If you're looking to become a broker with them, good luck, they don't post their positions publicly, it's more about who you know.  I know a few guys who came from Lehman, and they were recruited to Lehman because they already had huge books at their previous firm and are well connected to lots of old money.  A friend was offered a position at Goldman, but it was only because he happened to meet the branch manager at a social event, and he happens to know a lot of old money. 

On the analyst/investment banking side, many of those hires are from college recruiting.  Several of my friends work in that capacity and were recruited on campus; they're all Ivy League though.

[quote=xbanker]Does anyone know if any of the white shoe places use outside recruiters or almost all exclusively inside web and college recruiting? No luck with these firms in sales capacity and have avoided the sales assistant level roles typically posted online. [/quote]

bear hires cold callers and brokers.

Yes, Goldman uses outside recruiters.  At least, I have a split agreement with a lady who has a contract.  I’ve personally never made a placement with them, though.

They are only looking for UHNW wealth management types looking to move very, very large books.  I usually reserve those rare finds for my regular clients.

Thanks for the response Jeff. Perhaps you can respond in a diplomatic way: Why do the white shoe firms (primarily Lehman and Goldman) have so few huge prodcers? If I remember correctly there was no one from either firm on the Barrons top 100. The big 5 wires seemed to have the majority, but then again they have many more advisors (16000 or so at Merrill vs probably a tenth of that ((guessing)) at Goldman or Lehman?) At that point in your career is the branding really needed that badly?

Rich Saperstein---Bear Stearns (#10)

Shelley Bergman---Bear Stearns (#36)

Yes, I meant Lehman and Goldman. Doesn’t Bear have a fairly small number of brokers in general? I’ve heard under 1000. 

[quote=xbanker]Thanks for the response Jeff. Perhaps you
can respond in a diplomatic way: Why do the white shoe firms
(primarily Lehman and Goldman) have so few huge prodcers? [/quote]



Because it’s more profitable to do underwriting and other investment
banking things than to have a gaggle of brokers chasing after AUM.



The PWM platform is an RIA, and it provides a direct tap into the
investment bank’s asset management platform. Hence relativly few
brokers handling assets.

[quote=xbanker]Thanks for the response Jeff. Perhaps you can respond in a diplomatic way: Why do the white shoe firms (primarily Lehman and Goldman) have so few huge prodcers? If I remember correctly there was no one from either firm on the Barrons top 100. The big 5 wires seemed to have the majority, but then again they have many more advisors (16000 or so at Merrill vs probably a tenth of that ((guessing)) at Goldman or Lehman?) At that point in your career is the branding really needed that badly? [/quote]

Once again, I don’t deal directly with these firms so I’m just guessing in general here. 

Perhaps the reason is the way they count production within a team.  Lots of producers are in very balanced teams, so production is spread out among several individuals.


The simplest way to explain the complete absence of a firm from the
list is that they may choose not to participate.  If I had to guess I’d
say that certain firms decline to participate simply because they want
to maintain their image as separate from the “mass affluent” part of
the industry.


It’s also possible that firms or individual producers may decline to participate out of concerns for client privacy.  Sometimes a producer’s book is dominated by a single family, making it possible to reverse-engineer a client’s net worth from the advisor’s AUM.  Other producers prefer that their clients not know how small their account is in relation to the overall AUM.