Is progressing in IB just a game of survive & advance?

I know making the leap from D to MD is difficult, but is making it to the D level just a function of who can take the most abuse without cracking?

My Ex-IB peers always said the lesser talents progressed up the IB ladder, but I chalked this up to sour grapes / a sign they couldn’t hack it. However, after 3 years as an associate it seems like this take isn’t far off. From what I see, as long as people can handle the hours and survive the abuse, they generally get promoted… no matter how competent or incompetent they are. I’ve witnessed essentially zero correlation between competence and who gets promoted (perhaps slightly inverse).

I’m at a large BB and am shocked at how low the standards are, to be frank. Were standards always this low, or is this a recent thing due to IB becoming less attractive? Is this situation also true at places like GS, Evercore, etc who can afford to have more selective? Maybe the BBs are just so large and slow to react that they don’t pay attention to who is good and who isn’t, while smaller banks place more scrutiny on underperformers and actually fire people along the way (and pay the survivors accordingly). 

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I thinks it has to an extent always been this way at the big firms (at least in the 24 years I’ve been doing it); the reality is that at most of the BB firms, and even the larger independents, the resource need is there and it doesn’t make sense to cull the weak performers. Truth is a D is not that much more expensive than an associate and the cost really increases at the MD level. That said, if you’re not getting a tap on the shoulder as an As3 and being told you’re on the good track, that’s a concern. My experience is by the time people are Associate 3s and certainly VPs, it’s clear who is being targeted for the top and who is cannon fodder. 
 

 Very different at the remaining partnerships like CVP and smaller firms. 

 

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