How selective are BB’s really?
Hey guys there’s always a lot of hype surrounding how selective or “elite” investment banking at certain firms are, particularly top BB’s (MS/JPM/GS) in NYC. I was wondering if anyone knew if there’s any substance to these regards in regards to acceptance rates for SA or FT roles at these firms, or if they really warrant the hype surrounding them?
Also, from first and secondhand sources it seems like these firms don’t even pay more than upper MM or lower BB banks? Does anyone have any information regarding differences in bonuses/base salary if any even exist?
To answer your question about selectivity, if you’re looking at it nominally, the acceptance rates for top BBs definitely doesn’t exceed 2-3%. The real mystique (at least in my opinion) of these firms, though, comes from the fact that they pull nearly all their SAs from target schools. If you don’t go to one, your chances are absolutely minuscule.
The majority of people going into IB are looking for exit opps, not a marginally small difference in compensation in the first two years out of undergrad
I don't know what this post is trying to convey. They're the best banks you can work at in investment banking prestige-wise and exit opp-wise (even pay-wise in some cases like Qatalyst).
If you're trying to justify why it's ok to be at Citi because Goldman isn't special in any way, then go on living in your imaginary world. Whatever makes you happy. Ultimately, it's all about happiness and how satisfied you are with your life. I can show you 100 people who make
They are insanely selective. Someone quoted a 2-3% number, but I would wager it's actually a lot lower. At my target school, I know at least 200 people that applied to GS and 4-5 got IB offers, which is 2% at a target school. I don't even want to think of what their acceptance rate is at a big non-target.
What's even crazier to me is the quality of the candidate. I know countless people at my school, which is a pretty serious target for Goldman, with 4.0 GPAs, great internship experience, and either solid networking and/or connections that got rejected, some even without an interview. The caliber of people that get those jobs is insane.
It’s not that amazing. There are plenty of people from schools like Babson and other weird ass schools at GS. I’ve hired my share of GS associates to the buyside, some were exceptional, others fell well below the top bucket folks we have picked up from Citi elsewhere.
Seeing how difficult people are saying it is to get into GS/MS/JPM relative to a couple other banks is honestly deceiving.
I have friends that get got dinged at GS, JPM or RBC and got EVR. I even know someone that got dinged at GS and MS but still got the Silver Lake role. The top candidate for GS is not necessarily the same as for other firms because some people are a natural fit for GS whereas others are for MF PE analyst and EB roles. So some people may have a 50% chance of getting a GS offer but have no chance of getting a EVR/PJT offer and vice versa given their network, fit and technical background.
The idea is to tailor your interview responses and mindset to each different firm and person you're interviewing with because only the best candidates at a superday get the offer and this can increase your odds. And hopefully this "best candidate" overlaps with the best person you can sell in the interview.
TLDR: Acceptance rates are deceiving and every bank on the street is competitive in their own way, regardless of brand, and you need to adjust to each one.
This is so true. EBs are actually even more competitive on paper because of the small class size (have seen the app numbers for EVR/PJT/CVP and it's
How good is EVR PCA?
Super important point. There's a lot of randomness when it comes to giving out job offers at the analyst/associate level. The hiring process starts with the resume screen (high GPA, target school, referrals etc.), then a behavioral/technical screen (Is this person "smart" enough to do the job and also not a freak). Once a candidate checks all of those boxes, you're usually left with 3-4 candidates that can fill 1 spot...ultimately the bankers will choose whomever they liked the most.
Drawing from my own superday experience (6 years ago) - I nailed all the technicals/behaviorals, but ended up getting lucky because all of the bankers I interviewed with happened to be in RX; I had worked in credit during an internship thus I could talk shop about cap structure, debt, bankruptcy etc. Had I not interviewed with RX folk, it could've gone a whole other direction! Luck plays a big role, don't feel rejected if you don't get an offer. Keep pushing, it's a numbers game at the end of the day.
Getting 1 specific BB is very hard.
Applying to all and getting at least 1 offer is doable. There are so many unqualified people applying(less than 3.5 GPA, no finance experience, awful school, no networking, poorly formatted resume), that if you put in the work you will eventually find a spot.
So 3.5 is the cutoff?
If you have sub 3.5 you better be HYPWS or have an amazing resume - that's it.
If I had to, I would say they are more selective than a Target Store Management internship.
Really!? damn I had thought Target ran a tight ship and acceptance rates were similar
Well first of all if you're trying to judge the selectivity of anything, acceptance rates are going to be misleading because only those who feel they have a shot will apply. So Harvard's acceptance rate is 5% but many people don't bother applying because they didn't feel they have a shot.
Best way I know of to judge selectivity is to look at the quality of people who end up there, with 'quality' defined roughly as their ability to get other jobs. For these top BBs, the quality is usually quite high.
The banks all pay about the same, but the advantage of being at a 'better' bank is that it can be a stronger launching pad to the next step of your career. It might get more looks from PE shops, have a more reliable learning experience, etc. I also think there's real benefit to being surrounded by higher caliber people.
This isn't entirely true. I know many friends who threw in an app to Harvard/MIT just for the fun of it "just in case".
All I said was that many don't apply because they have no shot.
When you think about it, acceptance rates are really pretty dumb for most things (including college) because its highly debatable when the applicant pool begins.
For example, what's the acceptance rate into the NBA? You could says its 60% because on draft day, there's about 100 guys who hope to get drafted and about 60 get drafted.
Or you could look at the pool of Division 1 basketball players. About 1,000 of them leave college every year, and every one of them would love to play in the NBA. Only 60 get drafted, so now your acceptance rate is 6%.
But wait . . wouldn't every high school player also love to go to a D1 college and then go on to the NBA? I would argue they're all applicants too, because they'd take the NBA over any other job. So now you've got over 50,000 high school players in each class, with only 60 of them eventually (2-4 years later) getting drafted into the NBA. Now you're under 0.1%.
I'd say the true rate is even lower than that, because many NBA hopefuls, like yours truly, discovered in 9th grade that they're not even high school varsity material.
Same for college. People get "rejected" from elite schools at different stages in life. For Harvard, the NBA, and most other competitive things, a better way to figure out how tough it is is to take a good look at who made it. Rates have the illusion of being objective but are actually quite subjective
Pretty fucking selective
Not about IB, I recently spoke with an owner of a HFT firm, he said that top HFT firm in London receives 1000 application per 1 position, selection process involves 10+ rounds of interviews. So, yeah, it's a game where you will most likely loose.
Especially if you can't spell lose correctly
i'm russian
Has the OP ever read any investment banking interviewing post on WSO. or just broadly searched on Google? This post is taking up space.
Then don't continue to "take up" everyone else's space by eliciting a comment to bump this post. It's a forum to ask questions; not everyone came out of the womb knowing about what the top firms on the Street are or what difference it makes.
Agree OP could've been more thorough and browsed through WSO on their own time, but you don't have to degrade others or their questions just because you feel as though you're coming from a position of having more information.
out of undergrad, extremely selective
out of mba, meh
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