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Career Resources
Lazard.
Of the people you met from each firm, who do you like more?
Banking is banking, and with those two firms, you'll have PE or other exit opps - it's not like you're comparing a top tier boutique with a no name. But where would you see yourself doing better work?
Lazard...great history in M&A advisory
evercore is full of obama nuthuggers
Evercore's working on the most interesting deals in M&A right now. Seriously, check out their last 5 or so closed transactions.
Lazard
Evercore has definitely been on some big deals lately, but I think Lazard is still a safer bet...if you can handle those hours that is
OP should go and look up Lazard on this board. Not for the faint of heart. What's the point of potential exit opps if you're burned out or close to dead?
@Kanon. That is the exact question I am struggling with
I think you should actually ask people who are in PE/HF at WSO and see if there is a material difference between those two shops for megafund or top MM PE hiring, depending on what your goals are.
If there isn't a material difference, I'd go with Evercore for the culture, and maintaining sanity reasons. If there is a difference, and you think you can hack the hours, then go with Lazard.
as someone with first hand experience at Lazard, I can say that the descriptions on WSO are way exaggerated. most of the analysts are great (yes there's a good chunk of douchebags/tools, but you can imagine that at any bank), and some of the senior people are sometimes difficult to work with, but one thing that people forget to think about Lazard is that because they have a 25 person analyst class, your lifestyle and work can be very group dependent. Lazard assigns analysts to one of 5 M&A groups or the restructuring group during training, and your experiences in each one can differ significantly (your experiences within each one can as well)
there are kids at certain groups at Lazard who leave at 7-10pm when they're not busy or very rarely come in on the weekends and still get great jobs afterwards. at the same time, there are others who work extremely hard during busy weeks (2am average every weeknight) and pull many all-nighters and 4-6am nights (though I can't imagine that's worse than the M&A or busier groups at BBs). There's also a significantly lower level of facetime relative to the larger banks. While the less painful groups are also more difficult to get into, just know that the universal reputation of lazard as a sweatshop is definitely not true across the board
as for culture, it's pretty decent overall though probably less fun than the larger banks simply because there are less analysts and the seating arrangements are pretty closed (e.g. 3-4 kids in an enclosed area instead of a bullpen), although the company is apparently overhauling the office and the new layout should be more open. but the idea that it's all professional all the time is not true for most of the groups either
even so, evercore is a tremendous firm with a very impressive list of deals for it's size (and in general) and I would spend time thinking it over. and to the comment on "obama nut-huggers," keep in mind that Lazard has traditionally been a very democratic firm (felix rohatyn, bruce wasserstein, vernon jordan, and steve rattner have all been significant in the clinton or obama administrations or involved someway in the party)
Lazard
I'd be concerned about EVR's growing size. I hear they are targeting a class of 30 this year for M&A. I know that some people there place very well and the culture I also hear is fantastic. However, I think Lazard out places them still.
Not sure where all the Lazard love is coming from, but my view is Evercore, easy choice.
Exceptional placement, top of the street comp, not a bad crowd. You'll work hard, but you'll do that at any quality shop/group with stellar placement. If you're worried about burnout before you even start working you should probably be questioning why you're concerned with top of the street placement. The places you're trying to place into aren't going to be much better. The hours will still be brutal at time and the slightly better lifestyle will be more than offset with added stress... which is a much worse burnout factor.
of the analyst class that just left, Lazard was ~100% placed by early Summer last year with a few outliers who waited and received megafund / top HF offers. Evercore took notably longer and placement wasn't anywhere near that of Lazard. That said, I've heard Evercore's culture is normal whereas Lazard is somewhat more intense.
For an analyst I'd recommend Lazard, otherwise Evercore
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