A very slight sign that junior banker hiring might be coming back
2023 has not been a good time to be a junior banker looking for a new job. Nor is this month proving to be a good time to be an investment banking analyst getting a bonus.
And yet, there are signs of life in the associate hiring market.
Those signs are, however, mostly at Deutsche Bank - which is on a mission to add senior bankers in preparation for an expected resurgence in deals in 2024. Deutsche is seemingly stocking up on juniors to accompany the 50 managing directors and directors it's hired so far this year.
DB has hired several associates externally in the past few months. Deutsche isn't commenting, and in a bank that has nearly 4,400 people in the front office, it might just be a question of replacement hires. Nonetheless, while other banks are cutting junior bankers and leaving gaps unfilled, Deutsche's continued recruitment is worth noting.
The German bank's new junior recruits include the likes of Michael Stocker in London from Morgan Stanley, Garth Arnz in London from PWC, and or Pranali Dalvi from BMO Capital Markets and Andrew Ma from Truist in New York.
Deutsche seems to be hiring directly, and among the big banks it's the only one. Recruiters we spoke to in London said beyond the boutiques hiring is still pretty dead. "It's picking up, but slowly," said one London recruiter who asked to remain off the record and professed astonishment at Deutsche Bank's activity. In New York, Meredith Fiedler Dennes at Prospect Rock Partners, said people are leaving rather than joining banks and that fewer analysts are being promoted to associate than in previous years.
Away from Deutsche Bank, most of the associate hiring this year involves adding MBAs from banks' favorite schools, including Wharton, Columbia, Cornell and Duke.
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