Guidance on IB/PE career pathways in Canada
Hi everyone!
This is my first post here, and I’m excited to connect with all of you.
I am 28years old and I have 8 years of experience working with Investment Banks and Private Equity firms (in back-office roles), primarily supporting US bankers and investors. Over the years, I’ve developed a strong understanding of the grind and have contributed to numerous deals throughout their lifecycle - including pitchbooks, CIMs, valuations, financial models, and more.
I’ll be moving to Canada, likely by Q2 2025, and I’m keen to transition into a role in Investment Banking or Private Equity. While I understand the challenges of breaking into these fields without prior Canadian work experience or education, I’m eager to bridge the gap and would greatly appreciate any advice on: - The best strategies to land a role in IB/PE in Canada. - Steps I can take in the interim to strengthen my profile.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Any guidance, insights, or resources you can share would mean a lot to me!
Looking forward to learning from this community.
Honestly? You probably won't break in to front office if that's what you're asking. Your odds were better in the U.S. of making the BO->FO transition.
What country are you moving from? Either way, your chances aren't great man. Industry is highly competitive. But if I were you, I'd look into boutique bank roles
Seconding this, best bet is small boutiques (smaller than Canaccord/Cormark level of a legit boutique). BO is BO doesn't matter where you worked at. For some weird reason a lot BO folks (mostly risk) think what they do translates to FO work and anytime I interact with my fund's BO people they act like they know what FO does. They don't.
Cormark is a business brokerage lmao.
I agree with targeting boutique bank roles, BB is far-fetched.
Regarding FO vs BO, I completely agree that the roles for both profiles are different. But most hard skills around creating deal materials are the same, the difference lies in soft skills that you would develop interacting with clients/VPs/MDs. Please let me know if otherwise.
Also, would you be able to share names for any boutique banks that I can target?
Hey man, just being realistic but this is incredibly low probability - as in a fraction of a fraction of 1%. So effectively 0. It's late in your career (relatively speaking) and you're moving to a country with barely any opportunity in IB. PE is a whole different beast and would require you to do IB first (no guarantees in Canada even at that point - the buyside is miniscule).
However, if this is a path you are 100% committed to, you can maybe raise that chance to about 5-10% by:
Again, this will give you a non-zero shot at IB or consulting (not MBB, but Big 4 or boutique) though it remains a low-probability outcome. Again, forget completely about PE for the time being.
Don't mean to rain on your parade, but this is not a path I would go down. I would simply find a more realistic way to do well for yourself. Don't get down on yourself and you'll find a way to do that. But I would not count on IB being an avenue you can pursue in this country with any realistic chance of success. Best of luck.
Honestly you gave the guy some pretty bullshit advice that basically told him to go rope himself on any chance of banking or PE. I’ve met many folks who’ve pulled this off, I know you’re trying to be helpful but telling him that he’s cooked before he tried is pretty bad advice. OP could easily transition if he were to do an MBA in the US or in Canada (may have to start over as an analyst which is fine). I’ve met some Canadians who’ve started in IB late from various roles at the Big 6, as well as boutiques. It’s very possible and doable but it’s a networking game. This is coming from someone who broke in in Toronto and the US with a very unconventional path.
Thank you! I would love to hear more about your journey, either here or on personal chat if you are interested.
You added some interesting points.
Would it be helpful to do an MBA? I was considering MBA for a while but then opted out.
Any tips for networking?
So I didn't tell him to rope himself. I told him his rough odds and how to maximize them. Perhaps it's somewhat higher than what I listed but not materially so. In fact, I don't even think that we really disagree - MBA is the best way to pull this off. Agreed that a US mba will materially improve the above odds, but only if it's from a T10/15. Even then, however, you're still trying to lock down one of very few mba associate seats on bay st. I've seen people with far better aligned backgrounds who were relentless, excellent networkers fail to do so. Again, purely owing to the low demand for mba associates in Canada.
Thank you for the candid reply. While it's not good to hear but I appreciate you taking the time to reply.
An addition to my profile, I have also been working with a LMM private equity (part-time), along with my full-time job. Not sure, if that will improve my profile by a lot.
I have a couple of follow-up questions:
Wouldn't a boutique bank prefer to have an associate, who has some relevant experience (even if it is BO) in the space and is well-equipped to create deal materials better than someone just out of MBA with little to no experience?
What would you recommend for me if not IB/PE? Since my experience up until now has been focused on deals
BO experience just isn't seen as relevant unfortunately. Canada is a very strict market in terms of alignment with job requirements owing to the risk-averse culture and lack of job demand/high candidate supply for these roles. As mentioned above, the best way to do this would be the rotman full time mba (US t10 aside). So you should try to get in if you're fully committed to this path. Otherwise, it's going to be overwhelmingly difficult - especially with a non-canadian background. I'd honestly recommend big 4 or boutique consulting first before going down this route. The classes are larger and you will increase your odds of going to IB if doing so. But again, likely need to MBA it up first.
What is this Canadian xenophobia you're referring to and "Canadian experience"..?
I worked in Canada - a ton of diversity hires. Sure, private school kids who went to Ivey or Queens overrepresent, but I keep reading this online and don't think I see it. Yes, white men are in a lot of senior positions - the same goes for the U.S. and it's due to numbers.
He means a preference for Canadian (or US/EUR) work experience. No one wants to spend the time to understand how you contributed to a deal between two companies they don’t know while you were with a bank they’ve never heard of before.
Part of the problem is how often people intentionally or unintentionally misrepresent their experience. I can’t tell you how many people tell me they did IB in India and after 3 probing questions it turns out it was BO work.
Just put the poutine in the bag, lil bro
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