On Exit Ops

Currently a second-year analyst that has recently accepted a PE offer, so wanted to provide a perspective on some of the nonsense I’ve seen on here (that I frankly used to believe) from college students re. frantic comparisons of extremely similar banks and their exit ops (PE specifically).

To all of you college nervous college sophomores: please stop picking offers based on marginal “prestige.” As someone that is not at a “top” bank, I can tell you that you will get looks from almost any fund (MF, UMM, MM) if you are in a solid group in a NY BB / EB. Lazard vs Moelis vs Evercore is a complete waste of time. You are unnecessarily picking hairs. If you are lucky enough to get an offer from any of these well-known places, you should prioritize the following:

- Culture / who you know and jive with. This will play a HUGE role in your development, and if you’re in the good graces of the group, recruiting for PE will be substantially easier as your references will be great, your bonus will be higher, the junior team will be understanding of your interview schedules, and you’ll actually learn more on the job and get better deal experience (responsibility wise) which will give you a massive edge in interviews. Taking an offer from BAML HC where you know and get along with many alums >> being the nth random head at a GS / MS group that is sweaty and impersonal, but “prestigious”. 
 

- Deal flow and analyst experience. If you want to do high touch, lean deal-team M&A, any EB is great. If you get more than one offer, I would then down select based on culture not prestige. If you want the full service experience, go the BB route… you know the rest.

I have seen SO many friends get burned and hate their lives while chasing prestige in banking; would advise you all to not make that mistake. The only merit I could see in gunning for a tippy top group over one you get along with better is if you’re a mega hardo that 100% wants KKR / APO on-cycle and you know GS TMT is a straight shot to get there. Nothing wrong with that, but for everyone else, I encourage you to consider more intangible factors - you will be happier, perform better, and frankly may even get BETTER ops down the road. Best of luck.