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keninc

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Is it worth it working 15 hours per days or more with some weekends included (and working mostly alone after 8pm only because you’re the only analyst in your team and rest are senior bankers).. Feel like I don’t get appreciated after working so hard.
By the way, I’m in corporate finance in one of the BB.
 
pre-salary bubble maybe. in the current market environment it seems like a horrific job.
it sucks that comp has already corrected downward significantly, but the job requirements have not come down accordingly yet. obviously, going forward they will not get ppl willing to work that hard for the current pay (all base, 0 to a few k bonus) and will have to adjust expectations for the job.
 
Depends. People will still be willing to work those hours if there is the promise of $$ down the road…look at doctors. You basically get nothing during residency, while being expected to work IB-like hours. Nevertheless people do it for the promise of a big salary later on
 
Dermot81 Wrote:
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> Depends. People will still be willing to work
> those hours if there is the promise of $$ down the
> road…look at doctors. You basically get nothing
> during residency, while being expected to work
> IB-like hours. Nevertheless people do it for the
> promise of a big salary later on
I’d stay away from a doctor that is in it for the money
 
I think you are kidding yourself if you think money isn’t the biggest motivation for a majority (probably a large majority) of doctors.
 
In response to the original poster, assuming you don’t despise the substance of it I’d stick with it and focus on honing your skills and soaking up absolutely everything you can. Either you’ll get promoted and the money and work will get better (hard to imagine that IB won’t continue to be a profitable business) or you’ll go somewhere else and put what you learned at your bank to work. Since there are going to be less bankers for a while going forward, it wouldn’t surprise me if those there are at your seniority level end up being in relatively high demand later on.
I effectively decided not to join an investment bank at several points in my career (I’m a lawyer by training) and rightly or wrongly I very much regret it.
 
Yes - even in spite of the insanity in the industry now, I think investment banking is the best place to start your career if you want to do finance. One of the reasons why I chose equity research over banking when I came out of undergrad was because I thought it would offer a better lifestyle, but my lifestyle in research was still pretty bad and I don’t think banking would have been much worse. I’m in private equity now which is where I worked really hard to get to, and even now I sometimes wish I had done banking because there are certain attributes of my job that I think took me longer to learn since I hadn’t done banking.
 
numi, given that you’re already in PE, what is that “banking” attribute that you feel that research didn’t give you? Deal experience on live deals?
 
Captain Windjammer Wrote:
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> I think you are kidding yourself if you think
> money isn’t the biggest motivation for a majority
> (probably a large majority) of doctors.
It’s not. Their work-hours+life-sacrifice vs. compensation point plots below the aggregate career SML.
 
I have my doubts about that, but even if that’s true I doubt that many aspiring doctors realize it. Surely you guys aren’t suggesting that most doctors’ primary motivation is to help people or something of the sort?
 
On the contrary though, I would have though equity research would give you a skillset that would be useful in some part of PE (and which bankers don’t have). In banking, I find that people are generally too optimistic about everything (after all its all about sales it seems!) whereas it.
On the OP’s questions on whether its worth it… ouch. I don’t really know… It all depends on where you are in your career
Say I was 6 months into the job, I would still be pretty enthusiastic (fresh and green!). Say i was 12 months into the job and just got my measly bonus - I reckon I would think long and hard about staying another year. Imagine going through another year of pain for another measly bonus (and with no guarantee that 2010 will be any better!!!!!!!!). I would think it isin’t worth it and would attempt to leave to do something else.
 
The initial draw is definately money. That could change over the years, but the average med student would never put up with the hours and workload without the lure of a monetary incentive commensurate with the effort.
 
Most doctors that I know of(I have quite a few friends in medicine) are not in it for the money. They are like scientists, they want to help humans/ animals (if they are vets) and are truly passionate about their subject. Now dentists, plastic surgeons, dermatologists are a different story.
 
marcus phoenix Wrote:
——————————————————-
> Most doctors that I know of(I have quite a few
> friends in medicine) are not in it for the money.
> They are like scientists, they want to help
> humans/ animals (if they are vets) and are truly
> passionate about their subject. Now dentists,
> plastic surgeons, dermatologists are a different
> story.
Agree.
 
I wish I were passionate about something more valuable than drinking beer and posting on internet forums.
 
… and making jokes about old pop music and (to the extent not included in the category “old pop music”) Beck lyrics.
 
numi Wrote:
——————————————————-
> Yes - even in spite of the insanity in the
> industry now, I think investment banking is the
> best place to start your career if you want to do
> finance. One of the reasons why I chose equity
> research over banking when I came out of undergrad
> was because I thought it would offer a better
> lifestyle, but my lifestyle in research was still
> pretty bad and I don’t think banking would have
> been much worse. I’m in private equity now which
> is where I worked really hard to get to, and even
> now I sometimes wish I had done banking because
> there are certain attributes of my job that I
> think took me longer to learn since I hadn’t done
> banking.
As someone mentioned earlier, I be interested what you thought you missed out on as well.
 
I’m in this business for the money. If I could find a job with the same upside in a different industry I’d be out of finance in a heartbeat. I don’t know of any profession facing more misery than this one right now.
 
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