How do you guys work so many hours?

I work from 9-530 and go to school from 630-9 .. at the end of the day I am exhausted. If I did that for 6 days of the week it still isn't even close to 100 hours. How do you guys bump out 100+ hour weeks like it is nothing?

 

Most people don't work 100 hours and those that do certainly don't brush it off like it's nothing. Further, there are periods of downtime in between work in IB as opposed to studying where you always have to be mentally on. The exhaustion you feel is mostly due to the mental toll of studying after a day of work. Being mentally and physically drained is more taxing than just physical exhaustion.

 
Best Response

10am-11:45am: saunter in, check email, grab coffee, dedicate 12% of energy to pretending to do shit while expending remaining 88% on stealth mode job hunting on your personal phone

11:45-12pm: listen to associate huff and puff over some negligible punctuation blip that your fellow lowly analyst left behind in a first draft

12:01pm: "wow, did you even bother to proofread this"

12:03pm: "GOD, do I have to do everything around here?"

12:03-1pm: sit in on conference call = stare into space, fall asleep for 13 minutes, idly browse espn/ fb/ bi/ dealbreaker/ wso, attempt to do some online shopping for non-work clothing before realizing, 'what's the point' and closing out the window, press on nail beds to check for anemia, mouth "I will destroy you" to your associate as he strolls by, reload LinkedIn to check on recent visitors, sigh heavily

1:02pm: see staffer in the distance; duck into a closet

1:05-1:22pm: escape the hallowed halls of your bb to go and grab a depressing lunch with your equally depressing friend/ fellow analyst/ competitor/ who even knows at this point

1:25pm: fire drill = groan and cuss a lot even though you don't really know what's going on

3:00pm: depressing lunch is now soggy and has somehow become even more depressing. Woe is me

3:15-4pm: update model according to vp's whimsy

4:02pm: accidentally save changes to original file

4:03pm: Ctrl Z

4:04pm: excel crashes

4:05pm: curl hands into fists until you swear you've broken skin on your palms. Check palms. Skin dissatisfyingly still intact. Whimper into hands instead

4:06-5pm: suddenly receive 38 emails detailing the emergency situation at hand: FWD: md wants X by first thing tomorrow morning FWD: RE: of course, anything, do you need it in a certain format? Font, spacing, borders, colors, lions, tigers, or bears? Oh my. -xoxo VP RE: FWD: RE: vp demands to know why X hasn't been done yet CC: RE: associate explains that dipshit analysts should've had X done yesterday; associate is so apologetic—associate hadn't realized how unreliable the analysts were; associate will coordinate, arrange, ensure, manage, arrange, straight away [Inbox] Associate needs X by 7am for proofing; associate estimates X task will only take 2, 3 hours max; associate does not want you to stay up all night over this

5:01pm: agree with fellow dipshit analyst that task X will take roughly 12 hours to complete

5:02pm: [Inbox] associate would like to know if instructions are clear

5:03pm: sigh heavily

5:04pm: chew up Adderall

5:05-7pm: associate's bidding

7-7:47pm: sushi or burger for dinner

7:48pm: God dammit, should've ordered sushi

7:49-3:58am: actual work

3:59am: sigh heavily

4am: slouch toward freedom

Total hours 'worked': 18 Total hours worked: ~10

Not the most demanding job effort-wise, but soul crushing nonetheless

 

It's miserable, but you'll get used to it. After my first 100 hour week I felt dead. My body seemed to be moving on autopilot and I felt terrible. After a couple more of these I think my body started adjusting to it. What I felt helped me was drinking green tea and getting 10-20 minutes exercise per day before work. 100 hours per week is certainly not the norm, but I had a long stretch where this was my average and I can confirm that my luck sucked. I think I'm a much stronger person and banker for it though.

 

You don't combat it; you deal with it. Being in good shape, and having a healthy diet helps you handle it better. Don't under any circumstance think that this is in anyway "healthy" or sustainable; but you'll adjust, and grind through it.

I think- therefore I fuck
 

When I did work for big tech, those long hours are close to what we worked on. However, we got to work around 7 AM and stayed until 8-10 PM. Got home around 11PM to support work overseas too. That lasts until 2-3 (rarely) 4 AM, sleep/nap wake up and head back to work after for another full day.

