The workload placed on Junior Analysts at the major investment banks (BB's) has seen alot of attention lately, with banks promising to ease down on the workload and encourage weekends off. I ran into an interesting article today on The New York Times' "DealBook", titled Banks Ease Hours for Junior Staff, but Workload Stays Same where current Junior Analysts add their opinions.
A number of young bankers say that while they can now enjoy a leisurely brunch or a binge of television watching on Saturdays, their overall workload has not changed noticeably. It just gets pushed to a different day.
“If you have 80 hours of work to do in a week, you’re going to have 80 hours of work to do in a week, regardless of whether you’re working Saturdays or not,” said a junior banker at Deutsche Bank, who, like the others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he risked his job by talking to a reporter. “That work is going to be pushed to Sundays or Friday nights.”
What are you're thoughts on this? Will the hours for Junior Analysts really change anytime soon?
Hours probably won't change too much, especially in the near future. I still like the changes though regardless because it helps make the workweek more predictable
Thanks for contributing!
Media smoke screen - because of that intern who died @ BAML. Now all the banks can say they did something about it
Why are the hours notoriously grueling in investment banking? Every industry has due dates and work you could potentially be doing for 100 hours a week. So why do we go home at 5 in AM, for example?
I dont work at an IB, so dont kill me if I'm wrong , but I'll take a shot at answering.
Part of the problem may lay in that IB seems to have, according to my own understanding, a very hierarchial, top-down, company profile, and thus alot of work have to be approved on several levels, each of which might request updates/changes to the work in question.
For example, it seems that IB junior analysts often get stuck waiting to get the "Go Ahead" from MD's on pitchbooks they've created. The situation might be something along the lines of the junior analysts working at the office, finishing the pitchbook, sending it to the MD who is at home, the analysts meanwhile have to wait at the office to get the MD's "OK", or perform any additional changes the MD might request, before they are allowed to leave.
This sort of structure does not seem very "Time-Efficient" to me, and might be one of the reasons behind the long hours. Again I do not work in IB.
Another reason (which kind of ties in with yours) is that often MDs are busy with a lot of their own work and can't review work till date in the day...they may review something that needs a lot of changes by first thing the following morning (for a meeting etc) but because they can't get to reviewing the work till late in the day, the analyst can only begin the work in the evening so it often results in late nights/early mornings - in short, you often can't start the work before 5pm, so there's no way you're going home at 5.
Where I work (Australia) a number of banks enforce the policy...some people like it and some people hate it, because as the article stated, you do the same amount of work but can't work on Saturday - so often, instead of working 9-1 M-T you'll work 9-3 M-T instead to make up for the lack of Saturdays. Friday you'll be out before 9, Saturday you won't work and Sunday you almost always have to work because you get Saturday off
Why would anyone care about your opinion if you've never worked in IB? You have no idea what you're talking about.
GoldenCinderblock, here is a short answer: a client focused industry + major decisions w/high fees + competitive industry + competitive people + comprehensive/tedious/time consuming work = lots of hours
Banking is a very client service focused job, and the clients are often very demanding + often considering complex decisions. I do not want to overstate the value/complexity of this work, but put yourself in the shoes of a client - before you pay $Xmm in fees a bank, you want good advice/work product/execution/etc.
The industry is very competitive, so if X bank will not produce the reams of materials a client requests (with a smile), then client will turn to A, B, and C banks for this work (and often will shop out work to several banks before picking hiring any)
The people who work in the industry are also quite type A + competitive, thus most/many banking employees have perfectionist-like work ethics
While the work itself is not very difficult, it is often comprehensive + tedious and is often completed under very short deadlines
+1! Thanks for adding a more complete/accurate answer than my own.
If you want top bucket, forget less hours.
Top bucket or bust?
Media smoke screen to answer thread #983
A continious media smoke screen, please...
Did DB put a weekend policy in place?
They did implement some sort of weekend policy, see the quote below from the article.
disclaimer - bonus may be forfeit
DB memo:
"In order to provide management feedback, please walk to your nearest HR office, utter the secret words 'I quit', and proceed to walk out the shiny revolving door."
Just pay us more, and we will complain less - simple as that.
We all know what we signed up for, and there is a sadistic sense of allure generated from the 100+ hour weeks. If you are in banking, I'm sure you actually find a sense of accomplishment in crushing to the max and pushing yourself further than you ever thought possible, and leaving your fellow classmates eating your professional dust. Don't get me wrong, the hours can be terrible, but you won't get a better post-undergrad experience to better propel your career; whether lifetime banker or otherwise.
