London - Outlook on IB Group Hierarchy & Finding Best Cultures/Groups for You

Hello all,

As per the title, I was looking to develop an insight of:

- What investment banks in London seem to have the most supportive/respectful cultures to join into as an analyst that enforce protected weekends & any similar concepts relatively well.

- What the product/coverage group hierarchy looks like for exit opportunities.

- How to decipher what group would be of most interest to you, how they rank should you want to exit to PE/HF etc, & what their hours can be like.

All I know currently is that FIG/M&A is typically the toughest/longest & prove to be the most attractive in exit, while DCM/ECM are some of the more consistently shorter hours but can prove to create a much longer career in IB.

I understand between BB / EB / MMs this will be group-dependent, but if possible would love to hear your experiences just to get a better idea of this, generally.

15 Comments
 

Agree with this. People at EBs many times want to pursue long-term careers in banking while most people at BBs just go there to exit ASAP (myself included). As a result, seniors do not care about mentoring analysts because they know that 70% of them will be gone in 1-2 years. At the same time, Analysts do not care about trying to build a good culture because they also know that they will be gone in 1-2 years. 

 

Interesting to know, thanks for your input.

What sort of a dynamic does that create in your experience? Assuming it is like an unspoken fact in the air; it sounds slightly draining to know you're almost just counting down the days to just leave.

 
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