We'd do hour "lunches" with naps in between. Besides that, your body adjusts to it.

Hiten

 

Also some people get angry after those hours, I mean like batch at everyone. While I've never pushed past 50 hours, some SAs I'm friends with would act like total douches whenever I called them to make plans. It went away after four weeks, or after they left back for school.

 

There is definitely a lot of down time even if your staffed on 4 deals. A lot of the times you won't get your turns until the vp heads out for the night who will give the work to the associate, who will the hand it to you. Another thing, a lot of work as an analyst takes absolutely zero intellectual horse power and you can just put had phones on, grind away and zone out.

 
OCB1897:
Ever pledge a fraternity? Pull back to back all nighters in college?

Its one of the most competitive industries out of college for a reason. Sure not all the stories are 100% factual but it's extremely demanding. In the end of the year only the best of the best will remain.

What idealistic horsesht. If by "best" you mean only the "best" dcksuckers will remain, because that's all this industry is really about. There's nothing "best" about fixing colors and resizing boxes on a PPT 47 times. The true "best" are out there inventing products and creating businesses making real money after college.

As for brain function after 80+ hours, it depends. There is definitely some cognitive slowdown, but you can combat it with a lot of self discipline, going over your work several times. However, once you get into the 110 hour range, things can really go to hell fast. If you are simply pulling info from the internet and pasting it into a pitchbook you will be fine, but if you're going over, say, a 30 page document (that you created) with lots of numbers and percentages in it, and that document is linked to a database with 100's of different inputs and outputs, you might have a disaster on your hands.

For example, we had one week where we just got killed, typical pitching horror story that you hear about all the time, 110 plus hours...etc. Had a short weekend and recovered a bit, but was still exhausted on Monday. Grinded through it, when at about 10:00 PM word came down that I'd be there again all night, helping on somebody else's project, that "needed to be done by morning" (total BS). Stayed until 3-4 AM, came back again at 8:30 the next morning and I was absolutely shot. It was bad after the short rest, it was like a shock to my system while I was on the path of recovery. That day i couldn't get anything right. Every document I looked at, mistakes got by me. The MD went nuts several times, I tried and tried, but no matter what I did, I simply wasn't seeing anything correctly. My vision was blurred, my brain was not functioning, no amount of caffeine could have saved me. Finally, at about 4PM, the MD looked at the work I did and saw the same stupid spelling mistakes, numbers in the wrong places, etc. and he just laughed (very out of character for me). Finally, he realized I simply wasn't myself and he sent me home early that day, said "you're not allowed here past 5 PM." The next day I was back to normal.

And this is coming from somebody who is very good when it comes to that stuff (one of the reasons I was hired in the first place.)

 

Laboriosam molestias vero alias voluptate accusantium molestiae est. Ut incidunt consequatur sit eum earum. Eum non fuga molestiae quas. Expedita occaecati voluptate aut minima iusto. Reprehenderit sed accusamus fuga dolore. Ex debitis aperiam non qui. Assumenda a id debitis ex qui ipsam nulla non.

Perferendis provident ut quia. Omnis et eum nobis exercitationem. Sunt enim esse quo. Qui vero quis nobis maxime aliquid harum. Autem illo nihil fugiat quasi. Dignissimos et porro nostrum voluptatibus. Labore distinctio veniam tempore fugit a et hic.

Vero amet quis atque aut ut exercitationem necessitatibus. Nisi aperiam doloribus dignissimos recusandae occaecati voluptates. Minus harum libero animi illo.

Career Advancement Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Jefferies & Company 02 99.4%
  • Goldman Sachs 19 98.8%
  • Harris Williams & Co. (++) 98.3%
  • Lazard Freres 02 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 03 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Harris Williams & Co. 18 99.4%
  • JPMorgan Chase 10 98.8%
  • Lazard Freres 05 98.3%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.7%
  • William Blair 03 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Lazard Freres 01 99.4%
  • Jefferies & Company 02 98.8%
  • Goldman Sachs 17 98.3%
  • Moelis & Company 07 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 05 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Director/MD (5) $648
  • Vice President (19) $385
  • Associates (86) $261
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (13) $181
  • Intern/Summer Associate (33) $170
  • 2nd Year Analyst (66) $168
  • 1st Year Analyst (202) $159
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (144) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”