Three Reasons Back Office isn't that bad.

Who cares if any of that is true? It doesn't make it less worse...

I've given a lot of shit towards BO. But all of these are true observations. If I were looking for any of this stuff, I might choose BO. Or, I might just live in DC and work in the government where I could get four day weekends on Christmas.

Brosef Stalin17 feel free to add some constructive criticism instead of making passive aggressive comments. If you read the post, you'll see that I have full disclosure about my background and asked for input from people who have actually worked in finance.

good insight and a few decent points, but if a firm is going to make cuts, it speaks a lot better for your case if you bring value to the company and make money.. not to say it will save you from the inevitable, but it helps.

I don't think anybody is saying that working in the back office is so terrible or shameful. Working at a big bank like GS, JPM, MS, etc. in any role is great for a fresh college grad. I think what people here take issue with is the assumption that if you work in tech or ops or some other back office role that it could be a stepping stone to a front office role in finance. Almost always, it is not (I've heard of some exceptions of people in tech becoming front office desk quants, though). The back office functions in a bank are often not all that different from the equivalent position at a regular company. The positions people are generally interested in on WSO are the front office functions, not just any old job that happens to be at a bank or in finance.

HR, Marketing, Strategy, and I would argue a lot of tech roles aren't MO or BO, they are corporate roles.

Marketing, strategy, and tech aren't front office because they don't meet clients but they certainly drive business. I can ensure you the tech team at any bank is seen as crucial. Banks are spending a ton of money to build more client friendly applications so they can thrive.

BO/MO is more of an auxiliary role that supports FO directly.

@1234bama" wrote a great thread about ops a while back, give it a look

Take it from someone who has worked in the back office long enough to know what's going on.

1a. Everyone there knows the difference between BO and FO.

1b. 0 amount of people at the BO like what they do. 70% hate it, 30% have just accepted it.

2. The first jobs to go during a recession are in the BO. See point 1b. A lot of people hate working in the BO, so they actually don't work at all. Those are the people who are targets for being fired. FO brings in the money. Why would you cut people during a recession who are bringing in money?

3. Yes there are exit ops. To other back offices. Horray..

As a final point I would like to offer you, if you think working at a BO isn't so horrible, try to spend at least 6 months working at one. Bonus points to you if you don't contemplate suicide more than 5 time in the week.

RE #2: They're also more likely to be moved to Phoenix or outsourced to India.

I'm not sure about the recession proof...as you are still a cost in BO and not a source of revenue..Thus easy to cut if needs be

junior at a non-target who has never worked in finance = 0 credibility

BO isn't particularly bad but WSO is the wrong place to get any respect for it. Everyone here believes they're going to work at a BB M&A. As far as a long-term career I'd pick risk as the best BO job you can get. An analyst in the NY office was telling me that all-in first year comp was 95-100k. For most of the BO people on here I'd reccommend toughing it out for awhile and try to move to FO or get into B-school. Accounting and compliance jobs are absolute dog shit if you ask me.

I've seen both MO and FO (pre- and post-MBA). I would say that generally, if you're a highly motivated individual, you will find BO/MO work to be stultifying. And if you're not a total alpha and finance nerd, you will be miserable in FO IB work.

In my short career so far, I'm of the mindset that being in a BO function is never terrible, but its not really where you want to reside long term. Ideally you should also try to apply your skillset to where you're as close to the "Front Office" or revenue generating side of the business as possible. For example, in banking lots of functions such as IT, Engineering, Marketing are all back office functions whereas out in the Bay Area where I work all of the BO and FO roles are switched.

I've done both Product Management as well as Corp Dev as large Tech companies and PM was way more respected than the Corp Dev team. People in Corp Dev tried to play it off like they were close to the C suite and making strategic decisions, but a Product Leader/Head of a BU was much more influential on inorganic growth than anyone from Corp Dev. Product and Engineering was the life of the company and thus got paid the most and were the most respected.

Few leaders in the field of finance have come from the back office the same way that few leaders from tech companies come from Finance or HR. I'm sure the same could be found across nearly all industries. If you want to move and grow quickly, align yourself with the front office wherever you are and work your way up.

@_KrK - you're not going to win this argument on WSO. You're not entirely wrong, but there is pretty much no overlap between the people on this site and the people that you're talking about.

I go to a semi-target - we send kids to both front and back office roles (although far more to back than to front). There are generally 2 kinds of people who end up taking back office roles - people who wanted front office but weren't good enough and made the decision to settle, and people who were just looking for a corporate job and liked the small pay premium that banks offered for standard corporate drone work (with one notable exception of a kid who turned down his GS FO FT offer for GS BO FT because he didn't care about the money and wanted to work fewer hours.)

Your first point I really don't think is very true. I have friends in BO roles from both my semi-target and from non-target schools. Everyone knows the difference. Some of them don't care, or occasionally (like the example above) choose BO for their own reasons. The rest of them say they don't care, but I'm pretty sure they do.

Your second point is accurate. BO jobs are, far more than FO jobs, 'careers' where people can stick around for a long time - based on Linkedin of my school's alumni/in general. However, like people below mentioned, based on Linkedin stalking, BO jobs don't seem to end on the employee's terms when they do come to an end. Go and search Linkedin for "Previous Company: Blackstone". The vast majority of people you'll see will be back office. This is true for every top firm - with how true it is based on the strength of the firm. If you are able to sort out FO roles, it becomes even more apparent. These are the jobs being outsourced and cut.

