Investment Banking

[spectroscopy]

but pretty much no jobs in the world give you the exit opps of IB and even if the hourly rate is low most places wont have enough work to justify you doing overtime until you hit 150k

[Gekko]

but pretty much no jobs in the world give you the exit opps of IB and even if the hourly rate is low most places wont have enough work to justify you doing overtime until you hit 150k

The exit opportunities available are another reason I want to go into IB. Yeah I wasn't actually suggesting that you could just decide to work 80 hours another job, I just wanted to make a comment on the low hourly rate once you break down your salary.

Edit: There was an article I read on M&I some time ago that looked at IB remuneration and from memory the hourly rate was comparable to a McDonald's employee.

[appianway]

The hours reduce from an average of 14-16 hours a day in your first year to about 10-14 hours a day in your second year. The hours get better as you get on, and within a few years, you're making a lot of money, doing some really important work and have the time to have a life. One of my friends who just finished his first year actually maintained a relationship, which I find admirable.

The exit opportunities in IB are good, but mostly if you want to work in the financial sector (HF, PE etc). I'm sure it's possible to go into industry and work for a FT500, but that depends on how you network. A lot of people also do an MBA as a point to transition between careers. I'd say that the exit opportunities from management consulting are a lot better as they're broader, but they're not as good if you're trying to go over to the buyside in finance.

[Hancock]

This is just my opinion, but earning 100k when you only have time to spend it between 12am and 7am is a big call. I know a lot of people out of high school don't think of this know, but realistically, is that amount of money (which when you work it out on a per hour basis, isn't that much higher than grad roles where you work 8-9ish hours a day) worth the severely reduced social and romantic life? I do commend your friend appianway for maintaining his relationship as a first year IBanker.

[816]

This is just my opinion, but earning 100k when you only have time to spend it between 12am and 7am is a big call. I know a lot of people out of high school don't think of this know, but realistically, is that amount of money (which when you work it out on a per hour basis, isn't that much higher than grad roles where you work 8-9ish hours a day) worth the severely reduced social and romantic life? I do commend your friend appianway for maintaining his relationship as a first year IBanker.

Pretty much 100% agree with you here. Your 20s are a unique period and ostensibly the pinnacle of your life. I find it hard to believe people when they say they genuinely enjoy this kind of stuff. If you took away the pay packet, I doubt even 10% of the people would consider IB.

Personally, my goal in life is t need to work as little as possible to support my interests in life, like music, sport, friends, opposite-sex, reading, recreational maths and dancing.

[appianway]

The hours in investment banking aren't unique. Many entry level positions, especially in competitive fields, require a lot of work. Want to do a PhD and then get a good postdoc? My boyfriend goes to MIT and the PhD students in his group were told off by their adviser for not spending longer hours in the lab on a Saturday morning. When I worked in Germany, I was told by my adviser to run experiments at 2am on a Sunday night/Monday morning. Want to do medicine? Enjoy the hours as an intern and as a registrar. Want to do management consulting? You'll be working 60 hour weeks, in addition to travel as you'll probably be on the road from Monday until Thursday. Most upper-middle class jobs require a lot of hard work at the beginning to get established. Investment banking is brutal, but certainly not unique. 

If anyone wants to read some articles about investment banking from the Yale Daily News, I've copied a few in below. There's been a lot of outrage on campus over the last few years about how many students go into finance. That said, we have a lot fewer students going into finance than the other top Ivies, probably because we're less preprofessional and less preppy. The comment sections are interesting.

http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2011/12/01/jones-engaging-occupy-yale/
http://yaledailynews.com/weekend/2011/09/30/even-artichokes-have-doubts/ (RIP Marina Keegan)
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2011/11/16/gidado-stop-demonizing-finance/
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2012/09/17/revesz-a-harmful-career-fair/
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/01/24/alumni-discuss-investment-banking/
http://yaledailynews.com/magazine/2005/10/06/i-banking-for-dummies/

[Gekko]

The hours reduce from an average of 14-16 hours a day in your first year to about 10-14 hours a day in your second year. The hours get better as you get on, and within a few years, you're making a lot of money, doing some really important work and have the time to have a life. One of my friends who just finished his first year actually maintained a relationship, which I find admirable.

The exit opportunities in IB are good, but mostly if you want to work in the financial sector (HF, PE etc). I'm sure it's possible to go into industry and work for a FT500, but that depends on how you network. A lot of people also do an MBA as a point to transition between careers. I'd say that the exit opportunities from management consulting are a lot better as they're broader, but they're not as good if you're trying to go over to the buyside in finance.

