IBD Working Hours

I have been reading IB guides and 'a day in a life of an analyst' and so on. I have also networked with analysts, associates+ who give me a very varied answers.

Do IBD analysts seriously sleep 0 to 6 hours max a day every week for 3 years?

(assume by IBD I mean an analyst covering an industry group, product group or similar)

Does anyone here work in IBD/ interned in IBD and know what hours analysts work?

Please state whether your talking about a BB or Boutique (the firm name would be great also!) and the typical hours worked.

Serious and accurate info only please.

I know that IBD involves very long hours but some people tell me they work about 12 hours, maybe 14-16 when theres a deal, and get weekends off. Some say they are up till 3am daily 7 days a week. Does it vary per bank/industry/product group? Or on individual ability?

Thanks everyone !

 

it definitely depends per firm and group. some groups are relatively more "chill" than others. the real killer is not the long hours, but the unpredictability of them. You might have a relatively tranquil wednesday and think you're home free by 9 or 10 only to get shit dumped on you at 8 pm that requires you to work till 2 am. this is a social killer, as it eventually dissuades you from committing to anything with your friends ahead of time...

Capitalist
 
Daedalus:
BB IBD analyst friend works 15/weekday 12/weekend-day. I'm told some groups have it worse.

Dude that's terrible. I mean it's okay if that described a bad week, but if that's every week, 52 weeks per year, it's absolutely brutal. Glad I'm interning in ER this summer. I work 7AM to 7PM. For my MD, it's a 9 to 5 job. (and he brings home close to a million all in)

 

Here's a detailed answer. Hope it helps. I'm a second year analyst in IB at a BB. First year was definitely tougher and I was working until 2:00AM every weekday and just about every weekend by default, but the second year has gotten considerably better. I would say on average you come in around 9:30 and work until 11:00 or midnight. A good night is anything around 10:00, and if you can leave before 10:00 it's a great night. Usually if I'm trying to leave before 9:00 I'm almost sneaking out and likely leaving some shit for the morning and hoping no one asks about it until after 12:00.

Weekends are hit and miss. I would say you get at least one weekend a month where you either have no work or minimal, nothing that would force you to go into the office. The other three weeks if you do have to work it's usually for around 6-8 hours maybe one day, maybe both. A lot of times, I may leave early Friday, say around 8:00, and leave some stuff for the following day because almost nothing is ever due on a Saturday. I might get in around 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon and stay until about 9:00 or 10:00. So call it about 13 hours per weekday and about 5 hours per weekend day, that's 75 hours on average. At least one week a month though it will likely be brutal and you'll be staying until 3:00AM on average every day of the week and then maybe 10-12 hours each day of the weekend so closer to 100. Anything over that happens rarely. You may have one or two night a week when you stay that late, but not every night of the week so it tends to balance out. Equally rarely, you might have a week (or even almost 4-5 weeks as happened to me as well as another analyst in my group last summer) when you don't have hardly anything going on and you're leaving at 8:00 every night. Summer especially because you have interns, that do all of the bitch work you would usually be doing (thank God for interns). I'm speaking from personal experience, but can confidently say this is true for everyone I talk to across a number of groups.

 
Best Response

Thanks for clarifying. This has helped a lot! Just a couple of clarification questions if you don't mind.

Why do first year analysts work so long? Is it because they are getting to grips with the modelling, work etc or because they are easier to give more work to? haha Or because they want to weed out those who are really hungry for IBD?

Do you have downtime? 1 hour lunch? Breaks in between? And so on? Or a solid 12+ hours of work? Is there a lot of small talk amongst analysts/associates+? Or is everyone in their 'own world' working really hard.

How common are all nighters then? Someone I spoke to said they are used to all nighters and do them almost every week!

Although in IBD you do modelling and go through financial statements, but there is also a lot of drafting/writing stuff. Having a quantitative degree may be useful for the modelling side of things, but not so much with the written side of things. What can one do to illustrate that you can draft stuff? Unfortunately, my degree doesn't have coursework or anything like that.

does anyone have examples of groups that have really bad working hours e.g. GS TMT is much worse then MS Healthcare?

 

You work so long because people want stuff done straightaway and nothing is ever done until the hour before it is actually required. You might get the first draft of a pitch book done 2 weeks before the client presentation, but every day for the next two weeks it will go back and forth between senior and junior bankers with various changes to content, organisation, formatting etc. 80% of the work takes 20% of the time.

You are officially given 1 hour lunchbreaks but I never saw anyone take them, usually its go out to get some food, eat the desk. Fridays were the exception, me (intern) and analysts always went out to a sit-down lunch for 45 minutes or so on Fridays.

