What Is a Lateral Hire?
A lateral hire is someone joining a bank from a comparable role elsewhere: an analyst moving from a middle market bank to a bulge bracket, or a Big Four transaction services professional moving into banking. The move is sideways in title, though often upward in platform.
How Lateral Recruiting Works
There is no calendar. A group loses an analyst, and a seat opens. Recruiters and headhunters circulate the opening, and candidates who are already known to the team, or who reach it quickly, get interviewed within weeks. The process usually includes a modeling test and a check on live deal experience, because a lateral is expected to be productive immediately.
Bonus bucket follows you. Banks hiring laterally ask about it, and a strong bucket at a smaller bank is often the thing that gets a candidate in the door at a larger one.
Why People Lateral
The common reasons are a stronger platform for exit opportunities, or a group that does the kind of deals the analyst wants on their resume. Lateral moves in the first year are viewed with some suspicion; moves after the first bonus are routine.
