Just wondering why some firms literally target Canadian schools (i.e. EVR NY with Ivey, EVR Houston with McGill, Moelis NY/Goldman NY with Queens)? Why are canadian analysts so good? What do they feed them? Most of the ones I've seen already handle excel like FT analysts on their first day on the desk: I've done an internship at a bank that hired a lot of canadians.
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They don't target as much as in the past because of visa issues, but WIC (Ivey), QUIC (Queen's) and HIM (McGill) are very strong clubs/programs that basically prepare you for IB.
What makes these clubs excel above others? Curious as I'm an E-board member of a student run investment club looking to make a name for itself.
I'd say it's always going to be about alumni placement and how they perform on the job. If they do really well, banks might notice and target your program. They manage a real fund and do a lot of stock pitches. So when they get on the job, they've been working with excel and powerpoint for a year or two, have gained experience, and are already quite good on the technical side of things. Strong mentorship also helps. These aren't the traditional investment clubs that prepare you to interview for IB, instead it gives you real work experience.
Canadians are the superior race.
But really, generally, imported people will be "better" because the hiring co had to justify the additional H1B headache etc.
As an employer, are you going to go through the effort of importing someone if they aren't objectively amazing and worth the extra headache? Nah.
There's nothing that makes Canadian good bankers. On the other hand, if you are aiming to recruit the best and the brightest and are doing a significant amount of business in Canada, why would you restrict yourself to recruiting only in America.
X
Tim Horton's and maple syrup = big brain power
I've heard this come up a lot - the Canadians who end up at US banks seem to stand out against their average peer. It's nothing inherent, it's the selection process. There's fewer IB positions per applicant in Canada and for the ones who make it to US BB/EB directly out of a Canadian school, they are literally the best handful of students in the entire country.
This sounds dumb but does that mean they work harder or are more passionate about getting it done better compared to the us peers?
Probably a mix of both. If you have 200 bankers applying for one spot and you're picking him/her based on intelligence, hard work, grades, etc...the candidate you pick has a good chance of being not as good in any one or all of those categories as compared to someone picked out of a group of 400 applicants.
Never thought about it but our Canadians are great! Not sure if we have any Canadian analysts but other levels. My guess is that lightning reflexes developed through years of hockey translate pretty well to flying around the keyboard in Excel
They also blessed us with RBC
Canadian working in the United States in IB here. It's because so few American firms hire in Canada now, yet most undergrads in business programs still see working in IB in the United States as the most highly sought after job opportunity. So whenever you see a Canadian working in IB in the United States nowadays, you know that they had to compete against pretty much every single IB-interested business undergraduate student in Canada for a very small handful of IB positions. You'll often see Canadians competing to get jobs at MM firms as if they are recruiting for a GS TMT level group - because they want to get into the United States that badly.
Luckily I recruited into the United States back when work visas were easier to obtain, and you didn't have to be a savant to get a job down here. But now, only the best of the best in Canada get banking jobs in the United States.
This is starting to be an echo chamber but thought I would chime in as a male Canadian analyst in NY here. Recruit for Canadians has gotten incrementally tougher since 2016-17 or so. Right now, if you make it to a US hub, you are the cream of the crop. I think back in 2016-17, I read a stat that said around ~60 IB candidates made it to the US each year full-time across all of Canada? That number has surely shrunken to sub-20 since then. For example, Evercore NY has consistently had SA classes of 4+ from just Ivey every year with the exception of the last, where I believe only 1 candidate was successful.
Just imagine - all these undergrad business schools in every city, all gunning for the limited spots from a small # of banks that actually sponsor. Furthermore, the banks that sponsor are generally not the lower-tier BBs, or even MMs. DB/UBS/Jefferies, etc - none of them sponsor. The only banks that sponsor are banks like GS, Centerview, Evercore, etc... banks that are tier 0/1, and are difficult to penetrate, regardless of nationality.
So you have this situation where: only top groups take Canadians, and there can't be a flux of Canadians in any given recruiting class given visa exposure, and finally recent diversity practices that are honestly limiting male section.
Therefore what you're seeing now is really just selection bias. I'm sure the average Canadian banker working in Canada is not substantially different than the average American banking working in the U.S.
EVR houston targets mcgill because one of the MDs is Canadian and has a son who goes there. Literally no other reason.
Midwest nice on steroids. Super nice to your face, and then backstab you harder than anyone on the street. Makes for a perfect banker. And yes, they gave us RBC, the bank that can and will compete with GS/MS/JPM/EB for all mandates, and win.
Eh?
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