Are boutiques better than Bulge Brackets?

After only a year at BigBank, you receive a mysterious phone call from your headhunter. He found a unique and challenging opportunity for people of your caliber. If you accept this offer at Little Boutique, not only will the hours be much better, but you'll get to work directly with the MDs and get direct financial lessons from the big guns! Your salary will increase, and you'll get the chance to be part of an growing, entrepreneurial environment that promises your a better learning experience and no more associates. You are finally recognised for your own abilities, you think to yourself, and you'll finally get to show the world what a superstar analyst you really are with more sleep.

Well, before your resign, think again.

Higher Salary often equals crappy bonus. Smaller place = smaller deals = smaller fees = smaller bonuses.

There is absolutely NO chance that a boutique analyst would get a better bonus than a Bulge Bracket analyst. And it doesn't get better. Its simple, most of the investment banking "talent" is drawn by big banks a reason. And its not because they have gyms and their own Starbucks in the basement, its because they pay better.

Better working hours means: nothing's happening in this place.

This means no deals or small deals, which means that your CV will will be totally destroyed within a year, and there'll be no way out of this. No deals, no bonuses - see above.

Growing environment means: nothing's happening in this place, and this is not going to change for a while.

Of course Little Boutique's growing, it is small. Is there any other direction but up when you are at the bottom?

No associates: you're now the only scapegoat.

You'll get blamed when the binding machine doesnt work because Little Boutique doesnt have printer guys to do that for you. You'll get shouted at when you mess up the model because they don't have Datastream but only one Bloomberg for 20 people. You're getting bullied because you have no clue what an associate should do. You start to miss your associate at BigBank.

Better learning experience often means that the team is incompetent

MDs don't know how to use excel, they can't add numbers, and you quickly realise that they are the Clowns of the financial world. You now fear going to meetings because clients laugh at your ideas, and all the deals that the team promised fail to materialise. You start to understand how it feels like to be in a looser environment.

Conclusion: you have now been ostracized by your Bulge Bracket friends, your CV is in a mess, headhunters won't call you back, and everybody in Little Boutique hates you because you're doing so badly. The grass is not greener on the other side...