Piper Jaffray Reviews

Pros

Fun. Lots of great, smart employees.

Cons

Small and a little old-school.

Pros

-Good place to start your career as the company offers support in earning credentials and teaching basics of the business
-Generally good work life balance for finance
-Friendly people

Cons

-Poor leadership; lack of any clear vision or strategy
-No opportunity for career development, especially if not at HQ
-Below market comp
-No longer as reputable as it was a few years ago
-Poor interoffice communication
-Few resources
-Not a team environment

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate more often and more effectively. Think through your strategy and vision for the firm before implementing wholesale shifts and then reversing direction 6 months later. Try not to downsize during the holidays--it destroys the morale of both the employees getting laid off and the ones remaining.

Pros

Salary, bonuses and benefits are the biggest plus at this location...though you must work hard to earn them. Work/life balance is good too. Overall, nice people to work with.

Cons

Workload is overwhelming. Large producers are able to treat others with little or no respect and behave poorly as long as they produce.

Advice to Senior Management

Check in with support staff from time to time.

Pros

Entrepreneurial, ability to be a self-starter and lead

Cons

under resourced, unclear leadership and fragmented

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in people over long term

Pros

Strong senior level bankers
Leading middle market equity/M&A shop
Strong training program
Small teams
Flat structure
Good work life balance

Cons

Limited exit opportunities
Lots of pitchwork to win business
Unsophisticated client-base
Limited product offering
Limited inter-office collaboration
Limited resources

Advice to Senior Management

Develop firm-wide culture and sense of togetherness
Increase meal allowance and benefits for employees
Take company private to avoid public company scrutiny and additional costs

Pros

Has a great mission statement

Cons

Nothing that is done is consistent with the mission statement

Pros

-Considers itself a family-oriented firm, which means senior execs leave much earlier
-Competitive compensation at the junior levels
-Work is typically well-balanced, and fairly meaningful
-Smaller deal teams mean better exposure to transactions

Cons

-Considers itself a family-oriented firm, which means senior execs leave much earlier (guess who's left to do the work?)
-Compensation tapers off compared to peers at more senior levels, which affects drive to bring high-quality deals to the firm
-Some groups do much more interesting work than others; hours can vary greatly too
-In spite of stated focus on ethical practices, petty politics very much present among upper management
-Performance and contributions of branch offices is often overlooked
-Corporate missions statements often feel insubstantial

Advice to Senior Management

If you're going to make it a point to focus on doing M&A work, you need to recognize that that business cycle is higher risk and should be commensurately rewarded. Also, please open your eyes and learn to see past Minneapolis every now and then.

Pros

Overall working at Piper Jaffray was a very good experience

Cons

The downsides are the midcap deals

Advice to Senior Management

NA

Pros

...and in that time I've seen 10 people (out of 100) leave. PJC does a good job of encouraging work/life balance, though my manager gives me the third degree every time I want to use my vacation time. In my area of the bank, the business isn't exciting (or really money-making), but PJC does a good job of supporting us nonetheless.

Cons

SIZE! PJC is tiny, and we have such a hard time attracting good people and keeping them. They compensate their people poorly. (Example: I took a $10k pay cut when I came here during the height of the financial meltdown and was grateful to have a job. I was told that I would get a bonus that would make up for the pay cut. I didn't get a bonus/raise for two years, and it was less than the pay cut). Communication is awful among the various offices and in the firm itself. Key personnel leave and you don't find out for two months. Your manager gives you feedback on your review, and you don't see it until you ask (or six months after it was completed). There's very little room for growth, so what you do on day 1 as an analyst is what you'll be doing ten years down the road.

Advice to Senior Management

Really review your overall goals and the people you have in place to accomplish those goals. While traditional in every sense of the word, the organization needs to become more nimble in order to handle the challenges that will be presented in the future.

Pros

Decent pay and benefits. Some nice people.

Cons

No culture and rampant bullying on all levels. very high turnover and overall misery within the co. is very obvious.

Advice to Senior Management

Bring back culture. Reduce high turnover. Care about employees.