True all nighters are pretty rare but working till 5am or later isn't rare at all, maybe every 2 weeks? Usually this is ok unless it's a Monday or Tuesday, because that will kill you for the rest of the week. Hours worked will definitely vary a lot with groups though.

As an analyst you will do very very little of the actual writing, and anything you do will be completely rewritten anyway. The only way to demonstrate that is your articulation and eloquence and how you come across in your interviews. People don't especially care if you're insanely quantative; they just want someone who is smart, easy to get along with, wants to be in banking and is willing to work ridiculous hours.

JPM European teams are sweatshops; FIG, Industrials and TMT in particular. Heard bad things about Citi as well.

Interesting. Thanks for this.

From what I seem to read, knowing PowerPoint and Excel really really well (and possibly every shortcut in the world haha) can help you go miles in terms of time saved?

Anything else you would suggest learning beforehand to cut time spent 'working' and more time spent producing quality docs?

Im thankful you said the stuff about writing... that one really worried me!

When you work till 5am.... what time do you get in? 9:30 AM still? :S

I heard generally consumer teams are not so bad? And healthcare?

 
hopesanddreams:
Interesting. Thanks for this.

From what I seem to read, knowing PowerPoint and Excel really really well (and possibly every shortcut in the world haha) can help you go miles in terms of time saved?

Anything else you would suggest learning beforehand to cut time spent 'working' and more time spent producing quality docs?

Im thankful you said the stuff about writing... that one really worried me!

When you work till 5am.... what time do you get in? 9:30 AM still? :S

I heard generally consumer teams are not so bad? And healthcare?

Maybe not 9:30 but certainly no later than 10. You will have a generally accepted time for you to be there and if you're there more than 30 minutes after, you'll probably have some explaining to do but if you've genuinely been there till 5 or 6am, nobody will hold it against you.

Learning the ins and outs of Powerpoint and Excel WILL save you a lot of time. I would suggest getting one of the online learning programmes (I used Breaking Into Wall Street although I've heard good things about Wall Street Prep but they don't cover PowerPoint). Over 80% of your time will be spent just in these 2 programmes, with the other 20% being Word. It's not just the shortcuts which are helpful, its learning how to do things the easiest way (i.e. conditional formats, nested IF functions, PowerPoint formatting etc.).

You will spend most of your time 'working' no matter how good the work you produce is; banker mantra is it can always be better :)

If your school has access to FactSet / CapIQ or Bloomberg I would try and familiarize yourself with those as they will be your sources of information and where you pull a lot of data from.

Remember, pretty much everything you will be doing is a rehash of something that has been done previously, you won't do much creation from scratch. For example:

1) Monthly client update books - just open the old version of the book and update the numbers / news accordingly 2) IPO pitch book - there will be a ton of slides prepared before on IPO considerations where you will just need to change names or other minor details 3) Excel model - this is the one area where you are most likely to be doing brand new stuff but you can always look at other models for formatting / layout / calculation processes to get the idea

 

I can't believe that bankers are actually working that entire time, so you think the banks would find a way to cut all that deadweight time and send you guys home at like 7, then maybe be able to justify paying less. The fact that they don't baffles me, but then again I've never met a BB MD who made any sense either.

If I had to work in the office until 2am I'd go insane, but then again our office is set up like a Buffalo Wild Wings so there's enough TVs to keep me occupied if something good is on?

I hate victims who respect their executioners
 
BlackHat:
I can't believe that bankers are actually working that entire time, so you think the banks would find a way to cut all that deadweight time and send you guys home at like 7, then maybe be able to justify paying less. The fact that they don't baffles me, but then again I've never met a BB MD who made any sense either.

If I had to work in the office until 2am I'd go insane, but then again our office is set up like a Buffalo Wild Wings so there's enough TVs to keep me occupied if something good is on?

People aren't working 100% of the time, but they're definitely working for most of it. If a group has good deal flow, there's plenty of stuff to do...

 

Thanks Asatar! Your comments were very useful.

If you work till 6am... and getting home/back say takes 30 mins... and getting ready say takes 30 mins... thats 2-3 hours sleep! You may as well put in an all nighter. lol

I was on LinkedIn and noticed that several analysts do IBD for 1-3 years and then move over to PE or something. I saw some analysts leave after 1 year... I thought you HAD to stay there for 3 years?

BIWS covers everything you need to know? How would you rate it /10 in terms of usefulness for the actual work analysts do?

 
hopesanddreams:
Thanks Asatar! Your comments were very useful.

