Corporate Culture - What makes a global investment bank different from another?

If you're worried about culture, work at a boutique.

firm culture exists to an extent, but frankly group culture is more important. I'd say the difference between say, JPM and BAML as a whole is less than the difference between baml TMT vs. BAML Sponsors just to give an example.

Thanks for the response. This definitely makes sense.

second this, group culture is much more pervasive than firm culture

if you are looking to understand firm culture for interviews, reviewing recent deals and league tables (by product area) is time well spent. don't need to know everything, better to have 2-3 simple, convincing points

This is for Europe and it is based on what I have been told during interviews and what I have directly experienced during an internship.

GS: team culture. People are super supportive with other GS colleage while are aggressive and competitive with people outside of the bank. JPM: people tend to compete also with other JPM colleagues and the culture tends to be aggressive. MS: similar to GS but a little bit more laid back with people outside of the company.

goldman, blackstone

Merill Lynch is/was pretty horrible.

"Cowards die a thousand deaths, but the brave only one," Bill Shakespeare

^It definitely varies from group to group. I will say that most Goldman guys I've met have been pretty stiff but the BX guys from one group were extremely cool and joked around a lot.

Which group?

I can assure you that he's not talking about PE

BX restructuring group has a very good culture. people are very chill yet dead serious (and mad good) when it comes to getting their deals completed.

^Yep London hit it on the head -- restructuring in NYC. Even though they traditionally only recruit at Harvard/Wharton the two guys stopped by to put on a small presentation for my school.

London don't you work for BX restructuring in NYC? If you know these guys you'll know exactly who I'm talking about haha

an interviewer "yelled" at you?

Yeah he kind of yelled at me. Something along the lines of, "No, you see company culture does not change from office to office. We provide the same exact level of service Chicago and New York provide. The only difference is that the people are different so the implementation is different."

I was kind of taken back for a second. I didn't make it sound at all like this office was in any way less productive/effective than any other. I just wanted to know how the culture differed in this particular office than, say, NYC headquarters. The company culture stuff on the website is just window dressing. I was attempting to find what the interviewer thought about the culture in his office.

This was with an MD for a top BB too, making it all the more weird...

sounds like your PB interview went excellent... He obv took it the wrong way, so maybe try and clear it up?

Don't worry, the other aspects of the interview went great. He actually knew the guys at the previous BB I used to work for (Yikes!). That can be a bad thing considering I did not get an offer from the previous BB, but this guy has better things to do than snoop around for feedback on how I did last year.

He actually thanked me for asking him a different question so I guess it evened itself out. I also asked some questions that clearly showed I know how the industry works and he liked that. The culture question must have been a small thing that rubbed him the wrong way, but it's not like he flipped out. Oh well, I think it went good overall though.

I work at an office other than the HQ and definitely notice a difference between our cultures but it would depend on the person running the office. For example, our group head started as an analyst in our office and has never worked at our HQ so we are quite different in most aspects (good and bad). However I have friends in our other regional offices and from what they say, it seems their culture is quite similar to our HQ due to their group head starting at a different office / firm.

he definitely took you question the wrong way. He probably thought you asked if the qualities are different

@OP, you clearly have a conception on how the interview went. No need to deny on the board you did poorly.

No, Classic, I don't think that was the case. As for the actual "interview," as in when he asks me questions, I personally think I did very well. In fact, I think I will get the offer by this Friday.

He thought I had good knowledge of the industry given that my past internship experience was also in PWM. The second interviewer also appreciated that I asked him a lot of questions and that I knew generally how the Private Banking business works.

Must have been tough to "generally know how the private business works."

Cultures are different, not sure about chicago v ny, but ny vs la or ny vs tx etc... The company culture per say wont be different but people's attitudes/way of doing things will be. Its inherent, otherwise we'd all be the same. Levels of service arent cultural.

First, lets not use any derogatory terms; there is a good chance that those "curries" might end up sitting right next to you and those "chinamen" might become your biggest clients...

Being a member of one of your two well-defined categories, I think it is because people from such cultures prefer a more traditional professional path such as engineering or medical. Finance has always been a stronger arena in the west and only with time will we see a greater influx of Asian/Middle Eastern cultures.

