After speaking with a few people at TD, it seems like they all overemphasize how great the culture and hours are at TD.
To those of you working at TD or who previously worked there, did you think the culture is great? What were some things you didn’t like?
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Started my time at TD Toronto before moving to the buyside. Have worked with the NY TD office on a few deals before so can comment a little bit.
TD culture is one of the best, if not the best amongst the street in Toronto. Coming from the head of IB (caveat believe he just retired), the seniors really do take an effort to try to look out for juniors and be considerate to junior WLB on workstreams. While banking is banking, and I have pulled 100+ hour weeks as an analyst (averaged 75-80 hours, in the toughest group, most other groups average 60-70), I will say my experience has been better than many of my friends and peers at other banks. Hours are overall better than other banks and I've never seen anyone be seriously abused in the Toronto office (i.e., no yelling, swearing, talking down, etc.). Again banking is banking, but if you're free, there's regular junior socials, group wide emails to leave early on long weekends, exceptions required for weekend work more than 6-8 hours, etc. (again, if you on a live deal you ain't leaving early on Fridays for long weekends, and you'll always get an exception to work weekends, but its the thought that counts). From what I hear based on the juniors I worked with in the NY office, they echoed the overall same sentiment roughly.
A note on job security - TD is quite safe and considerate compared to most banks. For Canadian offices at least and compared to other banks in Canada, they are the bank that cuts the least in a recession and tries their best to limit the reductions in bonuses. I've heard in the 2008 GFC, they barely cut people, and during my time there, they barely cut anyone on performance and bonus ranges were very tight (same goes the past few years). I would note this goes both ways - if you are a top bucket performer, you will get worked harder than others, but your bonus (at least at the Associate and Analyst level) will be barely higher than your peers that coasted / were average. I know I was pissed when my AN1 bonus was $5k more but I got cranked way harder than my friends.
I hated banking and would never go back, but I don't regret doing my time at TD and would highly recommend it as a top 2 Canadian bank alongside RBC and a solid MM in the US if you're looking for good WLB and job security / want to have a bit easier time outperforming as overall your competition grinds less.