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Lazard’s Not So Quiet Signal: Why Senior Bankers Everywhere Should Be Paying Attention
Lazard just did something that's easy to read the wrong way. Read as a standalone story, an 80-plus managing director reduction alongside a 91% drop in quarterly net income looks like trouble. Read in context — a record dealmaking market, a firm mid-turnaround, and a...
Every Exit Has a Story: Navigating RIFs, Voluntary Departures, and Terminations in Investment Banking
In investment banking, almost nobody leaves a seat cleanly. There's a reorg, a desk gets consolidated, a staffing model changes, a relationship sours, or performance falls short of an increasingly moving bar. Whatever actually happened, what matters to the next...
The Class of 2029 Investment Banking Recruiting Guide: Bank-by-Bank Timelines, Deadlines, and Strategy for Summer 2028 Internships
A Prospect Rock Partners Guide — Updated July 2026 If you are entering your sophomore year in fall 2026 and graduating in 2029, your junior summer internship — Summer 2028 — will be decided far sooner than you think. The single most damaging misconception in...
What’s the Big Deal About Having Closed M&A Deals?
If you spend any time in the investment banking lateral market, you'll notice that nearly every mandate reads the same way: "must have 3+ closed M&A deals," "demonstrated public-to-public execution required," "sponsor-backed deal reps strongly preferred." The...
What Elite Boutiques Actually Want in This Market — and When You Can Cross the Tier Line
If you've been trying to lateral to an elite boutique and the process feels harder than your resume suggests it should be, you're not imagining it — and it's usually not about you in the way it can feel. The screen these shops run is specific, and it's specific for...
Why Wall Street’s Summer Recruiting Slowdown May Take This Summer Off
Investment banking's summer lateral slowdown has been as dependable as the bonus cycle itself. In 2026 it isn't arriving on schedule — and an unbroken summer is already changing what shows up in offers. Every recruiter who has spent enough time in investment banking...
JPMorgan First to Deploy AI Bank-Wide as Wall Street Braces for Biggest Workforce Shift
The End of the Suffering Premium: AI, Hours, and the Future of the Banking Bonus
Why AI will make investment bankers more efficient — not redundant — and what that means for how they get paid Introduction: A Philosophy Built in the MIT AI Lab Dave Blundin is a serial entrepreneur, MIT-trained artificial intelligence pioneer, and the Founder and...
Investment Banking Lateral Market Update: Offer Terms, Compensation Structures, and What It Actually Takes to Get Hired Right Now.
The following reflects current conditions in the investment banking lateral market as observed through active search mandates, candidate conversations, and offer negotiations across bulge bracket, elite boutique, and middle market platforms. This update covers the AS1...
How Investment Banking Lost Its Perks — and Why the Next Recovery May Not Bring Them Back
Investment banks are having a good run. Revenues are strong, bonuses are up, and deal flow is recovering. Junior bankers' benefits have been stripped back anyway — and the conditions that might once have forced their return look structurally weaker than before....
Why the Lateral MD Hiring Spree Is Your Promotion Problem
The headlines this winter looked like good news for anyone waiting on a promotion. Goldman Sachs named 638 new managing directors in November — the biggest class since 2021. JPMorgan promoted 227 in its commercial and investment bank in April 2025, the largest CIB...
Pigeonholed, Pivoting, or Stuck? A Banker’s Playbook for Switching Groups Inside Investment Banking
A VP2 in FIG at a bulge bracket calls me. Forty billion in deal volume on his sheet. Stacked resume. Top school, top group, top bank. He wants to move to generalist M&A at a peer shop. He can't get a callback. Not from the banks. Not from the headhunters who were...