Precisely. The way I see it, IB for a few years is a good sacrifice to earn some good money (to pay or help pay for an MBA from a top B school), gain lots of experience working in the finance sector and open up different exit opportunities and do something I enjoy. If I happen to stay in IB post-MBA, then I'll stay in IB post-MBA. I'm quite interested in other fields though, particularly PE.

Pretty much 100% agree with you here. Your 20s are a unique period and ostensibly the pinnacle of your life. I find it hard to believe people when they say they genuinely enjoy this kind of stuff. If you took away the pay packet, I doubt even 10% of the people would consider IB.

Personally, my goal in life is t need to work as little as possible to support my interests in life, like music, sport, friends, opposite-sex, reading, recreational maths and dancing.

This is just my opinion, but earning 100k when you only have time to spend it between 12am and 7am is a big call. I know a lot of people out of high school don't think of this know, but realistically, is that amount of money (which when you work it out on a per hour basis, isn't that much higher than grad roles where you work 8-9ish hours a day) worth the severely reduced social and romantic life? I do commend your friend appianway for maintaining his relationship as a first year IBanker.

IB is like working in the mines for a few years for the greater good later on. Sure, it will consume your life for the period you work there (because of the geographic location for mines and hours worked in IB) but at the end of it, you can do whatever you wanted to do (exit opps) and have a nice bank balance to help fund that.

I'm not going to insult the collective intelligence of ANotes by saying that I'm not motivated to work hard and earn good money for doing so.

[Planck's constant]

A few people getting way ahead of themselves here.

[Fyrefly]

This is just my opinion, but earning 100k when you only have time to spend it between 12am and 7am is a big call. I know a lot of people out of high school don't think of this know, but realistically, is that amount of money (which when you work it out on a per hour basis, isn't that much higher than grad roles where you work 8-9ish hours a day) worth the severely reduced social and romantic life? I do commend your friend appianway for maintaining his relationship as a first year IBanker.

I share the same line of thinking. I've worked at an investment bank before, but in finance and not IB.

I won't divulge specific pay rates because there are some people on here who know where I worked, but the IB grads were getting paid significantly less than every other department (even the back office staff) when you broke it down to an hourly rate.

Hours of work... it's perfectly normal to start at 7am and finish somewhere between 10pm and midnight. It's also considered a normal amount of overtime if you work until 2am or 3am, or start at 5am. Working Saturdays is pretty normal. Sundays is for catching up on all the sleep your missed during the week.

IB has an overwhelming tendency to destroy everything about your life except for your income. And you don't even have a chance to spend your income, because pretty much all you're doing is working, eating and sleeping.

Some people are willing to sacrifice their early- and mid-20s on this sort of lifestyle, in order to financially set themselves up for life. That's a personal and calculated decision, but I implore each of you to realise the full weight of this decision. Family, friends, significant others, sport, hobbies, sleep... they all drop off the radar almost completely. The fact that appianway's friend still has a boyfriend/girlfriend is something extraordinary and admirable. It's definitely not the norm though. Don't be under any delusions or misunderstandings here.

If you've thought long and hard about this and you're sure you're making the right decision for the right reasons, then go for it.

[816]

I share the same line of thinking. I've worked at an investment bank before, but in finance and not IB.

I won't divulge specific pay rates because there are some people on here who know where I worked, but the IB grads were getting paid significantly less than every other department (even the back office staff) when you broke it down to an hourly rate.

Hours of work... it's perfectly normal to start at 7am and finish somewhere between 10pm and midnight. It's also considered a normal amount of overtime if you work until 2am or 3am, or start at 5am. Working Saturdays is pretty normal. Sundays is for catching up on all the sleep your missed during the week.

IB has an overwhelming tendency to destroy everything about your life except for your income. And you don't even have a chance to spend your income, because pretty much all you're doing is working, eating and sleeping.

Some people are willing to sacrifice their early- and mid-20s on this sort of lifestyle, in order to financially set themselves up for life. That's a personal and calculated decision, but I implore each of you to realise the full weight of this decision. Family, friends, significant others, sport, hobbies, sleep... they all drop off the radar almost completely. The fact that appianway's friend still has a boyfriend/girlfriend is something extraordinary and admirable. It's definitely not the norm though. Don't be under any delusions or misunderstandings here.

If you've thought long and hard about this and you're sure you're making the right decision for the right reasons, then go for it.

You can apply this to medicine as well and a fair few jobs. The question is mainly, is this what you thoroughly enjoy and can you think of no better way to spend your 20s? For some people, that answer is yes. But if the answer is no, I think a lot of people would regret 'prostituting' the pinnacle of their youth for the dollar.