The bulge brackets are the largest investment banks in the world. They do everything: M&A advice, raising equity and debt, sales and trading, research, wealth management. When students say "investment banking", these are usually the firms they mean.
Which banks count
- Goldman Sachs
- J.P. Morgan
- Morgan Stanley
- Bank of America
- Citi
- Barclays
- UBS
- Deutsche Bank, which some lists include and some don't
- Credit Suisse, now part of UBS
The first five are American and the core of every list. Barclays, UBS and Deutsche Bank are the big European names, and in London they recruit full analyst classes alongside the US banks.
Bulge bracket or elite boutique?
This is the question I get asked most. My honest view, from my own guide:
Why choose a bulge bracket
- A deep, wide alumni network.
- Bigger deals on average.
- A bigger intern and graduate class, so it's more social.
- Easier to move to another division if you find you don't like M&A.
- More chance to specialise in an industry.
- Better known outside finance, so more exit options into companies, startups and government.
Why choose an elite boutique
- More interesting deal work and more responsibility, because teams are smaller.
- More time on live deals, less on pitching.
- Often a better culture. The hours are still bad, but you're more likely to be treated like a person.
- Strong exits into private equity and hedge funds.
- Higher bonuses, if that's your main reason. I'd still not lead with it.
In London, the bulge brackets still dominate on volume, and elite boutiques carry more prestige in New York than here.
What the CV needs
The bulge brackets screen huge numbers of applications, a lot of them by software before a person sees them. So:
- A clean, one-page layout that parses. No tables, columns or text boxes.
- Anchors in the first eight seconds: university, predicted grade, bank or firm names, job titles, numbers.
- Interest in finance on the page, especially if your degree isn't finance or economics.
- Apply the week applications open. Spring weeks and summer internships are mostly filled on a rolling basis.
The spring week matters more than anything else here. Most graduate hires come from the summer class, and a large share of the summer class comes from spring interns. Even if you don't love the bank, a bulge bracket name on your CV helps you pass screens later.