Jefferies Good Place to Start?
Wondering if Jefferies is a great place to start career? What have you heard and what are your thoughts?
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Bump
Take it and don’t look back. Once there, take the most of the opportunities offered to you while not forgetting about your long-terms goals and dreams. Do this and you will be fine!
Depends on what you are looking for —
MF exits: Probably not. Other than a couple of groups, you won't see MF exits from Jefferies.
UMM/MM exits: Depends on the group but for the most part, you can get looks at UMM and definitely at all the strong MMs. Jefferies is arguably the strongest MM bank there is. The Avg. deal size (800mil ytd) is closer to the BBs than it is to the other MMs.
Lateralling to BB/EBs: A start at Jefferies will set you up extremely well for BB/EB lateraling. The biggest reason is that you can get experience in all kinds of transactions (such as M&A/ECM/DCM/LevFin/RX).
WLB: Definitely not. Jefferies runs pretty lean and makes you work extremely hard, so Jefferies (and specifically the top groups such as healthcare/energy/M&A) isn't a lifestyle bank.
Pay and perks: Yes. With the exception of EBs, Jefferies's bonuses are above the street and are all cash (although there is a clawback at the associate+ level if you lateral). Jefferies also gives a wfh meal stipend (apparently an analyst asked Rich Handler about it in a town hall, and he made it happen [unlike the Citi MD who scoffed at a similar idea]. For all of his Instagram bullshit, I must give it to him for listening to the juniors). Jefferies was also one of the first banks to reward its juniors (whilst it was just one day after the GS-13 survey, the logistics of it had to be in the works long before that). Also heard that the energy group introduced protected Saturdays recently.
Culture: Probably not. Whilst the junior culture is pretty good, the seniors can make life very difficult so most of the groups don't have the best culture. I would probably rank in the bottom half of banks for culture.
Deal flow: As I mentioned earlier, it's avg. deal flow is ~800 mil. and right now, it's in the top 10 worldwide for M&A (9th, ahead UBS, DB) /ECM (8th, ahead UBS, DB)/ overall IB revenue (8th, ahead DB, UBS, only non-BB). As the league tables show, Jefferies has been killing it for the past few years and doesn't show signs of slowing down.
This is not to say there aren't any better banks out there. There absolutely are, but in my opinion, Jefferies is a great bank to start your career at.
wow nice reply. thank you for that.
do you have similar analysis for other MM banks? like wells fargo/lincoln?
Unfortunately, I am not as familiar with Wells or Lincoln.
levfin would actually be one of the better groups in terms of lifestyle despite the dealflow. very approachable seniors and they have a lot of A2As. m&a/HC/energy/industrials are the worst for hours
Good to know, made the edits.
Don't they have pretty strict claw-back provisions for their bonuses / sign-on bonuses or am I making that up in my head?
It’s not really true. If you are coming in at as an intern / analyst you don’t need to worry about it.
MostLy Every bank as their own form of claw backs for associate level and above - vastly over emphasized on WSO about JEF for some reason.
Talked to a VP there, guy was a douche and a half. Seemed almost offended when I asked him to tell me why I should want to work at Jefferies as if I should be lucky enough to be given the opportunity (this was for a lateral position, wasn't just breaking in looking for any opportunity)
Not disrespect but I think your question is not the best either
Most would scoff if that’s the way you would phrased it. “What attracted you to Jefferies?” or something similar is a less autistic way to ask the same thing.
I was definitely far more polite with the way I asked the question. I phrased it similar to how you did along with "If you came across a great candidate what are some of the aspects of Jefferies you would sell them on?" Which is why I was somewhat surprised when he got an attitude.
HC and TMT are strongest in London and placed well into MM/UMM..
What about the UK coverage team? Any insight in to culture?
bump
Can anyone explain what people mean by saying Jefferies has a "fratty culture". Is this a good or bad thing?
In my mind, it's not bad if you fit in but terrible if you come from a diverse/different background.
I think this applied 5-7 years ago when Jefferies was more solidly a MM bank, rather than the nebulous MM/EB/BB it seems to sit in today.
Basically 1/4 to 1/3 of the Jefferies analyst class were from UVA or Michigan (big frat schools), and almost everyone there was part of a frat. Basically people in frats were in Jefferies, helping those people get interviews/offers and then the circle would repeat each other.
Additionally, the culture in Jefferies is very much work hard, and then party hard with other junior people / get drinks with team often / etc (pre-COVID)
However, there's been a mandate throughout the firm (a few years after the general Wall Street push) for increased diversity. Now 50%+ of the class is female, leading to less frats/etc. So I don't think that this "fratty" culture really holds up.
They hire sorority girls on top of the frat guys. Still the same dynamic. “Bro girls” are a thing haha. Source: had a superday with jefferies for my school and everyone was a guy except for one sorority girl
Can anyone that currently works at Jefferies verify?
There’s at-least one office at Jefferies that doesn’t have that fratty culture.
Their direct lending / credit team are pretty douchey - haven't interacted with their IB groups yet.
Poster above hit all the points that are relevant.
Great place to start and progress forward if you want to stay in banking or exit to UMM / MM PE.
Comp is fantastic if you are a high performer - first hand knowledge of this. Yes you will work hard, but I don’t think any especially harder than other top banks. Would much rather join the Jefferies platform than DB / UBS.
Could you touch more on the comp? and your comp progression through the years?
An3: total comp $270
Associate1: total comp $300
Great place to start. Gaining a lot of market share in Europe. Much stronger than UBS in the PE world. Lot of people in this forum comment without having a day spent in IB…
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