How do you get offers and not know which one to take?

I would be happy to get offers at some of the places you guys get. Where I work doesn't compare to BBs or EBs, and I'm still hoping to make a jump to a top shop doing the interesting work that goes on at these places. You guys come straight through high school, know what you want to do, and you know how to get there. Why are you all so indecisive about your offers?

It seems to me that it would be easy for me to decide where I want to work. I'd probably know while applying which banks are going to be my top three choices and, of those, which one I really have my heart set on. I'd just take the top one that I'm left holding when offers actually come through. But I see all the time on this site, people not sure about the pros and cons of the list of offers, everyone wants their choices ranked, and no one can seem to decide what's right for them between Citi, Morgan Stanley, Centerview, and fucking no name that's barely even an IB. Can someone explain this? I'm just curious.

EDIT: To be totally open here, and speak frankly, I think that it is a really stupid kind of advice to seek. You went through the process. Not just the process of the first round --->>superday. You had to get yourself through high school, get into a good school (or whatever school you went to), follow through to get the necessary resume, study for your interviews, and then perform well in all of the interviews. Why are you turning to an anonymous board to ask complete strangers, who can't even see what you're wearing (i.e. don't know a single thing about you), what job offer is right for you. Every answer on this site is totally bias and is 100% bullshit for all purposes in regards to you. It's your success, and you drive that shit. Just own it. Whatever offer you decide to take is not going to come down to a forum. Maybe it will. But it shouldn't. You're success is not going to be different if you don't ask here or if you go with what your intuition tells you.

I would think that if you want help on making your selections, your questions would be much more specific. Like, why are you turning to WSO for advice? Did you see something at MS that raised some red flags for your own expectations that you didn't see at Citi? If that is the case, are you simply unsure, and need a quick understanding of what that is? Seek out advice on specifics if you are really that worried. If not, you better realize that all of the answers on here are extremely limited and will probably be wrong for you. The idea of these offers and all of the choice that you have is so that you can make the right decision for you have vehemently decided is your choice of career after the hours that you put in.

Sorry for the rant!

 

If you're the type of person to go into a Citi interview and think to yourself "this is only sixth on my list" you probably won't get the offer. There's a lot more to consider than the name on the door. Some of these decisions students will be better suited for, like culture, while others people on WSO may be better suited to answer, such as future business prospects.

However, I do believe a lot of the posts are humble brags as Schnoozles said.

 

I also think that, quite frankly, a lot of these firms are basically indistinguishable. Having met more then a dozen people at each of Citi, CS, BAML, JPM, and Barclays (the BS banks, basically), I would say that they are all basically the same. The make up of people is much more group specific than it is bank specific, each of the banks has some group(s) that are stronger than their peers and the others at the bank, and all of them often lead with their lending and not advisory. I know what they WANT me to say makes them different, but it's all BS. The same is true for many of the EBs and the MMs.

In the end, it tends to be somewhat of a shot in the dark. Especially with the rate at which people move between banks and how those accounts often move with them. There are only a couple banks that are truly different, IMO, and if you are lucky enough to have a GS/MS/EVR offer than you should know if one of those are for you.

 

I believe these are humblebrags too. I also think that some of the problem falls on the corporate bullshit culture that banks have curated. They all say some vague little crap, with the tell nothing attitude about the bank. It's all corporate bs. I think if you care enough, you would figure out what the difference is between JPM and Barclay, for one, JPM is consistently ranked right behind MS and GS. The reason people post these topics is to figure out what the difference is. between banks. How do the interview questions never challenge a person to think about the bank and where might a good fit be for oneself? Are people that used to bullshitting by the time they get to be a freshman in college when they're preparing to interview for soph internships?

 
iBankedUp:

I believe these are humblebrags too. I also think that some of the problem falls on the corporate bullshit culture that banks have curated. They all say some vague little crap, with the tell nothing attitude about the bank. It's all corporate bs. I think if you care enough, you would figure out what the difference is between JPM and Barclay, for one, JPM is consistently ranked right behind MS and GS. The reason people post these topics is to figure out what the difference is. between banks. How do the interview questions never challenge a person to think about the bank and where might a good fit be for oneself? Are people that used to bullshitting by the time they get to be a freshman in college when they're preparing to interview for soph internships?

