Pros
If you're not in one of the groups that works the most, you have a great work life balance and good pay (for the work you do). You can literally practice interviewing all day while doing no work and get a decent exit opp if you're in the consumer team for example. The groups that work the most are financial sponsors, TMT and maybe IDI.
Cons
If you are in the sponsors or TMT team, you work way too much on bad deals and you get significantly underpaid for your work. All first year analysts get the same bonus even though some teams have ~50 hour work weeks and other teams have 80-100 hour work weeks. Do not join financial sponsors, TMT, or IDI if you want to optimize for pay, worklife balance OR exit opps because you will get none of those. You will have too much work to do and work on bad deals with bad management and you will almost certainly not get compensated fairly. I am compiling what I've heard from multiple people over the years and reporting this for them because they did not want to bad mouth this firm in fear of retribution. However, I believe it's important to expose this because I am not a fan of offensively bad managing practices. From what I've heard, if you work in the harder working groups, you will give up your entire life and literally not get compensated for it with a good bonus NOR good deal experience. You will literally be wasting your time and health for management who actively does not care about the work life balance and compensation for the harder working teams. Do not join Mizuho and try to be a good hard working banker, you will not be rewarded for it at all.