If you work till 6am... and getting home/back say takes 30 mins... and getting ready say takes 30 mins... thats 2-3 hours sleep! You may as well put in an all nighter. lol

I was on LinkedIn and noticed that several analysts do IBD for 1-3 years and then move over to PE or something. I saw some analysts leave after 1 year... I thought you HAD to stay there for 3 years?

BIWS covers everything you need to know? How would you rate it /10 in terms of usefulness for the actual work analysts do?

Most analysts are going to work 2 years in banking. If you're an all star analyst you'll be able to jump to the buy side, PE/HF/VC, after your first year. If you're a pretty good analyst it may take you two years to make the transition. Those analysts who stay on for a third year, assuming they starting as a first year, either couldn't land a buy side job or for whatever reason decided that they actually wanted to stay in banking. Generally, the latter is almost never true.

 

why? why? WHY? reading this bs feels like punching fujita's skull over and over again..

why the fuck do i see this question over and over again on WSO..

FFS...

if working long (or extremely long) hours for a couple of years is an issue to you change the fkin industy..

and everybody is saying that this is the competitive industry i see tons of m.challenged people making it in.. arent "it depends from group to group and bank to bank" and "it is not the same as in NY" and "j heared that its not too long" obvious for you? do you look for a revelation wtf man.. wtf..

and learn to use the search function

 

Thanks for the info guys.. And i was pretty surprised to see 9-6. Thats alot less that places like New York. Could anyone tell me how much they would make here?

 

i dont work there either, but to your comment about work being dropped off at 3-5, its probably bc the client demanded something new be looked over or added to the pitchbook. the hours are off the rocker b/c of the unusual nature of the requests from clients. you work for whoever your trying to sell too, thus you work when they want you too so there is no easy way to schedule around that.

Control your own destiny, or someone else will.
 
ambition56:

So my question is, why don't investment banks adjust everyone's schedule and hours so that the hours are more reasonable and the MDs and VPs work at the same time as the analysts and associates and everyone doesn't kill themselves working. I think this would attract many more bright young individuals to banking whereas before they were repelled by the hours.

1)Because you have just defined Marx's Theory of Alienation, and an Investment Bank is not the ideal place to espouse Liberal Idiot Socialism.

2)Because "bright young individuals" are fucking nobodies with a sense of entitlement.

3)Because in the magical world of adults, rewards (more money, better hours, higher quality of life) are not given on the basis of potential, they are the by-product of achievement.

You will never make a lot of money in life without working hard, there's your answer simplified. Good luck.

 
Midas Mulligan Magoo:
ambition56:

So my question is, why don't investment banks adjust everyone's schedule and hours so that the hours are more reasonable and the MDs and VPs work at the same time as the analysts and associates and everyone doesn't kill themselves working. I think this would attract many more bright young individuals to banking whereas before they were repelled by the hours.

1)Because you have just defined Marx's Theory of Alienation, and an Investment Bank is not the ideal place to espouse Liberal Idiot Socialism.

2)Because "bright young individuals" are fucking nobodies with a sense of entitlement.

3)Because in the magical world of adults, rewards (more money, better hours, higher quality of life) are not given on the basis of potential, they are the by-product of achievement.

You will never make a lot of money in life without working hard, there's your answer simplified. Good luck.

...douche! he asks you a simple question and you respond with that?

Control your own destiny, or someone else will.
 

it's a client oriented service business, we do things that the client doesn't wanna do, and go the extra mile for them. So basically, we get work handed down whenever the client finishes reviewing/correcting/making changes to presentations or documents. hence, the work in unpredictable and really dependent on the client's convenience

 
ambition56:
if they let you (as in if it was generally acceptable) to take care of your personal shit(Gym, Taxes, Laundry) during the down time waiting for clients/mangers to get their sht together i think it would be a much more reasonable/bearable lifestyle lol

Bankers don't go tanning? (then what was with that line from damn it feels good to be a banker??)

looking for that pick-me-up to power through an all-nighter?
 

^^ lol @ gym, taxes, laundry

_________ John Tabacco's raw, unique market commentary based on real information from real short sellers: http://www.TheDailyShortReport.com
 
You will never make a lot of money in life without working hard, there's your answer simplified. Good luck.

Unless of course you pay $45 for a couple of boxes of stuff at a yard sale and wind up with Ansel Adams negatives worth $200 million in your possession.

 

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Disclaimer for the Kids: Any forward-looking statements are solely for informational purposes and cannot be taken as investment advice. Consult your moms before deciding where to invest.
 

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