Background:
I didn't believe when people say IB is almost 100% group dependent. Culture, hours, camaraderie, relationships, even bonus.
I don't work for a BB or EB or a reputable MM. Some MM that occasionally gets some big deals but that's it.
Pay:
Okay I know people care about this the most. Your pay will be lower than your peers working in high deal-flow groups. Maybe a lot.
Remember that post where the founder of FT Partners paid employees minted coins with his fucking head on them? That's not even a bank with poor deal flow. That's just fucking cheap.
Both a cheap bank and poor deal flow destroys your banker's swag. You won't save much living in a place like NYC unless you live in a shithole with 3 roommates and don't go out at all when you have free time.
Hours:
Your hours will be substantially better than your peers because guess what, your group doesn't do a lot of deals ! That means less experience executing deals, so less execution knowledge, which is BAD when you lateral after say 1 or 2 years.
Nothing as a junior banker is difficult, and you can totally learn those transaction knowledge reading materials. However, you won't remember as well if you only read. That is like learning math. You don't know how to solve problems by reading the answers.
The only upside working in such a group is you have relatively chill hours. Although sometimes your MD and/or might want to work on some meaningless pitch that apparently goes nowhere. I even worked on an IPO pitch where the founder told us (I was in the meeting) they don't plan to list in 3 years. WTF?
Weekends:
You still get weekend work. This is banking after all, and you are on-call 24/7. I'll say during busy season --- live deal, 2-3 urgent perhaps meaningless pitches, etc. --- I worked all weekends with at most half a day to plan for personal events. Busy season ~ 50%-60% of the year. So you have plenty of weekend where you can plan ahead, with 5-6 hours of work per weekend.
Learning:
Not much because you don't execute as many deals. Participation could be on a deep level, but there is not enough repetition for you to form muscle memory. You work on a lot of pitches and pitches are the WORST because they are just boilerplate shit packs. If you hold different opinions on pitches, good for you.
Your MD is clearly not very capable of pulling in deals and your VP, who is willing to get stuck here working for this MD, is unlikely to be very capable. Thus, the learning is just not there because your VP should be the "bridge" to coach juniors and teach stuff.
Camaraderie:
You don't spend many late nights together, especially with WFH. People just want to go through the motions and go home. 3 new analysts still have no idea what a fucking DCF is or what should go into a comp set.I'm not saying I know all the details, but at least the basics.
Exit:
People don't really know whether your group has poor deal flow or not. However, details will expose you during tough interviews. As mentioned above, you can read answers 7 times, but it is not as good solving the problem 2-3 times. You need to do a lot of extra interview prep compared to groups with solid deal flow. Can still land good to great exit opps though. Seen it happen.
Final Note: this is NOT equivalent to a lifestyle group.
Lifestyle group = street comp + seniors who actually care + VP who is not a maniac or complete idiot + at least some learning
Bad deal-flow group = low comp + seniors who may or may not be maniacs pitching + VP who is clueless managing workflow + not much learning happening + seniors keep saying "our group just had a bad year. Things are getting better, just look at that pitch were are working on"
Agree with all the notes above but one notable exception: I've actually seen worse "hours" at banks with low deal flow. The reason: "if you aren't working on a deal, you need to look like you are finding one".
Honestly, at firms with high deal flow there are usually good associated fees (and fees/headcount). If you are generating good fees, no one cares how you are spending your time. If you don't know where your next meal is coming from, you have to at least look busy and I've seen low deal flow banks get "political" really quickly. Suddenly deals are over staffed, no one is actually doing anything and there is terrible facetime. Also a lot of "boil the ocean", "go no where", and "this legit makes no sense" pitches. Also lots of "false deadlines". Because MD's and other originators (who don't have live deals) need to tell their heads of IBD how busy they are and how much imminent stuff they have so they don't get fired.
Canadian banks are TERRIBLE for this.