Comparing EBs

Whoever said PJT hasn't had any exits yet is incorrect. The 2015 analyst class all just transitioned to associate roles; that was the class that summered at Blackstone (after going through Blackstone's summer recruiting scheme) but returned full-time to PJT entity (whose official inception date is November 2015, four months into the analyst program and thus the name on everyone's resume during recruiting).

I can confirm Warburg, two to Berkshire, Harvest Partners, Spectrum Equity, Madison Dearborn, and Centerbridge as placements out of the M&A and R&SS groups for 2015, which is a touch under half the body count out of the class for both groups.

The 2016 analyst class is the first to be hired through PJT's summer recruiting scheme. It has a broader representation of schools than Blackstone's classes ever had. It'll be interesting to see what placement is like for them.

---> To answer the OP: Evercore, Lazard, and Moelis are all top-notch shops where you won't suffer for any lack of attention from headhunters. The analyst programs are rigorous and you'll get technical experience. The primary difference between them will be culture.

Evercore is known to be the least facetime-y of the bunch. That's not to say you won't work hard, but the difference between a baseline of 75 weekly versus 90 weekly is massive. Every classmate or friend I had there had not a single negative thing to say. They seemed like the happiest banking analysts I knew.

Moelis is known to be sweatshoppy and demanding. I have heard negative things about the culture there at the junior level, where you were expected to be around and available 24/7. The upside is that seniors are very willing and habitual to go to bat for analysts during recruiting, so when paired with the rigorous analyst experience, placements tend to be strong for the best performers.

Lazard is also sweatshoppy, but in less of a demoralizing way than Moelis. The (few) people my year I knew there were legitimately never around. I didn't see them. When we caught up years later, it was "Yeah, I worked a lot." Kind of hum-drum, no "and it was a shit culture", but no attempt to hide the fact that their life wasn't super bright and that they gained weight and broke up with their significant other.

Centerview is the place you want to go be if you're interested in being a career banker. It's a three-year analyst program, not two. Be aware of this; if you leave early, they'll claw back your signing bonus (which is something like 2x what most other firms offer: $50k last I heard) at nominal value (so you pay back $50k even though you got post-tax dollars at ~$35k or whatever). They invest meaningfully in developing you as a banker though, so you 'think' earlier than most junior bankers do. Interestingly, they also have major corporate clients on retainer for strategic advisory, so you're not just staffed on transaction or pitch work, you're exposed early in your career to the true value-add that a knowledgeable senior banker provides on an ongoing basis as a Trusted Advisor to a corporate leader or board.

PJT is the newest kid on the block. They've expanded headcount beyond what the legacy Blackstone advisory groups were, and done so at all levels. They've poached some really senior guys from the bulge brackets, luring them with the classic boutique 'eat more of what you kill' comp structure that's intoxicating to guys who can pull in eight-figure revenue deals. Add a rainmaker like Taubman at the helm and it's easy to see why heavy hitters would want to get on board.

They've also expanded their campus recruiting pipeline at both the analyst and associate levels. At the associate level, Blackstone used to take only the kids who had previous experience in finance. Meaning their M&A or R&R associates were all people whose pre-MBA experience was either 4-6 years in banking or two years as a banking analyst and a couple on the buy-side (this was usually at less-than-elite firms, meaning the candidates were stepping up in caliber by joining BX). Pair that with the usual MBA business schools ">M7 (and it was really biased towards H/W) feeder schools and the outcome was really capable associates who could contribute immediately and weren't the prototypical career-switcher associate who takes 12 months to get up-to-speed and lags behind the best second-year analysts.

In short, it's tough to say what the analyst experience will 'normalize' as. They're coming up on the two-year anniversary, so (i) there aren't enough datapoints on placement, and (ii) since the class size (though bigger than the legacy BX groups) is still small, there are fewer people for any of us to be able to get anecdotal insight on what the culture is like from.

There really isn't a single right answer. You need to figure out which culture is most attractive to you and where you'll best fit. Beyond that, figure out where you can get an industry-specific offer (if that matters to you). Beyond that, figure out where you'll have the strongest internal sponsor. That ultimately predicates the quality of your analyst experience. You could be at the best firm, but if you're iced as a solo player and have no alum (or even just someone who interviewed you who you really connected with) available to you as a more senior resource to answer questions, help backchannel for the real meat behind your performance reviews, and be an advocate for you internally ... you're going to have a way worse time than someone who's got that advocate but is in a theoretically weaker group at a theoretically weaker bank.

Good luck.