Jefferies Houston?

This is what I have heard from a couple of close friends who are/were employees at Jeff Houston. I must note that not a single one of them has said there time there was/is good. A lot of these things are coming from current and former employees so don't go off on me for being the messenger.

Pay: Not as good as many make it out to be, on a per hour basis it is actually quite atrocious. $180k sounds amazing (and 180k doesn't happen too often, It has to be a pretty killer year to hit that. What you're really looking at is like $150-160k all in An1) until you realize that you've been working 12-16 hour days and you're really just doing two 90k roles simultaneously. Nearly everyone I know has mentioned how pay really was not as good as some other banks especially when you think about other banks making roughly the same with significantly less hours.

Exits: Exits aren't terrible but I would say this isn't the best place to be if you are looking to go HF or MF PE. I can name a couple banks in Houston that place significantly better into both of those sectors within finance.

Culture: Some of the things I heard about this place through these sources were some of the most messed up things I have heard about IB. From the way juniors are treated, verbal humiliation/slander from seniors, gender/race issues, pay discrimination, "mandatory" hours (even if you're not doing anything you are expected to be there unreasonably late into the night), etc. Again these are stories I have heard, not talking from personal experiences. Though I have heard some of these stories more than once from different individuals so I believe there is something to be said about the truthfulness of some of these stories.

Hours: An absolute sweatshop. They have the highest turnover in all of Houston and one of the highest turnovers in all of IB. I think that tells you more than enough about the hours. You will lose a lot of who you are as an individual, I remember going out with a friend who had been working there for only like 6 months and she looked like she aged 10 years. Looking back it was really sad to see as her friend. Her time at jefferies was pretty rough.

Deals: They do a lot of deals from what I hear and see in articles/news but the future outlook isn't as promising as it was say 3 years ago. Friend there now said there really isn't much to do at the moment and they don't think there will be much to do for a while. This could have been him comparing a year like 2020-2021 to now but I am not sure. Some of the things he said about current deal flow was pretty shocking.

Something I want to add as well is that I think people getting into banking have this idea of I can tough it out or I can do a year and switch but honestly that is a really poor sense of judgement and self-worth. No amount of money or exit opportunity or deal is worth having to sacrifice personal standards or deal with harassment/back-stabbing or having to work yourself into long lasting medical complications. Whether it is 10 years or 6 months, when you mature a bit more career wise you recognize that you can do a lot of things a lot of different ways. If you want a to do xyz after IB then there is a better opportunity for you than this bank, if you want better pay then there is a better bank for you than this bank, if you want a career in banking then there is a better bank than this, etc. If you're looking to start your career in IB this place would be the last place I would recommend doing so. I know a few people who have declined offers at this place and every single one of them ended up at a better bank making better money on better deals with better people. It is worth noting that Jefferies Houston is one of the harder technical question interview processes, if you have gotten an offer here you can get an offer almost anywhere else.

TLDR: I wouldn't accept an offer here/work here knowing what I know now about banking and having been in it for a few years in Houston. There are a lot of banks that are better all around then Jefferies in Houston. The cons from what I have heard heavily outweigh any of the marginal pros. Culture, pay, deals, exits, etc. really aren't night and day difference from other better performing banks in Houston.

Pay: You clearly don't know what you are talking about. The pay in 2021 was closer to 230k. The pay this year was closer to 190k. The pay per hour, if it doesn't make sense at Jef HOU, then imagine how much worse it'll be at places like Citi / JPM / GS where the pay is even worse and the hours are just as bad. It makes almost zero sense to make the pay per hour argument in general but if you are making it at least make it smartly. Other banks are not making anywhere close to 190k, JPM is known for doling out 5-15k bonuses in HOU and GS isn't higher than 30-50k. 

Exits: one of the best places to exit out of in Houston. This year alone we have had a person go to Carnelian, Quantum, NGP (x2), Apollo, Carlyle (Industrials PE). First three are the best exits in energy, and the last two are literally MF PE exits, with the last one being in a non-energy group. The group has the best per-capita exits hands down in Houston. You really don't even need to know people at the group to know that - a simple LinkedIn search can help you figure that one out.

Culture: Clearly you keep mentioning this isn't a personal experience so how about you just stop commenting lol - I think the seniors are some of the nicest people you'll meet in banking in Houston. Literally the other day an MD asked one of our analysts why he was dressed business casual given everyone was in shorts and a t-shirt in the office. There's no verbal humiliation / slander from seniors, I can go home if I don't have work anymore - in fact as an anecdote, I did zero work this entire weekend and wasn't expected to be online either - and there is literally no discrimination. Our COO is a female, our group's recruiting efforts are led by a female and I think overall the group is extremely fair in its dealings. Looks like you might be confusing this group with JPM / GS - there was literally a thread on how toxic JPM was and that's been well documented ever since Jonathan Cox took over - frankly this is the first time I am hearing about all these "issues" that you have listed here.

Hours: What turnover are you talking about? We literally had 3 analysts go A2A this summer and we had 80% of the class that started 2 years ago complete their analyst stint (before hopping to the exits I highlighted above). Citi had 50% of the turnover in their 15-analyst class in HOU, Evercore didn't have one analyst stick past their first year recently, don't even get me started on JPM. If anything our turnover is much lower than industry average. Sure, our hours are bad - that's well documented - but not anything worse than any top group on the street. You have to learn to differentiate between hours due to deal flow (like at Jef HOU) and hours due to toxicity (JPM).

Deals: I honestly think your friend might be bottom-bucket. Our revenues this year were much higher than the year back, and we have a completely built backlog of deals looking to kickoff in the next fiscal year. Projected revenues are higher still for the year ahead. There's a lot of work going around and the outlook is as bright as it has ever been. In fact, with the addition of energy transition, it should be even better. 

Honestly, I couldn't have been happier starting my career at this group - the deal flow has been phenomenal, the exit I have lined up couldn't have better and I know I will have learned in my 2 years here much more than I could have learned anywhere else. Honestly you are so wrong on almost everything you have written here that it makes me question the authenticity of everything written out here - the culture, pay, deals, exits couldn't be better overall in Houston. The hours could obviously be better then I look at other shops with meaningful deal flow, like Citi / JPM / GS, and they are equally as bad as us. So, overall, JefCo ticks almost all the boxes in terms of pay, deal flow, exits, and culture.