If I had to go back and make this decision again, I would choose to do banking every time. Get out there, suck it up, learn as much as you can, keep an open mind, and do it all with a great attitude and smile on your face - ear to ear baby!
banksohard
There's definitely a sprinkle of that! I call it "the sickness."
I agree with you that its definetly one of the best post-undergrad experiences out there, people just need to be aware of the hours before they sign up. On the other hand I feel for the guys having to pull these hours, I've worked 80 hour weeks in a very different industry and the no-life is extremely real!
Thanks for contributing.
Why did he get ms for this? reply was dead on.
inb4 Flake's pussification of america speach and how we will be overrun by commies since cadets are no longer beat in boot camp.
//www.youtube.com/embed/71Lft6EQh-Y
I never understood why the bankers need to show up at 9am when the real work starts at 5PM. It would be a shit load more logical to show up at 4-5PM and then start work.
Banking? Logic? Does not compute...
Honestly, the kind of money we are getting paid for a fresh grad with no experience? I'd say suck it up and do the hours. Tough times don't last, tough men do.
+SB
Boy, am I glad my parents are loaded
Well, I'm at a EVR/GHL/MOE/PWP-type shop and we don't have any weekend or vacation policy in place right now. When there's stuff to be done, then you're in the office Sat/Sun and no one gives a shit.
However, a few things have changed at our shop since banks have started caring a little more about junior stuff, i.e. the BBs started to introduce their weekend or vacation policies. And in my opinion these changes are much more valuable than a free Saturday, but that's just me. (It seems like) MDs have started to think about the life of their analysts and associates, which means that they don't just tell you on Mon that they have a meeting on Wed/Thu and more importantly no Fri 5pm staffing for a meeting on Mon/Thu. Now it's more like this: "Hey monkey, we have a meeting in 7/10/14 days, please start to put some slides together to get a high-level overview on topic XYZ." So you know that you'll have to create a presentation but don't have to do it asap, which is quite nice. Furthermore, there's generally the (unspoken) rule that analysts / associates aren't expected to stay late for marketing stuff, unless it's the day before a meeting or something extremely urgent. On deals you definitely have to stay late when there's something to be delivered the next morning, but I haven't been really late in the office to spread some comps and create some market slides for a pitchbook for quite some time. However, admittedly, I was in the office this past weekend on Sat and Sun and did some deal related work, so as you can see, it still happens. But that's banking. Lastly, we get paid a significant premium compared to BBs, so that helps as well.
I completely agree with this... I am at one of the BBs that has implemented these changes and, while the Saturday off is nice just in terms of being able to make plans on the weekend, the bigger changes IMO are the cultural changes that they are trying to implement. A few of the notable changes at my bank and banks that friends of mine work at that seem to make a difference are:
Call me a naive optimist, but I think these policies, combined with a general cultural pressure towards giving a shit about analysts and trying to keep them around (i.e. Goldman's career track model) will improve analysts lives. From talking to senior people in my group, they are sick of losing their best analysts to PE and HFs and having to train new recruits and get them up to speed every single year. I think the main thought, at least at some places, is that the quality of life improvement is designed to make analysts want to continue to work at banks which will eventually save the banks money and allow them to retain more top talent. Long-winded way of me saying I do not think it is just a media smoke screen.
From what I've heard.... It depends on the bank. I know one of the mm banks allow casual Friday (jeans&polos) while some elite boutiques have Good Friday off. I can't comment on total hours worked though.
Each hour extra at work is like another set in the gym for them gains.
Not in IB, i will therefore not give my opinion but rather ask a question:
Given that most firms operate on a global scale and that monkeys do +/- the same things, why dont the BB's use time differences to their advantage ? Ex: it is now 21h and NY MD needs this pitch done by the next day so the HK monkeys get to work on that deal during their day; MD goes to sleep and gets his pitch by 9am.
I know that some big strategy consulting firms do this for grunt work, why wouldn't IB?
Won't work. It is very hard to pass off work in IB. They guy who built the model has a familiarity with it that nobody else will have. The last thing I would want to have happen is pass off work to HK and then come in bright and early and see that some dumbass analyst there made a sign error in the cash sweep of the debt schedule and therefore screwed up all the analysis that is sitting in the MDs inbox.
The anger in your post indicates a strong possibility of that fuck-up to have occurred in real life. Got to love monkeys :)
Your example actually reaffirms my theory. It is known that you lose a considerable amount of IQ while sleep deprived. Analysts working at night lose all their edge due to sleep deprivation; they are essentially overpaid suits with the brain processing power of a truck driver when it is past 2 am.
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