If you think 100k is enough money to have a decent place and then have enough left over to travel, take your girl out, and get dranks with friends...you must not be in NYC.

Under my tutelage, you will grow from boys to men. From men into gladiators. And from gladiators into SWANSONS.
 
Flake:

If you think 100k is enough money to have a decent place and then have enough left over to travel, take your girl out, and get dranks with friends...you must not be in NYC.

I have a few friends who make 60k first year out of school and they have enough money to do all those things. Their tax is much lower and they end up making like 250 less than me per pay period. Obviously bonus is huge difference but most banking analysts go all year living fine with 70k/year.

"Look, you're my best friend, so don't take this the wrong way. In twenty years, if you're still livin' here, comin' over to my house to watch the Patriots games, still workin' construction, I'll fuckin' kill you. That's not a threat, that's a fact.
 

When I was making only $85k it was enough. I never cook and eat out every meal, buy nice clothes, buy expensive cocktails, and spend $10k a year on travel. Before I was in a relationship, I'd take girls out on $100-$150 dates atleast once a week. The one thing I didn't do is throw down $600 a weekend at expensive clubs, but I wouldn't want to do that anyways. I also had roommates, which pushed rent down a bit.

If you make money, there are plenty of ways to spend it in NYC. I went to Stern undegrad, and I have friends who make $200-300k a year, and they certainly find ways to spend it. You can can get $3500-$5000 a month rent, equinox membership, VIP at the club every week, fly first class etc... but its debateable if that's really necessary.

 
OpsDude:
Flake:

Point taken. I think I spend too much.

Don't worry about it, no one in finance in Manhattan saves. I cut back my spending to save for business school, and was shocked how my happiness level didn't change at all even when I reduced spending. Kind of kicking my self for not saving more earlier on.

Speak for yourself pal.

Back to my rusty honda, bottle of yellowtail, and 401k account.

 
datphukinnewb:

So what exactly do you do as there are different types of ops? How do responsibilities shift as you move up?

What is interesting is, before I started I thought operations was just trade support and reconciling trades. If you get into an analyst program in NYC, you almost always get to do more strategic type of work (trade support stuff tends to be done out of satelittle office like buffalo nowadays). I've worked in a variety of project roles that involved offshoring, dashboards, strategic metrics, onshoring, preventing rogue traders, strategic re-alignments of middle and back office groups. It's more interesting than I assumed...work with a global team, lead meetings with senior managers, have technology team reporting into you, create project plans, etc.

Your responsibilities go from business analyst work (many excel analysis and powerpoint) to more project management work as you move up, with more meetings/decisions/getting people to do work and less data analaysis.

 

1.) What led you to pursue ops at a BB? 2.) What is the general career path in ops / is promotion very difficult (like in IB you have to bring in clients once at VP stage in order to get promoted) 3.) Do analysts/associates normally stay or jump ship? 4.) Could you give a detailed breakdown of compensation of associate / VP / Director / MD and so on? Generally do you view it as a good division to make a comfortable living without all the stress/hours associated with front office?

 
monkeyleverage:

1.) What led you to pursue ops at a BB?
2.) What is the general career path in ops / is promotion very difficult (like in IB you have to bring in clients once at VP stage in order to get promoted)
3.) Do analysts/associates normally stay or jump ship?
4.) Could you give a detailed breakdown of compensation of associate / VP / Director / MD and so on? Generally do you view it as a good division to make a comfortable living without all the stress/hours associated with front office?

1) Honestly, I wanted to do front-office work (I don't even know why, I went to Stern and everyone wanted to do it, so I just went with the flow and wanted to do it, before I even knew what it was). I came out of the school at the height of the recession, an offer I thought I had disappeared, and I took the job out of desperation to be honest. 2) Usually you get associate after 2.5-4.5 years, and VP 3-4 years after that. Top performers usually make VP at around ~28/29, and decent performers at 30-32. A handful of people will get it earlier if they are in the right place at the right time. I'd say most people end up making VP if they have a brain (especially in NYC office, harder in satellite offices), but it's much harder to get to director/MD. 3) The motivated people jump ship because its the best way to get pay-raises/more responsibility faster. I started at Citi (at a better bank now), so most people either jumped to a better bank, or moved into credit risk type of roles (there was a reporting aspect to one of my metrics roles, so they had relevant skill sets). 4) Associates pay varies A LOT. Generally, the more they've bounced around, the more they make at associate level. I might $90k base, but have switched firms. I know associates making as little as $80k. I also know an associate who makes $120k.

