Yes. Less competition

If lay-offs dissuade you from this career path, then, yes, you should reconsider your job options.

Yes

I don't think so. Two main reasons:

1) You're a junior and this is just an internship. Banks rarely rescind SA offers/lay off SAs. In fact, I only know of one person who had that happen to him (at Bear Stearns in 2008). So your job security is pretty solid.

2) The experience you get as an IB intern makes you very marketable, assuming you're at a tier 2 bulge bracket/boutique firm (e.g. Citi, Moelis, etc.) or better. You can transfer this to other industries if you decide that you want to go somewhere more secure for a FT position. A lot of my friends interned at such firms before going off to top S&T firms, big three consulting, etc.

That said, have a backup plan. With a stagnant US economy and a deepening sovereign debt crisis in Europe, most banks are scaling back on hiring. I know FT recruiting this year was very dry, especially amongst bulge brackets.

Also look into restructuring practices. Firms like Lazard, HL, Evercore, BX, etc. have legit restructuring practices. These typically see more dealflow in bad economies. Probably a safe play in this economy and definitely a great way to launch your career.

Citi isn't tier 2.

The lay offs are just as bad, though, when oil prices drop and income potential diminishes quickly at a younger age. That being said, you get a lot more free time for yourself.

IP has a point. If you are very worried about layoffs at the intern level, you may want to consider something much less volatile -- like engineering.

I'd probably make the same choices, given the same circumstances. Where else are there better opportunities?

I actually liked the idea of going into law, but trying to go into BigLaw became like trying to go into S&T now. Law is an industry with an incredibly uncertain future and a shrinking number of jobs. It's a shame; I really preferred the partnership structure of Law firms to banks.

Medicine was never a get rich quick profession, but now the financial component is falling away. Reform could really kill salaries, and running your own practice means dealing with insurance billing. Not having a real income until ~30 also doesn't sound great.

Might have majored in math and done the actuarial route, but it's hard to say. I think I might get bored ~10 years in. Same could be said with dentistry.

Overall though, IB is one of the few industries that offers a path to upper 6-figures income without major risk. It also gives you a fair degree of flexibility in the field. IB to Corporate Dev? Sure. An internist moving to cardiac surgery, or a white collar defense litigator to tax law? Not so much.

Okay, tier 3.

Commercial banking isn't as bad as this forum thinks it is.

Just sayin'.

work for whole foods. everyone needs food. especially vegan natural crunchy freaks

you sound like a pussy.

you shouldnt do banking

no risk no reward, do what you feel passionate about. There's nothing you can control with where the economy is going the best you can do is to stage yourself with highly sought after skills and ride out the current market shit storm.

IB will always be needed, unlike prop trading where opportunities are limited thanks to the assholes in congress.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/wall-st-layoffs-take-heavy-toll-o...

What a depressing article.

Disagree - GM and CIT are two of the top Ch. 11 cases in recent memory. I'm pretty sure that qualifies as solid.

317, It sounds as though you're not sure what you want to do out of college, so my advice would be to ultimately choose a school that doesn't lock you in on one career path (ie. Don't sign up for a ba/md program at a school that you wouldn't go to otherwise) while considering opportunities to switch between colleges at a university (transferring from Wharton to UPenn CAS is easier than going from CAS to Wharton).

If you get into a "semi-target" or "target", you'll have some of time in college to explore different interests before making a decision. A lot of my friends went into school pre-med, became bio/econ double majors, and ended up in finance. A few other did the opposite route.

I don't think this round of layoffs should influence your decision now. Even if this cycle doesn't recover by the time you graduate, the finance industry will always need some bare minimum number of analysts. Then it's just your job to make sure you're qualified to be one of the few.

I think he was indicating it is better than "solid".

Anyone have insight on what the banking industry will look like in 5-10 years? I know this is a shot in the dark. Will salaries be lower and the industry smaller, or will it rebound?

will it be a less lucrative field or simply smaller? you can't really regulate compensation can you?

317, If you can get into a target school, you can land a banking job in this environment with a biology major. I don't know what recruiting will look like when you're looking for an analyst position, but if it's like what it is today... you should be able to get a job with some networking.

I've only interned in the industry, so I don't know too much about which areas are cutting personnel. I'll leave that to the experts.

@IP Are you kidding me? People will continue to get rich irrespective. You're overly pessimistic and it shows, the reality is that the general trend is people have done better as time has gone forward, there are corrections, but the general trend is up.

Dead serious. Folks responded the same way in 2009/early 2010 when I said the financial industry might start shrinking on a permanent basis.

We could see the same thing happen with GINIs, although it will take several years for a noticeable trend. You cannot make money selling stuff to poor people.

It is my view that the definition of "rich" in the US will slowly become the ability to maintain a given standard of living instead of increasing it. The world is getting more competitive and this country has a disproportionate share of global wealth. The slow correction of this imbalance will be extremely painful to the average American.

Drop out of college? Are you kidding me?!?? When you're struggling to pay the electric bill and living off of PB&J the last week each month the prospect of a middle class life will start looking real attractive.

Also, it is the owners/capital holders who get truly rich, not the laborers (name of the game is still CAPITALISM). Most owners still live in America but a lot of labor has moved overseas. Hence the GINI explosion.

The real track:
Go to School > Work Hard > Get Job > Work Hard > Build Capital > Deploy Capital > Monitor Labor >> "Rich"

I believe GINI numbers are a poor way to determine if banking will help you getting rich/will not help you getting rich in the future.
I am from Europe and countries like Sweden or Germany have significantly lower GINIs than the US, however banking in these countries still help you get "rich" so much faster than any other industry.
It might average out a little, especially the bottom 5 % in these countries own a lot more than in the US. But I don't see this development from stopping bankers earning more money than regular workers.

Banking will see few layoffs compared to FICC (although some of the excess will flock to private $).

The real difference is that economic growth is so shitty that the hiring market will stay flat. Harvard can only admit as many students as it can house...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!