Canadian IB Recruitment vs US?

Hi all,

I'm a first year at UCLA looking to do IB. I grew up in Calgary and lived there for 7-8 years. I have both American and Canadian citizenship, and so am looking to maximize that advantage. I do not speak proficient French (very basic ability), idk if this is important to Canadian roles. I'd say I fit Canadian culture quite well: grew up playing hockey, know all the slang, etc.

Next year I will primarily recruit for American SA roles, but I definitely intend to recruit for Canadian offices as well. Since I will be targeting US west coast offices, ie. networking with LA and SF offices but not as much with NY (I just don't think it's worth gunning for NY as UCLA primarily sends kids to west-coast), I want to utilize my time covering Canadian banks too.

Anyways, I wanted to learn what the timeline is and how the process for Canadian recruitment works, and how often they hire from American schools. I'd primarily be interested in Calgary and Toronto, but am open to Montréal and Vancouver. Wondering if anyone can shed some insight into the differences for Canadian/American IB recruitment, and what banks have a major presence in Canada. Also interested in total class sizes for Canadian offices vs US and if networking is as important as it is in the US.

Thanks

5 Comments
 

Timeline is generally Apr-Aug/Sept with US banks going earlier during the spring and CDN banks going later during the summer. Toronto has all the major BB banks and some EBs (Lazard, Evercore, Greenhill) and all big 5 banks obviously. Not too familiar with Calgary but as far as US banks go, I know JPM, CS, Citi, TPH and Goldman all have an office there along with the Canadian banks. Class sizes are much smaller as most US banks in Canada like Morgan Stanley, BAML and Credit Suisse just have generalist M&A groups and I would say networking would be more important for you since UCLA doesn't have a large presence at Canadian banks (for good reason, since you're already on the West coast, most people would not want to leave the US for Canadian IB). 

 

Interesting insight, thanks. Do you know if there is a preference for kids at Canadian schools over American? I'd assume kids at Ivey have a massive leg up against me, but how would, say Rotman, stack up against the UCLA name? Just curious what advantage/disadvantage I'd be at from an okay American school vs. okay Canadian school.

 

No idea, I think your best bet is to reach out to Canadian IB analysts working in Canada that went to American schools

 

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