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What's your nationality, if I may ask?
Apply to all three, as they all run an incredibly competitive process. At this stage, "culture" should not affect your decision making process, as you haven't even received any offers, let alone gone through any process yet.
I'm English! Just felt MS was a little cold, but not sure if that's the case accross all three of the banks and is just M&A culture in general.
I think that at the senior level you'd find more Brits in MS than in GS. MDs who run the MS O&G group are a Scot and and Irishman, for instance. No idea about JPM as I don't have any close colleagues there. Yeah yeah, the Irish aren't Brits, but they're culturally almost identical compared to continental Europeans.
I was at one of them for summer and worked on deals with both sides so here's my take:
Surprising Similarities:
Everyone is European or Indian (not British Indian, Indian Indian) outside the UK team and some MDs. No idea why. I had entire calls conducted entirely in French, and sat in on meetings conducted entirely in Hindi.
The job is exactly the same. Differences I highlight are subjective and minute at best, and biased and inaccurate at worst.
Differences
JPM
Gigantic ex-Lehman building, really beautiful lobby and lots of facilities.
Takes a lot of people. Just so many people. It's also the least meritocratic system because nobody knows how they pick who they take but it's definitely not from financial passion/knowledge/interest. Any deal you get staffed on will have 2x to 3x more manpower than any other firm.
People are generally chill and fun and out of the office relatively early. Other banks get pissed because they're significantly less anal about everything and make all kinds of mistakes in Excel or formatting, but I think thats a good thing, makes your life less painful.
JPM is all about balance sheet balance sheet balance sheet. If you're in a coverage group you spend a lot of your life doing DCM shit, which is incredibly boring but brings in good revenue for the group. It also gets you on good deals and allows you to steal client relationships.
JPER is very broad so you'll always have broker reports to use. Plus subscriptions to basically every other ER.
Colour scheme is brown. Why. Why brown.
MS
Shitty small building literally overshadowed by JPM next door, the interior is pretty bad too and looks like its from the 90s
The firm is just... really stingy. They launched an ROE improvement programme a few years back and then really went to town. They ran out of booze during the intern finale party, and they have training in London rather than NY. You also have to pay for the gym membership and your employee perks are really limited.
People seem much more stressed, nerdy and generally just tired. Its the only firm in CW from which you will see people streaming out at 4am. Reputation for being extremely anal and focussed on perfecting minute pointless details.
Dealsize and flow is amazing, but you still spend a lot of your time pitching. You'll see a lot of live deals but don't expect to do any fewer RFPs or Discussion Materials. I.e. you just work longer.
Probably the best logo, but pitchbook colour scheme and formatting is absolutely hideous.
MSER is pretty small, and its getting smaller. Also very stingy on subscriptions.
GS
Moving to an awesome new building owned by South Korea. Is not in CW so you'll have a life.
People have a strong reputation for being cutthroat and snakey. The number of stories you hear about GS from MDs at other firms is exceptional. From what I've seen, there is good reason.
GS is unsurprisingly generous. Has the best pantry and great firmwide benefits.
Dealsize and flow are not as insane as you'd expect. Lost a lot of ground to MS and JPM in recent years. Obviously still a titan, especially in specific industries.
Really nice pitchbook formatting. Not a big fan of the baby blue but at least its not brown.
Funny assessment.
Although it may be less impressive than the JPM building, the MS building is definitely nicer than the current GS one.
The most disturbing thing about the MS building is that its really not symmetrical. Check it out next time you pass by. The doorway is not in the centre of the building.
Isn't GS moving this summer?
Just out of interest, do you have any thoughts about Citi?
Can somebody expand on this for the other "good firms" (Lazard/RS/BAML/Citi)?
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