Overview
Introduction
Greenhill is a leading M&A advisory firm that cares about giving its interns a strong learning experience. Interns work on live deals alongside clients and senior bankers. Full-time junior bankers work on lean deal teams, getting extraordinary responsibility and close interaction with senior bankers. At Greenhill, the people are polite, kind, helpful, and supportive.
Company Stats
Employer Type
Public
Size
101-500 Employees
Featured Rankings
Vault Banking 25
Major Office Locations
Chicago, IL
Employment Contact
Halley Geringer
Firsthand Findings
Greenhill is looking for smart, industrious, proactive, ethical, and candidates who are technically willing to learn, and ready to take on a lot of responsibility. The firm runs a highly valuable internship program, offering students live deal experience and a good mix of social events, introductions to senior bankers, and mentorship. Full-time junior bankers get a very high level of responsibility while working on lean deal times alongside senior bankers. Juniors get to attend client meetings and have access to mentors.
While hours can be long and demanding, given the lean deal teams, there is no face time, and the relationships between seniors and juniors are very healthy. Compensation, meanwhile, could be improved. While it is very competitive at the analyst l...
About the Company
Greenhill calls itself “a unique investment banking firm,” and to be sure, it follows a model quite unlike the structure of its behemoth competitors. At Greenhill, independence is the guiding philosophy; because it’s not part of a larger financial institution, the firm avoids the conflicts of interest inherent in those firms. Greenhill’s second rule is focus. It has no research, trading, or lending divisions to distract from its advisory work, which includes mergers, acquisitions, restructurings, financings, capital raisings, and secondary fund investment sales.
The firm is a relatively young one by Wall Street standards: about 26 years old. In 1996, Robert F. Greenhill, former head of Smith Barney and former president of Morgan Stanley, struck out on his own and founded an eponymous boutique firm. He led ...
Employee Reviews
- “Super lean firm and teams means a lot of responsibility placed on analysts and great experience but also tough work/life balance. That said, there is VERY little bureaucracy relative to other boutiques and especially BBs. Compared to my peers in IBD, I do a lot less pitching, more valuable and interesting work, and have better work/life balance. One negative aspect is a lot of weekend work—no structures in place to protect against that. A lot of internal turning/iterations on weekends unnecessarily.”
- “I think Greenhill does a nice job working to create an active and inclusive culture at the firm. I think people across career levels are very comfortable co-mingling, and a lot of the interactions I see are very friendly and colloquial. That said, the hours tend to run long and bleed into work/life balance. There is little separation between personal time and work time, so people lose out on the opportunity to pursue other things outside of work.”
- “Greenhill is probably the best reputable investment bank from a quality of life standpoint. Senior bankers actively encourage juniors to take time off, people frequently push work away from weekends and late nights, and the firm has good policies to protect junior bankers. Banking is still hard work, but Greenhill makes it as smooth as possible.”
- “Hardworking culture with no expectation for face time. Healthy relationships between senior management and junior team.”
Getting Hired Here
- “The analyst process consists of a fairly rigorous first-round technical interview, with harder questions that require understanding beyond just memorizing the standard questions. Then there is a Super Day with more senior bankers, which consists of a mix of behavioral and technical questions. The ideal candidate is technically sharp and intelligent, has the ability to work independently within smaller deal teams and take on lots of responsibility, and has a strong demonstrated interest in Greenhill. It's also important that a candidate demonstrate a strong cultural fit through the interview process.”
- “Recruiting is fairly low-touch. For MBA recruiting, we typically do a corporate presentation, which is open to any interested candidate, followed by a resume-screened coffee chat, than by an invite-only event, which rolls into a first-round interview and subsequently a Super Day (multiple interviews). Looking for candidates who appreciate Greenhill's unique advisory-only focus and are able to articulate ‘Why Greenhill?’ We also try to find thoughtful candidates who will both be able to contribute fairly early-on who are also agreeable and pleasant to be around. We have small classes so technically proficiency and cultural fit are both very important.”
- “Interview process is very formal and punctual; we are acutely cognizant of our prospective candidates’ time and that shines through. Ideal candidate is smart, incisive, industrious, proactive, ethical, and humble.”
- “Ideal candidate is mature, intellectual, well-rounded, enthusiastic, willing to learn, and ready to take on responsibility and punch above their weight.”
