Thanks for sharing your perspectives and opinions on this, Brian. Do you think this is a big enough red flag that I should decline the offer? Given the ease of getting the offer, do you think that the ease of getting the offer may signal certain negatives about the bank / offer (e.g., hire and then fire shortly after)?

It sounds very strange, yes. Lateral recruiting is normally a more extended process. So I would probably ask for more information here first and just ask them why they didn’t have more of a recruiting process.

Hard to answer because I don’t know how serious the job security concerns are or if the other MM banks would actually be better (I imagine many banks in this size range could be having similar issues).

But, personally, I would not recommend accepting a MM lateral offer to move to another bank that’s almost the same just because there is some risk with your current job. I don’t think you’ll gain much, and if you make this move, you’ll have to stay at the new firm for another ~1 year to start interviewing for roles at other banks. Whereas you could start interviewing for those roles at larger banks right about now if you stay at your current firm. So I would probably renege on the MM lateral offer in this case.

I interviewed with a large MM bank and received a lateral analyst offer after just one ~30 minute interview with 3 members of the team (2 directors and 1 VP). For context, I do have around 1.5 years of solid, relevant experience at pretty reputable firms and this MM bank isn’t exactly top-tier (or anywhere close to that) by any means.

Given how “easy” it was to get this offer, is that a red flag? Should I decline the offer based on “how easy it was to get the offer”?

Thanks!

I’m currently an analyst at a MM bank for a bit under a year and, prior to that, I also worked at a top tier bank for under a year as well in a different role (credit risk). Back in May, I had accepted a lateral analyst offer from another MM bank that is basically in the same tier as my current MM bank and my start date is approaching shortly. However, I only accepted the MM lateral offer because I feel there is some job security risk at my current firm (team is bloated, offshoring certain responsibilities to India, senior mgt hinted at further restructuring). I wasn’t really interested in the MM lateral offer since there is virtually no upside with the lateral and honestly would have preferred my current firm (and my current higher pay) if it wasn’t for the job security risk here. My goal was always to try to wait for a UMM/BB/EB offer to come through before lateraling again (this would be my third job in basically 2 years so I want to make sure that I choose a place I would like to stick around for a while).

Given my situation, what do you think would be the best approach here? Would you advise that I renege on the MM lateral offer and stay at my current MM bank (where there is some job security concerns) until I can hopefully secure a better offer (e.g., BB, EBs, UMM)? Or do you think it would be better to not renege and go to the new MM bank and then lateral from there after like 1-2 years (when the job market hopefully would look a bit better)?

Thanks in advance!

You are taking a risk, but generally the other bank will not care that much if they don’t view your current bank as a real “competitor.” If you want to take less of a chance, you could disclose this to the EB/BB bank and state that you took the MM role because you weren’t sure of the process timing and wanted to take the offer you had rather than wait for a better one, but obviously, you prefer this other bank. So you wanted to disclose it to them before you leave the MM bank after a month.

I really don’t think the EB/BB bank will care, but the firm you just joined will be quite annoyed. However, my views on reneged offered have changed since this article was written ~15 years ago. Given that most banks don’t care much about their employees (see: all bank behavior over the past 15 years), I don’t think you should go out of your way to “stay loyal” – take the best offer you can get, and let them deal with the issues if you renege or leave early.

Hope all is well and thanks for the helpful content here! I’m kind of in a similar predicament and would love to get your views and insights on this situation.

I recently lateraled to a MM bank as a lateral analyst hire. However, just after starting in this MM bank, I just received an offer from a Bulge-Bracket/Elite Boutique level bank. I’m much more interested in being able to develop a career with the BB/EB bank as I believe it would be a better learning experience that also would come with better exit opportunities. However, given that I just started (and already registered with FINRA) at the MM bank, I know that lateraling again after less than a month on the job could be a bad look to the BB/EB bank.

My question is how likely will the EB/BB bank rescind my offer if they found out that I would have to leave a new job that I just started less than a month in for them (the BB/EB bank will likely be able to find this out given that I have registered via FINRA already)? Should I disclose this situation to the BB/EB bank or just not say anything and what do you think would be their likely response to this?

Thank you!

Is this pension fund offer a full-time job offer or an internship offer?

If it is just another summer internship, no, I would not renege on the Big 5 Canadian bank IB offer to join the pension fund. But if it is a full-time offer in PE at the pension fund, yes, it might make sense to renege in this situation since you can skip IB and get to the end goal more quickly.

And yes, the Big 5 bank would care and might rescind or cancel your winter internship if you do this, which is why it’s not really worth it unless it’s a full-time role.

I would not normally recommend reneging in this situation, but if you’re 100% confident you want to do ER instead of markets, sure, you can. Your bank will likely find out and be upset, but that happens whenever you renege on offers.