Vault’s Verdict

Minneapolis-based Piper Sandler is looking for self-starters who will fit with the firm, rather than someone who is extremely technically adept. And the firm will hire candidates who are a good match, regardless of which school they attended. For students, Piper Sandler offers a good internship program where interns will get to work alongside senior bankers and clients, gaining live deal experience. As for the firm’s corporate culture, it is said to be one of the best parts about working at Piper Sandler. The Midwest culture is collegial, entrepreneurial, challenging, and allows juniors, for the most part, to experience a good work/life balance. In fact, senior bankers are generally very understanding of personal commitments and try to be flexible when possible (as long as juniors hit their deadlines). Piper Sandler also supports bankers moving laterally within the firm. Compensation and benefits, meanwhile, receive less than average ratings. Compensation is nothing special, if not at, or nearly at Street average, while perks and benefits could use improvement—insiders complain that some perks have recently been taken away. With respect to diversity hiring practices, the firm attempts to be inclusive but its workforce is not terribly diverse. As for business outlook, the firm gets less-than-stellar reviews. Although some insiders believe Piper Sandler is uniquely positioned in the middle market and is more nimble than bulge bracket peers, others find the firm’s leadership to lack direction, employee morale to be low, and the firm to have fallen behind its mid-market peers.

Note: The firm did not participate in our 2019 Banking Survey; all comments are from our surveys in previous years.

Hiring Process

• “Our interview process for analysts and associates typically consists of two to three rounds, including a final Super Day interview. We look for self-starters that can take directions when necessary. We look for personable people that can be professional in their interactions with our clients.”
• “For equity research, we prefer candidates with two or three years experience in equity research at another firm. These people can typically hit the ground running and don’t require a lot of training.”
• “Ideal candidate is someone who fits with the firm culture. We are more focused on finding the right fit than someone who answers the technical questions correctly.”
• “Piper is not afraid to hire people with the right skills, regardless of school affiliation.”

Interview Questions

• “Questions include: Why investment banking? Explain various valuation methods. Why PJC?”
• “Typical valuation questions, brainteasers, out-of-the box valuation questions (valuing a football team or favorite athlete), accounting questions, corporate finance questions.”

Intern Experience

• “The best aspect of my internship was the access to senior bankers and clients. The internship was structured so that I learned about all functions of the firm and interacted on a personal and professional level with employees at all levels. Worst aspect of my internship was the lagging market. I interned shortly after the financial crisis so the markets were slow and there was generally less deal work.”
• “I worked in investment banking department during my internship. I worked closely with senior bankers and got live-deal experience. Projects were indicative of what a full-time analyst would experience (I didn’t get some false impression of what an investment banking analyst does). However, access to some of the best information and data sources was limited.”
• “I was given as much responsibility as I wanted and showed I could handle.”
• “As an intern, high expectations are placed upon you and you’re given significant responsibility. You get the opportunity to get a feel for all aspects of the job. Other positives are working with the other analysts in the office and understanding logistics and how business is conducted. Worst parts of the job are long hours and expectation of a quick learning curve.”

Career Development

• “I chose this firm because it has an ideal mix of deal work. We work on sell-side and buy-side M&A, public and private equity offerings, restructurings, debt offerings, etc. There are few places you can work that give you such broad exposure to deals and deal structures. Also, the exposure to clients and senior bankers is invaluable to your career development.”
• “The firm is focused on retaining top quality individuals and is open to internal lateral movements. The firm is flexible in terms of direct promotion or transfers between departments. The firm seems less flexible when it comes to eliminating lagging performers and seems to wait until a larger layoff is necessary to trim the fat.”
• “Management is extremely underwhelming and there appears to be no overarching plan for the department and development of young talent. Seems like on every department call, a new strategy is being tested. I believe that historically the firm has taken the view that their worker pool is less transitory than its competitors, given the limited opportunity set in Minneapolis. However, this does not apply as broadly for the juniors, and the firm loses a lot of talented employees that it will have to pay up to recruit back from a competitor, or else it will have to hire a more expensive external candidate.”
• “Piper often proactively asks its bankers if they have desires to move laterally to other groups internally. In most cases, it’s probably in the best interests of the individual because their skills are better matched for a different group/division internally. I don't know any other firm on the Street that gives its young professionals as much responsibility and room to grow.”