Same goes for VP. My friend is a 30 year old VP at Citi, makes $100k...only got $7k increase with promotion from associate to VP. This isn't the norm though (Citi sucks, I think they're all getting a pay increase soon though since they brought in consultants to analyze their pay practices due to high attrition) most VP's start around $120k, and get up to $160k/$170k as they take on more responsibility / have direct reports. Not really sure about how much directors make, but assuming over $200k base. From what I hear, base is comparable to front office, with lower bonus, and lower percentage of people making Director. Also a lot of senior management comes from consulting backgrounds/MBA's, not direct promotions.

It's a great life if you hobbies outside of work and don't want to be working all the time...more exit opps than I assumed too. You're not going to become a millionaire from it though.

 

Banking does tend to breed bad spending habits. At the same time, saving is a skill learned over time. I did find myself spending alot more liberally in banking but I learned to save when i was a kid. My first year I saved only 20k (mostly due to crappy bonus) but in general, I save more than 50% of my gross all in comp. After 5 years in banking, i've saved up over 700k cash so it does happen guys - and i'm married to a non-finance girl so i "support" her too. Our most expensive outlay is usually vacation - twice a yeaer about 10k each time

 

how in the heck did you save that much? im not being skeptical, i want to really know so I can do the same. Assuming average pre-tax income over the 5 years was 200K per annum, a portion going to 401k, rent being around 30K per year (150K for 5 years), transportation, etc. I'd figure you'd only save half that. So your liquidity would be around $350-400k.

------------ I'm making it up as I go along.
 

I work for a large consulting firm in Boston, stay small with a firm like Bain for financial services consulting because there isn't a huge amount of work or dollars in that space for large firms (like mine) whose bread and butter is long duration, high number of people, enterprise transformation engagements.

 

I like your attitude and you seemed to have enjoyed your job.

Do you think that your BO role stunted(this obviously is a little early because you're applying R2) your chances at M7 when going up against Ibankers from your same firm? Or was it more so from your "low-ish GPA"

What was your GPA btw?

 
ishouldbstudying:

I like your attitude and you seemed to have enjoyed your job.

Do you think that your BO role stunted(this obviously is a little early because you're applying R2) your chances at M7 when going up against Ibankers from your same firm? Or was it more so from your "low-ish GPA"

What was your GPA btw?

My GPA was 3.36. I got rejected after interview from Columbia, but I think that was the worst interview I had (it was at 8am and I'm not a morning person). I'm sure a person with front office experience is stronger, but I had pretty cool, relevant experience. I've worked on a lot of stuff that's in the news (off shoring, big data, KYC/AML, rogue trading, etc), so I was able to build a nice story. I got a 750 GMAT, so I think I have a decent shot for Kellogg, less so for Chicago. I wouldn't say back-office work is the application killer that this site made it out to be.

 

from low-ish GPA to comments about wanting to hang out and leave early etc - the op doesn't sound like much of an overachiever (by any stretch). While i laud work life balance and doing what you love, i don't think prospectives should settle for mediocrity and apathy. Find what you love and drive hard at it to be the best you can be. If not for money then for personal integrity - you should be proud and want to do well ....

this whole thread reads like a prescription for how to coast in life ...

 

I disagree. I think it offers a refreshing perspective from someone who started in front office at BlackRock, took a job in ops during the downturn, and then realized having the time to hang with your friends and get married is pretty rewarding.

I agree with your points on personal drive and ambition. By all means, don't sell yourself short by slacking. But at the end of the day, it's just a job.

Listen, here's the thing. If you can't spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker.
 

What are you talking about? Nothing from his posts have indicated he wants to coast in life considering he is now shooting for business school to realign his career. Some people value their freedom while young more than you might. It doesn't mean he settles for mediocrity. Not everyone can be or wants to be a front office junkie working 80+ hour weeks and spending every dime because they hate their jobs.

For @OpsDude , 4.5 years and only $90k seems low when you started at $60k, am I crazy? What type of firm are you at? Bulge bracket? Does your firm know you are applying to MBA programs (assuming you needed references)?

Frank Sinatra - "Alcohol may be man's worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy."
 
yeahright:

What are you talking about? Nothing from his posts have indicated he wants to coast in life considering he is now shooting for business school to realign his career. Some people value their freedom while young more than you might. It doesn't mean he settles for mediocrity. Not everyone can be or wants to be a front office junkie working 80+ hour weeks and spending every dime because they hate their jobs.

