier city? Maybe Tier 2 in Charlotte? I’m afraid that it would be a problem for me to find something in the same field should I ever find the need to move back to the city (family & etc)
I think this is generally right but I’d say tier 2 really consists of SF, LA, Chicago, and Houston. These four will have offices from every major BB with group sizes comparable to what you see in NYC. Dallas and Atlanta (and maybe Minneapolis) are more in line with Charlotte and are mostly MM sellside focused but are fairly busy and have a decent number of firms. Beyond that it’s a mix of one-off regional offices of larger firms and tiny business brokers.
Atlanta is nicer but Charlotte seems to have substantially more IB. Atlanta is basically Truist plus a handful of satellite offices. Charlotte has Wells, Piper, Blair, Lazard, Jefferies and BlackArch.
EDIT: Not doing a tier list and inviting this. NYC is Tier 1 above other cities. Rest are debatable.
you forgot boston
I’d add to this Boston, DC/Northern Virginia, and Minneapolis all to tier 4.
A General rule of thumb I have seen over the years is. As you go down in quality the less rules that apply (AKA you enter more chaos).
The lower tier City you go to the more likely the recruiting process is going to be more informal. Go to a lower tier bank, probably easier to recruit year round there.
There are two decent cities on that list with IB presence, ATL and Charlotte. Charlotte is the best on the list because there's still some BB presence and MMs (Piper, Lazard, Jefferies) and more (Black Arch, DCF, etc.).
The other three have no real IB presence.
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