William Blair
Hi,
I was wondering if anyone can express his or her opinions from the experience working at William Blair if they offer a good training for newbies? Thank you.
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I graduated with a few guys who joined Blair's tech group in Chicago and Boston. They put the incoming summer class through 8-10 weeks of training. They spoke highly of the program.
Not sure about off-cycle.
Analysts get an approximately 5 week formal training (TTS). The training is fairly standard across most firms.
Blair (Originally Posted: 01/29/2013)
Questions
I know that Blair pays 70 + 10, but am not sure about bonus. The Company Database's 95k all-in figure is not for IBD, but research (as reputable as it may be). I wouldn't be surprised if Blair paid above street.
From my understanding, the top three MM banks are Baird, HW, and Blair, and if you have an offer from any of those three you can't go wrong choosing any of them and as long as you do a good job during your analyst stint, you shouldn't have a problem exiting to MM PE.
With that said, unless you knew exactly what you wanted from your career it wouldn't be a smart choice taking Blair over a BB (UBS in this case). Any of those other firms would depend on which group you were choosing from, but if it were me, I'd take any of Baird/HW/Blair over Wells/RBC. Jeffs / Roths would be a toss-up.
William Blair is a great firm, and I would agree with the above and take it over Wells/RBS (RBC would be a bit tougher for me, but probably would take Blair as well). I would also take Blair over UBS to be honest. I've posted about this before, but Blair is (in my mind) the 'elite' Chicago bank, ahead of Baird in local reputation. Baird has been growing their Chicago office over the past 10 years and gaining a name for itself in the city, but Blair is the epitome of old money, north shore, Chicago- with this said, the culture is a bit stuffy, and the people tend to be a bit pretentious and also have an inferiority complex due to the fact that they have a big name in their local city but are often times unheard of in NYC. I would choose Jefferies/Rothschild over Blair (assuming main office for both- for Roths NY or London)- both would place better and have bigger names worldwide/nationwide. Blair may be above street on pay- I know the pay there (for better or for worse, though for better now) is pretty unrelated to the bank's performance as a whole ie. the guys there are making about what they made bonus wise in 2006-08.
Thanks for your thoughts, leveragedlife and Black Jack. Black Jack - really appreciate how you're still contributing to this forum even though you're "done."
Didn't realize that the 95k all-in figure was for equity research.
I like Blair a lot - I feel like the people are great. Surprised to see that you think the people are a little stuffy, Black Jack, although I can certainly see where you're coming from. Quite honestly, I feel like Baird's culture is a little better between the two of them.
Blair is solid.
I don't think Baird is the next best though. Its M&A team is that great IMO. Baird's strength is leveraging its ER groups to create psuedo coverage teams, which is much more unusual in the MM. They have some great presentations.
William Blair co-manages a lot of deals in my sector, haven't seen them in lead roles. Huge difference between them and some of the other firms mentioned in my opinion.
How will William Blair equip a new bee? (Originally Posted: 04/01/2010)
Ready to join William Blair's corporate finance next week, wanna get some idea of the gears they will equip me. I mean PC, Laptop, Blackberry, etc??
I heard they hand out beepers and rolls of quarters on your first day.
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