For @OpsDude , 4.5 years and only $90k seems low when you started at $60k, am I crazy? What type of firm are you at? Bulge bracket? Does your firm know you are applying to MBA programs (assuming you needed references)?

I started at Citigroup which had horrific raises for the first couple of years since it was $40 billion in the hole. I'm in JPMorgan now and the comp structure is much better. I'm assuming if you started now, with the improved economy, you'd see slightly better salary progression.

 
Best Response
GoVolckYourself:

from low-ish GPA to comments about wanting to hang out and leave early etc - the op doesn't sound like much of an overachiever (by any stretch). While i laud work life balance and doing what you love, i don't think prospectives should settle for mediocrity and apathy. Find what you love and drive hard at it to be the best you can be. If not for money then for personal integrity - you should be proud and want to do well ....

this whole thread reads like a prescription for how to coast in life ...

To each their own. I worked very hard in high school and didn't have much of a life. I went into college with the aim to enjoy myself, and I did. I had 3.5 GPA from a target school during recruiting (final GPA ended up lower since I didn't try senior year after receiving offer), which historically was good enough for investment banking, in 2009 they all cut their analyst class in half (except Barclays for some reason), and my GPA was no longer good enough.

A lot of people in my school thought "if I make a ton of money, I'll finally be happy!"...I thought this too, so I'm not criticizing. This turns out to be untrue for a lot of people (certainly some people do love it and absolutely kill it, but those people tend to be fulfilled before they started banking to begin with). I see a ton of "models and bottles" attitudes out there, but the fact is you're not going to get a hot girlfriend if you're tired and sick all the time (which you will be working in investment banking). You're going to lose a lot of friendships too. Being stressed and tired for years on end wears people down way worse than most prospective monkeys truly understand. Some of my friends do love it, but quite a lot look dead inside, but can't quit because they are addicted to the life style. Also worth noting that they don't make as much as this site assumes - a lot of the figures on this site are for people in the top 10% of the class, but most people will be rated a 3 (between top 30%-80%), in which case the bonuses are going to be half of what you're expecting.

The free time allowed me to improve myself and become the person I wanted to become, and do the activities I wanted to in my 20's. Could I have been just as happy if I did a front-offce job? Sure, but I don't think I would've ended up happier, and definitely a high risk I would've been less happy.

 
GoVolckYourself:

from low-ish GPA to comments about wanting to hang out and leave early etc - the op doesn't sound like much of an overachiever (by any stretch). While i laud work life balance and doing what you love, i don't think prospectives should settle for mediocrity and apathy. Find what you love and drive hard at it to be the best you can be. If not for money then for personal integrity - you should be proud and want to do well ....

this whole thread reads like a prescription for how to coast in life ...

Are you one of those kids that makes a soreadsheet to calculate how many hours they work a week and then runs a sensitivity analysis? Your self worth in life is not quantified by the number of hours you work. You do realize you can make a very comfortable living in roles such as corporate finance, ops, pwn, commercial banking, etc. have time for friends /family and still be in the top10% income bracket. More to life than IBD and the exit opps, happiness is how you define it and varies from person to person. Also there is really no correlation between integrity/doing well and how many hours you work.

 
GoVolckYourself:

from low-ish GPA to comments about wanting to hang out and leave early etc - the op doesn't sound like much of an overachiever (by any stretch). While i laud work life balance and doing what you love, i don't think prospectives should settle for mediocrity and apathy. Find what you love and drive hard at it to be the best you can be. If not for money then for personal integrity - you should be proud and want to do well ....

this whole thread reads like a prescription for how to coast in life ...

You read like an Ayn Rand novel.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for freedom of thought which they seldom use.
 

OP, how many moves have you seen from BO to MO specifically into credit risk. From some if the posts here it looks like CR is one of the best non-FO places to be in terms of experience and comp (modeling, credit analysis, etc) with same base as IBD and 20-30% bonus. Is this the case at your firm?

What level/pay do MBAs come in at and what schools are typically targets?

Do you have any friends working at banks who have a strong presence in Charlotte (BAML/WF) I assume that os for these guys is not based out of NYC, how's comp and career trajectory.

Thanks for doing this q&a.

 
n1cktm:

OP, how many moves have you seen from BO to MO specifically into credit risk. From some if the posts here it looks like CR is one of the best non-FO places to be in terms of experience and comp (modeling, credit analysis, etc) with same base as IBD and 20-30% bonus. Is this the case at your firm?