Personally, I am brown (like UPS) and was also a "superstar" eating calculus for breakfast, but...I assimilated and went against the traditions of my culture and joined banking. We might be outnumbered sir but being the only curry at a berger buffet has its advantages ;)

Also, dude, Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please.

isn't wall street filled with asians? asians in ibanking and asians in quant roles (especially quant roles!). On the Upper East Side, white people make over 90% of the residents and asians come in second after that.

You probably dont see too many of them in management/partner roles because of the race thing -- office politics plays a role in this. but they still do better than the asian guys who went to harvard law, landed a biglaw gig, then get thrown out after 5 years with 0% of EVER making partner.

Was waiting for that or shut the fuck up, Donny.

How come there aren't a lot of fatties on wall street?

Stress helps keep the weight off.

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I think the language becomes an issue. I'm in my 2nd week of b-school and at a recent BB meet and greet, asians made up a good percentage of the audience. However, only a few of them spoke proper english. There is no way you're going to get a banking job if you cant make things plural and your "l's" turn into "r's". Same with the Indians and their "w" to "v" conversion. The ones who make it sound no different on the phone than Dan Smith from white bread USA. Especially at the associate level, those doing the hiring need to think they can eventually put you in front of a client. The CEO of XYZ does not want to hear "herro" when he picks up the phone and "vwat" when you ask a question.

Our school offers "accent correction" for this very issue so I'm interested to see how many undergo a significant change.

^^^^This post reminds me of the lil asian guy singing I BERIEVE I CAN FRY at kareoke last week.

If you lack social skills and business etiquette you arent going to make MD, this applies to all ethnic groups. Plus people from China have breath that smells like a baby shitting out of a dogs ass.

Who the fuck used "Chinamen" anymore. That is a 1950's thing. It is also the weakest racial slur ever.

Didn't we establish that Gloomberg is Indian? Whats with the Asian hate going on.

There are two types of Asian people. Ones that grew up here and ones that came here from other countries. The ones that grew up here have no issues getting into banking. The ones that require sponsorship and have heavy accents find it very hard. FO investment banking doesn't need to sponsor foreign people to fill the ranks.

In addition, look at the values. Chinese, Indian, all a value sciences. Heavy math, physics, shit like that. What gets you into banking? High GPA from an Ivy school and playing LAX. You could be baby Einstein and would get passed over by prep school Duke LAX. Sorry but true. Being a good banker means knowing how to interview, make people like you and kick ass in excel. That is about it.

I had some Chinese fob from Columbia interview for an internship at my startup. I couldnt understand half the shit he said I felt so bad for the guy as he was visibly nervous.

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Except perhaps in the NY/NJ/CT area, most Asian American parents know very little about what banking is as a career. There is a lack of role models in the community. On the other hand, there are plenty of role models in medicine and they know very well what medicine is as a career. As the result, there is a tendency for the Asian American parents to push their kids into medicine. That is beginning to change though. In my former neighborhood, the only two Asian American kids who went to Harvard in recent years both got into banking, and the parents in that neighborhood began to think those two Harvard kids must know something they don't know and perhaps banking is indeed a better career option than medicine.

At least in my group, about 2/3 of incoming analysts and associates are either Indian or Chinese. So, I'm not sure what "street" the OP is talking about.

Where I notice the under-representation is at the senior levels. At least in IB, I don't notice many MD's named Chang or Patel.

^ yea you're more likely to find chang and patel MDs in the HF world

really robes? in quant roles?

"what gets you into banking? High GPA from an Ivy school and playing LAX. You could be baby Einstein and would get passed over by prep school Duke LAX. Sorry but true. Being a good banker means knowing how to interview, make people like you and kick ass in excel. That is about it."

Truest words ever spoken. Lax can be substituted for tennis, squash, and crew though. Not necessarily only Ivies ....

Yeah, any preppy sport or NCAA sport will do. I just use LAX because of my never ending frat boy wanna be regrets lol.

The incoming class for my BB is almost half Asian (very few Indians though, probably an outlier year).