JPM is consistently ranked 3rd by what metric, though? League tables and 18 year olds sitting at home. Guess what? League tables don't actually matter that much to you, as an analyst or associate. That may be an unpopular opinion, but I can tell you for a fact that JPM and BAML being on AT&T-Time Warner, while it helps their league table rankings tremendously, doesn't actually matter for the associate or analyst. Why, you might ask? Because they had absolutely no role whatsoever on the deal other than to provide financing (as told to me directly by a banker who worked on it at BAML). They didn't even get the call until the specifics were agreed upon. That's true on quite a lot of the deals that BAML/JPM/Citi/etc are on. It matters for the senior people, because it gets them revenue for their personal P&L. It doesn't matter for you. Yet, you've already fallen into the "I know I would do JPM over xyz bank" simply because of things that don't differentiate your experience at a firm.

League table rankings aren't a meaningful differentiation between banks at large. The amount of advisory work a specific group you work in within the specific bank you work in is what matters, but it's basically impossible to compare that across groups and across banks. That's only made worse by the fact that most people have no idea what group they'll end up in. And the fact that group dynamics (and their clients) change quite a bit when senior people move around. Yet, again, it becomes this self fulfilling cycle of an echo chamber about how JPM or BAML>>xyz bank which, may or may not be true for your situation.

In the MM space, it's similar because most of the same MMs are at the same bake offs every time and they all win some and lose some, depending on the senior person and the resources they put into it. And at the EB level it becomes an even more group dependent issue because of the lack of built out platforms across all industries.

As far as culture goes, it is corporate BS. There is no doubt about that. It's very easy to tell what the bank wants you to think their differentiation is, but it's extremely opaque to understand what it actually is (or if there is really any difference). It's also true that group cultures, lifestyles, etc are VERY different within banks. But again, it's very hard to test that and it's next to impossible to test that across banks. Which, again, is especially problematic if you have no idea what group you'll be placed into.

In the end, the reality is that all the information we have about these banks is extremely opaque. League tables need to be taken with a grain of salt. Information about work life balance is group dependent. Culture is group dependent. And meeting a few people at a bank is in no way a real indicator of what it will be like for you, as an analyst or associate, to work in this group at this bank. You have to meet with A LOT of people, including senior people, in the group you know you'll be placed in and across the groups you are deciding against in the other firms, to really make a culture decision. And, unfortunately, hiring doesn't work that way in the industry. So people are just looking for an info they can get.

 

It's mostly what society/people on here portray it as. You can do great work at any of these firms and every single one of the BB are great places to work no matter and provide careers many years beyond the 2-3 years you might do in IBD. I'll probably get monkey shit for this but a lot of users on here are undergrad (like myself) and have little to no room to offer opinion on if the culture is better in X Bank or Y Bank.

I'd agree with the humble brag point as well. People love to mention that a top 10 BB is only "6th on their list". People are accomplishment hungry.

 

You're asking/ranting about a forum dedicated to finance, with a relative slant towards "high finance", and the propensity for its members to ask for other members opinions... it's like being mad at birds for flying. Even at a very concrete level, finance is valuation, so wouldn't it stand to reason that people would ask for other peoples "valuations" on their situation, to then weigh against their own internal valuations of said situation?

You said, you have your top three choices picked out, and would just pick the best one when all the offers come out. Ok well take a step back, since you don't work at any of the places currently, how did you even arrive at that top three list? Unless you just picked based on company colors or something arbitrary, at some point you took information from "anonymous sources" be they league tables, employee testimony, Bloom/WSJ/FT etc., or even the opinions of randoms on this/ other sites, and arrived at a neat and tidy list of who you would/wouldn't want to work for.

Everybody knows exactly what they would do with 10Million dollars... until it's actually in their hands. Then you start second guessing, questioning, even refuting old information for fear of making the wrong decision. It's the same as that but with a job offer. I think people just want some reassurance at the end of the day and this site tends to provide that.

Absolutely not trying to throw shade on the post, and I agree with you that a lot of the information on here is biased, and some of it is flat out wrong, but don't you kind of know that already? It is the internet after all.

 

Honestly sometimes it's not easy. Like two groups/firms that are both highly reputable, but equally so, and exit opps matter so you need the opinion of people who have experience with PE recruiting.

I.e. Morgan LevFin vs HLHZ restructuring. Or BAML ER vs Stifel IBD. Or even PJT IBD or Goldman IBD.

Headhunters look at certain places first - this is probably the most important thing to be sure about before accepting one of a few competing offers. You may also need the opinion of a particular industry group compared to that of another firm. And factors like culture as well.

They are not all humble-bragging and sometimes the better decision is unclear.

 

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