Wall Street hiring spree puts junior bankers in driving seat
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8/6/2021 Wall Street hiring spree puts junior bankers in driving seat, Banking & Finance - THE BUSINESS TIMES
Wall Street hiring spree puts junior bankers in
driving seat
Banks are handing out raises, paying for vacations and enforcing curfews to prevent
defections or even revolts
MON, MAY 03, 2021 - 5:50 AM | UPDATED MON, MAY 03, 2021 - 5:50 AM
Pandemic lockdowns have brought a new set of challenges as the work-from-home experience failed to
measure up to the expectations of post-college life on Wall Street. PHOTO: AFP
New York
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8/6/2021 Wall Street hiring spree puts junior bankers in driving seat, Banking & Finance - THE BUSINESS TIMES
TWENTY-SOMETHINGS dreaming of Excel all-nighters are facing their best prospects in
years.
HSBC this week became the latest global investment bank pledging to hire a flock of junior
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bankers to help analysts and associates avoid burnout amid an avalanche of deals.
JPMorgan said last week it plans to add almost 200 staff, joining Goldman Sachs and
Jefferies in bolstering their ranks.
Banks have tried handing out raises, paying for vacations and enforcing curfews to try to
prevent defections or even revolts as active markets and the work-from-home grind
weighed on the bottom of their corporate pyramids. Now, many firms are coming to the
conclusion that, with no let up on deals, the best fix is more bodies.
"We have not seen this level of demand for investment bankers since pre-2008," Anthony
Keizner, a managing partner at the recruiting firm Odyssey Search Partners, said in an
interview. "People are being brought in because pitch books need to be produced, deals
need to be worked on and there just isn't the staffing at the banks that are able to do
that."
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8/6/2021 Wall Street hiring spree puts junior bankers in driving seat, Banking & Finance - THE BUSINESS TIMES
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Along with an increased focus on hiring, banks are desperate to hold on to the workers
they already have. HSBC is speeding up some promotions and boosting fixed pay for
young dealmakers. Others, including Credit Suisse and Wells Fargo, are giving some of
their junior employees one-time US$20,000 bonuses. Houlihan Lokey offered some
workers an all-expenses-paid vacation.
"This reminds me of the dot.com days," said Joseph Leung, founder and managing partner
of London-based banking recruitment firm Aubreck Leung. Back then, Mr Leung said,
potential new recruits were being lured away to tech startups by Ping-Pong tables, Aeron
chairs, free lunches, and business-casual Fridays and summers. "Fast-forward 20 years
and now banks need to take it up a notch or two."
Raymond James Financial told bankers this week it would pay them US$20,000 bonuses
now and an additional US$10,000 bonus in December as a retention offer, according to a
spokesperson. The firm is also debuting an initiative to come up with a long-term plan to
change the investment banking work environment.
Concerns that young bankers are being overworked are not new. Many firms have enacted
policies or strengthened existing ones over the past decade to try to ensure employees get
a break. In some of the most extreme cases, worker suicides have spurred the companies
to act.
But pandemic lockdowns have brought a new set of challenges as the work-from-home
experience failed to measure up to the expectations of post-college life on Wall Street.
Workers stuck at home over the past year have spent endless hours in front of computers
handling requests from higher-ups to fine-tune Excel models or slide presentations as deal
volume soared.
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8/6/2021 Wall Street hiring spree puts junior bankers in driving seat, Banking & Finance - THE BUSINESS TIMES
Meanwhile, the things that make the early years of the job worth it - face time with
executives, camaraderie with fellow junior workers staying at the office into the wee hours,
the bustle of city life - are virtually nonexistent.
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There are 1,342 openings for investment banking analysts in New York and an additional
639 slots for associates, according to job listings compiled by LinkedIn. In London, such
openings total 1,214 and Hong Kong has 588, the data show.
"There's no question that hiring at the junior level is way up. It ebbs and flows from year to
year - either it's a candidate-rich market or there's more jobs," Russ Rybinski, chief
executive officer of the recruiting firm Rybinski Capital Partners, said in an interview. "Right
now, we're pulling our hair out trying to fill all the searches at the junior levels. It's actually
a little bit more difficult than recruiting the senior people."
That is not to say grabbing one of the jobs is suddenly a sure thing. Goldman Sachs
executives have long said they get more than 30 applicants for every opening, and Wall
Street firms often have lower acceptance rates than Ivy League universities.
But the world's biggest banks are getting desperate. Many have already raided talent from
boutique investment banks and smaller regional competitors. Now they are considering
applicants from consultancies or even large global accounting firms.
"If you don't have a traditional background and you didn't do a summer internship in your
senior year at an investment bank - which the majority of junior bankers in recent years
have done - there's probably no better time to try to join, because there are seats being
opened," Odyssey's Mr Keizner said.
"Now, whether that seat is a seat you're comfortable in is a separate question."
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