Quality of Life

• “Midwest culture leads senior bankers to be more understanding of personal commitments. They try to be flexible where possible in terms of when you do your work on the weekends so long as it is completed by the team’s deadline (that is, there is less of the ASAP mentality). Though, similar to the rest of the industry, the hours are unpredictable. Senior bankers fail to share some timing expectations with junior bankers, which can lead to unexpectedly tight timelines and personal sacrifices. Senior bankers also tend to unnecessarily over-promise to clients, creating unnecessarily short time frames.”
• “Great work/life balance for investment banking! I work with nice people who I enjoy spending time with at work, and I still have time to have a social life outside of the office. Of course, in banking I am always on call. There is enough flexibility to work from home at night and on weekends. I travel a decent amount and have a high level of client interaction.”
• “Limited face time, good group of people, good work/lifestyle balance, and good pay. But you have to take the initiative to learn and develop for good exit opportunities.”
• “I don’t feel as if there is competition amongst analysts and associates. But senior bankers often don’t care about analysts’ work/life balance and are not always considerate of time constraints outside of work.”

Salary and Benefits

• “Relatively high base salary relative to bonus. Decent meal allowance. But I don’t like that the 401(k) match is paid in company stock. Transparency into the bonus calculation could be improved, but I know this is tough.”
• “Pays a discount to the Street average. There’s little variance between top and bottom performers (within group and across firm) for analysts and associates.”
• “Our gym reimbursement was recently taken away as a perk. I believe this was the wrong thing to do, as it has been proven that employees that exercise should be healthier and happier and in the end will be better employees.”
• “Our firm has minimal perks for non-exempt employees. The only perks I have are a discount of $20 for the YMCA, 401(k), and my vacation. I don’t use company insurance. I would like to see casual dress policy.”

Diversity, Philanthropy, and Green Initiatives

• “Piper Jaffray participates and encourages employees to participate in community service activities in the markets in which it conducts business. I have really enjoyed the opportunity to get involved in these charity organizations and events and I enjoy working for a company that is devoted to the community. Piper Jaffray, like many investment banks, does not have much diversity in its personnel, but has initiatives to hire and keep more minorities and women.”
• “There is a strong program aimed at bringing women and minorities into banking which took place over college students’ winter vacations. That program was eliminated this year, which I think was too bad. It should be reinstated.” The program took a year off based on timing in 2012, but the firm feels very strongly about this program and looks forward to continuing in 2013.”
• “The firm attempts to be inclusive and consider diversity. However, rather than promote professional hardworking women, I feel they attempt to promote work/life balance, which is just not possible in the industry we work in.”

Business Outlook

• “Employee morale is reasonably weak on some industry teams currently. Significant turnover recently, and there are concerns that senior leadership won’t make wise decisions in the promotions or new hires that are made to fill the voids. Piper is conservative by nature, so at times we operate at a disadvantage relative to our competitors. However, we also aren’t a large corporate lender or operate with a heavy debt load and, in turn, are more suited to ride out market turmoil than some of our peers (as we did during ‘08 and ‘09). We have plenty of ex-bulge bracket bankers that come to Piper for that very reason.”
• “I feel like we have very little direction. The firm seems to skate where the puck is, rather than where it is going. It feels as if the firm is falling behind relative to other competitors in the mid market that have grown organically or through M&A. Seems to be a fair bit of turnover. I would say employee morale is okay, but not great.”
• “Our exposure to trading activities has negatively impacted our business and will take time to rebuild. But the diversity of the products and services we offer our clients, including exposure to the markets and access to public capital, set us apart from our middle market competitors. Also, the lack of corruption and internal restructuring sets us apart from our bulge bracket competitors.”