What level/pay do MBAs come in at and what schools are typically targets?

Do you have any friends working at banks who have a strong presence in Charlotte (BAML/WF) I assume that os for these guys is not based out of NYC, how's comp and career trajectory.

Thanks for doing this q&a.

From my team at Citi, quite a few got into credit risk, and I'm sure I could've pretty easily too. Most of them were actually fairly unhappy since their hours went up a lot compared to ops (a lot of them were from non-target schools, so they didn't really have the banking culture/hours ingrained into them). Pay was definitely higher, but don't think they were making more on a per-hour basis though. Promotions are much quicker too. A girl in my analyst class left for credit risk 18 months in...she just made VP, whereas a lot of people who stayed in ops JUST got AVP/associate 6-12 months ago.

MBA is much less structured for Ops. Bad MBA program, and not great experience...associate. Good MBA and/or previous relevant experience, VP. Plus there's a lot of people who do Stern part-time too, which makes it even murkier. At Citigroup, there wasn't much of an official mba summer associate program that I was aware of, might be different at different bank. That said, most senior management had a MBA (a lot came from consulting too).

 

This is great! I am new in an ops role and I have my own opinions about it but would like to hear yours since you've been doing it for some time now. How do you feel about the work you are doing, in terms of its importance/significance? I feel that being in ops, none of the reporting/stats are of real importance and do not affect the business in any way. I don't know how it is there, but isn't it stressful when management talks about offshoring your department or when you see your department shrink? I can totally agree that the amount of free time you get is great and allows you do other things, but don't you worry that it can be all over?

 
looping56:

This is great! I am new in an ops role and I have my own opinions about it but would like to hear yours since you've been doing it for some time now. How do you feel about the work you are doing, in terms of its importance/significance? I feel that being in ops, none of the reporting/stats are of real importance and do not affect the business in any way. I don't know how it is there, but isn't it stressful when management talks about offshoring your department or when you see your department shrink? I can totally agree that the amount of free time you get is great and allows you do other things, but don't you worry that it can be all over?

You bring up some legitimate concerns. Now is a bad time to be on a trade support/operations lines (although I think most of the outsourcing/automation is basically complete by now). You really want to be put on project teams/strategy teams (usually NYC ops jobs), as these won't ever be outsourced/automated, and you learn a wider skill set. There's a ton of these teams. Also, with all the lawsuits going on, a lot of businesses are getting onshored. The project I'm working on now, onshored HUNDREDS of KYC/AML jobs. Outsourcing to India has been a failure for a lot of groups...I do expect trade process type of work to continue to be outsourced to mid-cost locations though (e.g. buffalo NY, salt lake city).

Anythings possible, but I don't think it's all going away any time soon. Products and regulations are just going to continue to get more complicated. I had headhunters contacting me constantly about open jobs, and half my Citi team left in 3 months after another bad comp season in 2013...30 people found jobs (all different types of jobs too) within 90 days, so there's certainly a ton of jobs out there.

My one regret is, I wish I had left after 2 years, would've been easy to get an associate job with a big pay bump at that point, but I was complacent.

 
GoVolckYourself:

Credit Risk is not back office ... neither is internal strategy, mgmt type roles. Backoffice is trade support, and ops - so to compare apples to apples. You sound like you did more than most ppl in ops would get

I didn't do credit risk, I said a lot of people moved from my group to credit risk. I got into my group through an Ops superday, and it said operations in the global directory, so it was definitely ops.

 

Hey there--

I'm an incoming ops analyst at a BB. I assume I will have to go through group placement soon enough, and I was wondering if you could share your insight on what groups there are within ops, what their roles are, and what you'd recommend in trying to place myself into.

Much appreciated!

 
qwertyasfgh:

Hey there--

I'm an incoming ops analyst at a BB. I assume I will have to go through group placement soon enough, and I was wondering if you could share your insight on what groups there are within ops, what their roles are, and what you'd recommend in trying to place myself into.

Much appreciated!

try to get into a strategic planning , metrics group, pmo (project manage group). Stay away from anything repetitive that can be automated.

 
CuriousAnalyst:

Any reason why you arent considering Stern MBA for grad school?

