IB vs S&T personality?

Personally, I interned on a trading floor and realized that I did not have the temperament and discipline for trading.

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Watch wolf on wall street for S&T

If you think fart jokes are funny and love getting so angry at your computer that you break a keyboard once or twice a month then S&T is for you.

So this is just my experiences and opinion, but this is what I felt I saw coming out of undergrad across S&T - ER - IB coming based on who I’ve met and who recruited for what at my school (I also interned in both IB / S&T - interviewed for ER).

The ones who went into IB were the most by the book kids I.e. high GPA, leadership positions, probably partially did it cause everyone else did, usually the most appealing students “on paper”.

S&T seems the more raw intellect / problem solvers, many more with a more unorthodox resume, and lastly kids who seemed deterred by a fully “corporate” environment - probably the hungriest of group too.

Lastly, maybe it’s just the sample of people I’ve met, but the ER kids seemed to be the most consistently finance competent / bookish - very financially savvy, difference here is not “by the book” like the IB kids or “intensive” as the S&T type.

Thank you. So IB is more focused towards high achieving kids who perform well by the book and like to conform. S&T attracts slightly more unorthodox thinking and more unique backgrounds but has higher raw intelligence.

This is a poorly worded question.

For S&T there is a huge difference between someone working in institutional sales and a desk quant.

I think having a profit and loss on my screen would drive me insane

I think a few people here have largely hit the nail on the head (unfortunately they've posted anonymously, so sadly I can't give them direct credit). I'd also emphasise that one division is no better than the other just because of the allegedly distinct personalities each attracts - they're different, and that difference is precisely what makes the people in each department good at their specific role.

In IB, I find that people tend to be highly polished, relatively (albeit not totally) risk-averse, have a high EQ (e.g. can express problematic developments in such a way that soothes / mitigates the angst of clients), and tend to be the sort of people that were "good" at school (e.g. high-achieving academically, were given leadership positions like head boy / girl, and so on). I also agree with the previous post saying that people in IB tend to pursue that career because they generally feel they ought to (i.e. because of the prestige, exclusivity) rather than because, at least initially, they find it inherently interesting / stimulating.

In S&T, people certainly have more "edge" to their personality (e.g. tend to be blunter in terms of communication), are more results / performance driven (rather than spurred by conformity or "appearance"), are little less orthodox in their backgrounds / approaches, and - at least in my (undoubtedly biased) opinion - do tend to have a greater quota of "raw" intelligence. The people I've had the pleasure of working with in S&T have largely proven well-read with broad general knowledge and a greater curiosity about the world around them than the investment bankers I also know. This may well be because of the multi-faceted nature of public markets which demands a broad (albeit admittedly often shallow) knowledge base to interpret underlying developments...

I'd also re-emphasise the point previously raised by another (anonymous) user that personalities vary by team and even by bank: there are undoubtedly people working in, say, M&A that display traits you'd more commonly expect to see on a trading floor, and vice-versa. It's also worth saying that, within S&T, the type of personality working in spot FX is likely to be different from cash equities, is likely to be different from credit derivatives, etc.

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Old thread but wanted to chime in my 2 cents. From my experience working in both S&T and IB, here are the main difference in personality types that I noticed.

IB as everyone has previously noted is definitely filled with people that are risk averse and care about perception like no tomorrow. The people that work in IB are still sales people (at VP level and above) which means they also have EQ and have to be good at dealing with people and reading them. People that work in IB are very much long term focused and more plan ahead types as their sales cycle/deals are much much longer than a typical Salesman at bank working various desks. On top of that, people that work in IB tend to have deep knowledge in a specific industry but lack breadth as they have to choose a specific industry and specialize in it. IB personalities are also very much more calm and reserved than S&T from my experience.

Now onto S&T

First traders, surprisingly were very quiet but the reason for that was because they all communicated via Bloomberg terminal in chat rooms. They were also very much reserved and wanted everyone to leave them tf alone because they were in the zone. Tbf though all of the traders I've worked with were 35+ year old men with families so age is definitely a factor in how they behaved. Traders are also people that don't mind sitting for 8+ hours straight and run to and from the bathroom because they have to keep their asses glued to watch the market.

Now sales, honestly are no different than your typical sales people at any other company. Very fun people and extremely extroverted/not shy of people since it's their literal job to sell and deal with clients. Very very high EQ and always thinking about what meets their clients needs. These people tended to be very optimistic and had great senses of humor always joking around and leaving their desks to talk with each other, go out to lunch with clients, always in conference rooms speaking with clients, or always on their phones walking away to speak in private to clients. Top performers/rain makers in sales were always some of the most gung ho people I've met and were super aggressive/assertive in going after their goals. Very much like a typical athlete. In terms of knowledge, complete opposite of IB where they have very large breadth but not a great amount of depth as they have to keep up with daily market conditions as opposed to IB where what happens in the public markets rarely affect IB deals.