<p>What are the main differences between the different investment banks. Some of course get the best deals, but how do salaries, workloads, and perks vary across institutions?</p>
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<p>makes sense.
as i now understand it, pay is comparable at the smaller banks and there is more opportunity to learn and advance. even exit opportunities are better.
why then do people prefer sachs over, say, Houlihan Lokey or even Credit Suisse?</p>
<p>I would think they'd pass over Goldman for some KKR/Blackstone/Carlyle/SAC action. It's all about profit sharing and not just salaries.</p>
<p>tomahawk518, simple Goldman is just more prestigious, elusive, better deal flow.</p>
<p>"would think they'd pass over Goldman for some KKR/Blackstone/Carlyle/SAC action. It's all about profit sharing and not just salaries."</p>
<p>sounds like someone who is trying to sound like they know what they are talking about</p>
<p>No he makes a valid point, I'm no expert but a bigger average bonus can make up for the few thousand short in base pay. Then again how many Investment Bankers are going to make it far enough where it will make the difference?</p>
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why then do people prefer sachs over, say, Houlihan Lokey or even Credit Suisse?
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<p>Why would someone prefer to work for google over altavista? Why do people go to Harvard over their state university?</p>
<p>Goldman is tops. Goldman is known as the most prestigious; the firm that has the brightest minds with the best exit opportunities and network. What makes something better than something else is mainly constant throughout most fields and industries.</p>
<p>good input; thanks a lot guys!
here's a question tho:
i want to make it pretty deep into wall street, and i have heard that if u work at goldman, your chances for advancement are much smaller than at a smaller, less prestigious firm. due to that, i was actually thinking of working for a company like, for example, Houlihan Lokey, where I could really rise through the ranks not just be a cog in a machine. Any thoughts on this?</p>
<p>This is kind of a trade off. You can probably advance further at a smaller bank, but your network will not nearly be as good. I think if you want to get an MBA, the smaller bank may be better, because you can showcase more leadership experience. This also applies if you want to get out of banking (and into something like PE of even a hedge fund). </p>
<p>When you work at Goldman, I think you end up on the ends of the bell curve, so to speak. A lot of the top people on wall street were part of Goldman (look at Merrill's new CEO, as an example), but there are a lot of people who got scrubbed out by the very very rigorous lifestyle there too. I guess it just depends on how talented you are, and how much effort you're going to put into it.</p>
<p>It doesn't matter as an analyst. You're only going to be there a couple years. Your not looking to advance your career at the firm you will be working at. You're looking to maximize you're work experience so that you can either transition into another job or business school. After business school, if you decide that investment banking is really what you want to do then you apply again to the investment banks as a prospective associate at which point you will be looking to advance your career at that particular firm. Your ability to rise through the ranks will be more of a concern at that point, but when you're applying as a prospective analyst you should be focusing on the firms that you a) get offers at b) are the most prestigious c) have an atmosphere that works best for you C) has employees that you fit in with and that you can see working with for a couple of years.</p>
<p>If at the end of your two or three years at the bank they decide to promote you straight to associate then the fact that you chose the more prestigious (and maybe more difficult to advance through) firm will be moot because they will have shown the promise that they have in you by the promotion.</p>
<p>i kinda thought to myself that goldman would be a real gamble, which if i "lost" would turn out to be very draining. i don't want to have a horrible quality of life for the first few years, and i've heard that some firms, such as Credit Suisse and even Morgan Stanley, acomodate that much better than GS</p>