The Third Point ties into the second. You will see that there is a fairly clear divergence of paths/tiers/background prestige between FO and BO roles. There is nothing wrong with this. But, a BO role is akin to a typical job at any other corporation, while a FO role is an entirely different animal. Exit ops diverge strictly along those lines. By your definition, every job has 'exit ops' - there is no career which WILL be your last. But exit ops like they are discussed here - with regard to revenue-generating HF/PE roles - just barely/basically don't exist for BO jobs. Sure you can go from BB tech to GE tech or wherever else. But you will almost always take a pay-cut (like-for-like) in exchange for potentially better hours/culture. I welcome you to try to prove me/the rest of the board wrong - take a stroll through Linkedin and see what you find.

It is true that BO roles for a BB oftentimes are more competitive than comparable roles for non-banking companies - and are similarly more competitive to get into. But it is still apples/oranges with FO recruiting/the FO 'path'.

There are going to be some people in every BO that wish they were in the FO. Most of them overestimate their skill set and understanding of finance. There are some who really may be undervalued and with a lot of work can make it to the FO (though almost never at the same company). Most others are pretty happy with their jobs and have a perspective more akin to the average worker, comparing their jobs to what else is available in the broader economy and not just things like IB/PE/HF/AM.

I work in ops and it really is incredibly boring and unsatisfying from a career perspective. It comes down to what the individual wants. If you want decent money with easy hours doing simple tasks then operations is for you. Nothing wrong with that, it's simply a job that pays the bills and gives you a lot of free time.

Sure prestige, ridiculous amounts of money, and more interesting work is nice and all but if you don't need that to be happy then more power to you. I remember something from an older post that always stuck with me that I'll paraphrase: Back office is great later in your career when your priorities have changed and you're kind of just chilling. But it's not good when you're young and should be more ambitious.

I spent a couple torturous years in the BO of a large bank before I finally broke free. The type of work done in most departments was Ops related and complete monotonous bullshit. The people for the most part were unmotivated weak personalities who's only goal was to maybe move up in their group or try for another BO job within there firm. Job prospects were shit because everyone knows what you do isn't transferable. Even within the bank the FO positions wouldn't take your transfer because they don't take BO (even with extensive networking in the firm it was very very rare). From what I saw in my time there I'd say only about 5-10% of the people that start there actually make it into a solid lucrative career path afterwards, usually involving a career change. The BO has its benefits for middle aged moms and dads wanting job security, but otherwise I'd say you're wasting your time

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it mind blowing that a junior in college who has never worked a day of FT in his life is leading a discussion on how a part of the industry is "not that bad" without never having (1) worked full time post-graduation, (2) never worked in the industry he is assessing.

Recently made an AMA about making the switch from BO to IB, and going to say why the OP seems to be very misinformed: 1. Everyone in BO knows the difference between BO and FO no doubt. Nobody genuinely enjoys BO work, from my experience the tech/IT guys were the only people who were happy with themselves since that is what they went to school for and enjoyed doing. 2. An overwhelming majority of people I worked with in BO were trying endlessly to get the fuck out asap which definitely hindered the camaraderie that was able to be built between us since everyone spent all of their free time strategizing on how to get out. Definitely not a "career" as opposed to FO. The BO is also definitely not recession proof/more secure, the BO is a cost center with no revenue generation capabilities. As processes become more and more automated and with the looming Trump deregulation, the BO undeniably has a much more grim outlook than any FO capacity with respect to near term job cuts. 3. Traditional BO exit ops are completely irrelevant to markets/true finance that WSO is not even the right website to discuss them.

The back office is absolutely terrible for those who have the mentality that 99% of the people on this site possess, so OP you're doing us all a disservice by making posts with misleading titles/inaccurate information especially when you're a junior in college. Take it from someone who knows.

You know BO sucks when transitioning to Big4 audit feels like a godsend.

have a bud who works for BofA BO in charlotte. 80K+ a year. saying he works 40 hours a week would be an over-exaggeration. does he like it? hell no. but it pays really well for barely any real work, he now has the time to do other things....like work his startup, with a 80K salary job as a sense of security

I work in Ops. I like my job and it pays my bills. I also have a pretty good idea of where I can take my career. Don't really care of some college kids / insecure monkeys on this site think they're better than me for it.

There's an entire industry in consulting dedicated to selling banks projects to automate BO functions. Many of my classmates from my graduate program got jobs in Big 4 advisory doing this exact thing. Just remember that.

Operations is basically a ticket to hell. It fucking sucks. People with no drive, ambition, or any such entrepreneurial spirit. The people come in at 8:59 and leave at 4:59. Corporations internal processes usually suck so all they're interested in on interviews is your previous experience in making processes more efficient.

Also to point out, I don't think positions like Tech or Marketing should be placed in traditional BO. Guys in marketing are often making deals with sponsors and such and leading negotiations for such things generating revenue.

I can't speak to Ops at a BB, but its not like I just sit around and do data entry all day. At least in my position there are challenging and rewarding elements to the work.