Moving from Big 4 (Canada) Wealth Management to IB
Im a Finance graduate from a target Canadian school working in Wealth Management at a Big 4 bank in Toronto. I plan to give my CFA and FMVA in 2021 and was hoping for some advice to move from WM to IB. What would increase my chances the most? Can I leverage my current experiences in finance fields outside of IB to recruit for IB?
Currently in IB, also from a Canadian target although I'm a few years out of school. A direct jump to Big 5 / Bulge Bracket IB will be difficult coming from a WM background. If you're dead set on IB, your best bet is to 1) do an MBA from a target school and re-recruit as an associate, or 2) lateral to a boutique IB, Big 4 TAS or corporate finance, ER/ AM, etc. and make the jump to Big 5 / BB IB after a year.
Thank you! Appreciate it
Do you reckon if I were to begin re-recruiting right now (i've only been in my current role for 3 months), I could find some spots in the new grad analyst cohort for next year?
What do you guys consider Canadian target schools? Just ivey and qc?
I've read all the discussions just curious.
Wouldn't discount McGill / Laurier / Waterloo / Schulich / Rotman / UBC by any means - seeing an increasing number of students in IB / PE / AM from those schools. If you want to shoot for US IB, Ivey / Queens / McGill are probably still your best bet (although US banks have been pulling back on recruiting from CDN schools to avoid visa related headaches), but all of the aforementioned schools place just fine in Canada.
Typically "target" refers to on campus recruiting; would assume that most CDN banks will visit / interview on campus for most if not all of those schools, but will let someone who actually went there speak to that point.
Do you think some of the main "target schools" like Ivey/queens especially's placement numbers are skewed due to the percentage of the class that aims for IB?
What are your thoughts on Big 4 TAS to IB?
One of the more common stepping stones before IB in Canada - not really IB where you're running a full M&A process from beginning to end, but brand name + transaction related work makes TAS candidates fairly competitive.
Unlikely at a big bank with a structured recruiting process - those new grad analyst roles are designed that way for a reason, plus those spots are only available if the summer analyst program didn't fulfill next year's full-time needs (which typically only shakes out to 1-2 spots per bank). I was a lateral hire so understand the recruiting process well - I came from a boutique IB and even from an IB background, the lateral hiring environment is incredibly competitive. As such, you need to best position yourself for recruiting, which likely will be the suggestions I listed above.
Not to say that it's not possible to directly break in from WM (albeit I've never seen it happen) - I've just seen too many people waste months if not years throwing their resume into the lateral recruiting process and getting zero traction. Now that I'm on the other side of the table, I have a better appreciation for why this is the case. It's not that bankers think people from a different line of business are inferior (in fact, would argue that a lot of people in IB aren't the sharpest tool in the shed), but rather are looking to "de-risk" the hiring process by selecting candidates that 1) have the transactional experience that will be directly applicable to the job (or close to it), or 2) hiring a candidate that has proven that they'd be capable of doing the job otherwise (creating M&A pitches, self-study modelling courses, etc). IB in itself doesn't involve rocket science or need people who bring unique / different perspectives; the last thing a group wants to do is take an unorthodox approach to recruiting and hire someone from a non-traditional background who ends up being a dud / can't handle the hours or stress (the upside is capped). With that being said, your best bet is to pivot to a role that is transactional in nature (boutique IB, Big 4 transaction advisory, etc) and making a pivot to IB after a year.
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