Lazard |

What were your key experiences during your industrial placement at Lazard?

Getting to experience working on multiple live M&A deals at the same time and balancing my workload with other commitments was a huge opportunity that provided challenge but pushed me to grow further. Working with differing seniorities within my team and even working closely with my managing director at times was another experience I will forever be truly grateful for!

What are the main skills you learned during your placement?

In August 2023, I completed my 12-month industrial placement in the Real Estate team within Lazard's Financial Advisory office. During my time at Lazard, I was able to develop my own skillset of both technical and soft skills through supporting my team in their financial and strategic advice. I aided my colleagues in live mandate and marketing projects, and I learnt extensively from their expert knowledge on building client relationships.

How would you describe the culture at Lazard?

From the first day of entering into your team, you feel part of the group, with a huge range of learning opportunities and vast research facilities. I have enjoyed completing assignments for my team that create material differences and seeing the detailed processes behind each M&A deal.

The culture at Lazard is unique and provides an environment that is supportive but also challenging and efficient. Their grounding principle of excellence is clear from day one in the firm and to become part of that is very inspiring.

What is your top piece of advice for prospective candidates?

In the application process, try to be as natural as possible because whilst Lazard are looking for the right fit for their company, you must also try to find the right fit for your career. Lazard is a global business that very much prioritises their human capital and so they are looking for good communicators as well as technical skills. Strong financial knowledge is always a good addition to your skillset for the job, but definitely not a necessity. Don't worry about not knowing everything about investment banking!

What has been your greatest achievement during your placement at Lazard?

I think my greatest achievement at Lazard was being asked to lead the learning sessions for the summer interns and new members of my group on a particular client document for which I had become a core member of the team, and which utilized many aspects of the job that I had learnt across my year. It was a full-circle moment to reflect on how much I had learnt and how far my skillset had grown.

How did you come to join Lazard?

Prior to university, it had been my aim to pursue a career in professional sport, having competed internationally in swimming. Upon starting university, I became increasingly more interested in the financial sector, due to a combination of the Covid-19 market crash and speaking to a friend who had experience in Asset Management.

As time went on, my swimming training was further disrupted by the pandemic, and I began to undertake a number of extracurricular projects and internships to further my interest in banking. As I began to take these endeavors more seriously, I realised that I wanted to work in investment banking upon graduation.

I applied for Lazard's Industrial Placement year and was lucky enough to be offered a place on the programme commencing August 2022. I worked at Lazard for 12 months before returning to university for my final year. I was also lucky enough to be offered a full-time role with the firm upon graduation.

What was your role during your 12-month placement at Lazard?

During my placement, I sat within the Financial Services and Technology (FST) team at Lazard, providing financial advisory services across the Banking, Insurance, FX/Payments and Fintech industries. Having such broad coverage, we often worked with other sector / product teams within Lazard, such as Equity Capital Markets and Venture Growth Banking.

Being exposed to various teams and working with a diverse range of individuals is great for building a rounded skillset and learning more about the industry as a whole. Upon joining the team I was given a lot of responsibility from day one, including preparation of key materials used by Managing Directors, financial modelling, execution of live deals, and attending meetings with clients. With so many tasks to consistently juggle, the team is extremely efficient and hardworking.

Being in this environment really helped get the most out of me on a day-to-day basis. In addition to this, the team are super supportive, and strive to make sure you learn as much as possible and become the best analyst you can be. More widely, the variety of the job means that no two days are the same. The breadth of industry coverage, from traditional banking to high growth fintech, enhances this variety.

What is your top piece of advice for prospective candidates?

Whenever I talk to individuals applying to investment banking roles, I always try to reiterate this point: the chances are that most other applicants have attended a top university, have good grades, and have prior experience, so you need to focus on getting across the reasons why you're different.

For me, coming from a background in sport was a great way to talk to this point, and something I leveraged heavily throughout the process. It doesn't have to be anything to do with finance, but your experiences should highlight the formation of certain skills and interests which you can indirectly apply to the job.

What has been your greatest achievement during your placement at Lazard?

One of my proudest achievements during the placement was producing and managing all of the modelling used in a pitch to a client, which we subsequently won. This involved building out comprehensive financials from limited company data, flowing this into a DCF model, and making certain assumptions to specifically tailor the model to the current valuation environment. I also handled the trading and transaction comparables which fed into this valuation.

Although I felt out of my depth at first, it was a great learning opportunity, and has massively helped my technical proficiency, allowing me to feel comfortable in subsequent situations. It was also great to win the pitch!