Most BB firms have good ECM groups with GS/MS/JPM being the leaders. Base is usually the same as base for coverage/M&A, but bonus might differ depending on how your bank situates ECM.

 

I love it, thank you. Yeah I’m definitely not that “smart” when it comes to finance knowledge. But, I’m learning and I’m sure as much more emotionally intelligent than most.

Id say im mediocre at math and finance related stuff. Still landed a great gig

 
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If you are "normal" you're in the top 50%, there are so many fucking weirdos in this industry. 

You don't need to be "smart" to start, just nail the basics and when you fuck up (as 100% of new people do), be open to feedback and learn from it - it goes a long way. 

I'd rather have a teachable, normal kid than a genius social pariah.

 
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Consumer and Retail is where all the girls go so try there lol

 

You don't need to be that smart in IB. You do so many god damn repetitions of everything that even the slowest of learners will eventually start to "get it" just from the sheer volume of practice. 

If you're smart enough to break into IB, you're definitely smart enough to do the actual job. Just stay away from structured finance, energy and/or specialty finance if heavy mathematics aint your thing

 

Structured finance is so brutal. During my internship in it I got glowing mid-reviews and final review (I literally didn't get a single neg comment e.g., attention to detail or whatever) and I still didn't get the return offer because of them requiring "candidates with very high technical skills". No one even explained how to do the technical stuff (not that I got any technical tasks anyway, should've been more of a "sElf STarTEr") :((

Think they hired someone from outside with 2+ years at another bank instead lol

What a super hard team to break into. I really liked the actual product as well, just wasn't cut out to be a structurer I guess lol 

 

Honestly, I can't, because everyone defines it differently. To me, structured finance means basically a special situation that requires creative financing. A common one is when your client needs their financing to be considered debt for tax/accounting purposes but your investors still want the economic upside of equity so you have to get creative and create some "hybrid" structure that involves both fixed income & equity upside components based upon non-diluted return blah blah blah. It's all a big jerk-off. If it were up to me everything would either be plain old vanilla, non-amortizing debt with a cash coupon and no PIK or exit fee, or simple common equity. The in between, "Structured", financing solutions are bleh. 

 

Sales! If you have great people skills and aren’t downright dumb, you’ll get paid lots (literally millions at the senior level in a BB) for just talking, making people feel comfortable, and getting connections. It’s a great gig!

 

Hopefully, you get picked up by a group whose managers are smart enough to play to your strengths.  We had an analyst once who was terrible with numbers (just couldn’t grasp certain concepts), but the guy was super organized, very good at planning things, and all the clients loved him.  So instead of dinging him because he was weak in some technical skills, we had him staffed on all our roadshows, marketing efforts, etc. The was stellar at his job!  But if we only evaluated him based on the things we wanted him to be good at, we would’ve lost out on a valuable teammate.  

 

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