Quite a few reasons:

1) I went there for undergrad, and there's less value in getting your MBA from the same institution as your undergrad. 2) Grew up on long island and spent the last 9 years in NYC, want to experience living in another city. (Although I hate how chicago and kellogg are in even colder places haha) 3) I REALLY disliked the NYU stern student body, a lot of borderline sociopaths with poor social skills. That poster above who questioned my motivation and only cared about the size of paycheck? That was the whole school. 4) I have gripes with the administration. I got a cool middle office offer when I was 17 credits left to graduation. I met with the administration to see if I could finish my classes at night, and they were completely unwilling to work with me. To be completely tone dead during the worse financial crisis in 80 years really aggravated me. 5) Want to do management consulting which is it weak in (although UCLA is weak also, atleast its in LA where I've wanted to live for a while, and the student body seems awesome).

 
OpsDude:
qwertyasfgh:

Thanks! Could I pm you to ask for general advices on working in ops as well? I think it would really help me a lot in being able to hear out someone with experience.

Sure, quite a few people have been PM'ing me. Although if its non-personal and broad questions, probably best to put here so the wider community can see it.

ugh, they're not letting me pm because i don't have enough points. well, first off, i've been a bit concerned about my comp. i was offered 5.5K base + 1.5x OT + whatever bonus. I'd like to think I can manage and survive on any pay, but I am curious what your experience was like in terms of starting comp your first year. Does this vary lots by group within ops because some groups never have OT and some groups have some OT? second, if you had to start over your career back on day 1 in ops, is there anything you'd pay more attention to/do differently? Since I don't know which group I'll belong to yet, I'm looking for just general advices based on what you've seen & learnt over the years.

Thanks again!

 
qwertyasfgh:
OpsDude:
qwertyasfgh:

Thanks! Could I pm you to ask for general advices on working in ops as well? I think it would really help me a lot in being able to hear out someone with experience.

Sure, quite a few people have been PM'ing me. Although if its non-personal and broad questions, probably best to put here so the wider community can see it.

ugh, they're not letting me pm because i don't have enough points. well, first off, i've been a bit concerned about my comp. i was offered 5.5K base + 1.5x OT + whatever bonus. I'd like to think I can manage and survive on any pay, but I am curious what your experience was like in terms of starting comp your first year. Does this vary lots by group within ops because some groups never have OT and some groups have some OT?
second, if you had to start over your career back on day 1 in ops, is there anything you'd pay more attention to/do differently? Since I don't know which group I'll belong to yet, I'm looking for just general advices based on what you've seen & learnt over the years.

Thanks again!

Citi moved starting comp for new analysts from $70k (was 60k when I started) no OT, to $55k with OT a few years back. They did it under the assumption you'd make around the same, but it really depends. Not sure what bank you're at, but its possible they did it for all groups.The good thing about it is, you get paid for every additional hour. The bad thing is, you don't really want to leave early. Managers I've seen haven't really pushed people to leave early, so you can rack up the OT if you want. I was never OT eligible so don't have first hand experience. If you're bank has certain non-OT eligible ops positions, it's possible you're in a worse group, in which case you might want to get out.

General advices wouldn't be much different than what most people say. Once you get to a certain quality of work (e.g. can put together a quality powerpoint and excel analysis), Promotions/raises will be based on how much managers like you (e.g. are you a good duet partner during drunk karoake), how you dress, and overall demeaner more so than the actual quality of your work. You'll get more out of going to happy hour with your managers than you will for staying late to finish a project. No one is going to remember if something was a day or two late (within reason) at comp/promotion discussions, they will remember how much they like you.

 

Good post, OP. I like your attitude as well as sharing a different perspective.

It annoys me a little that 95% of the people on this forum equate achievement exclusively with pay and prestige, which is myopic at best and dangerous at worst. While money is certainly important, over-weighting it at the expense of everything else is not a rational prescription for a decent life.

 
Going Concern:

Good post, OP. I like your attitude as well as sharing a different perspective.

It annoys me a little that 95% of the people on this forum equate achievement exclusively with pay and prestige, which is myopic at best and dangerous at worst. While money is certainly important, over-weighting it at the expense of everything else is not a rational prescription for a decent life.

It's a bit of a perception bubble here too. People act like I'm barely above poverty making $100k a year, but objectively it puts me in the top 7% of incomes...while only being in my mid-20's. Granted, cost of living in NYC is higher, but people outside of investment banking circles still consider me successful. My parents combined income is $50k. I don't feel like an unmotivated failure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States

After around $70k, research has shown that happiness isn't influenced by money anyways.

 
Going Concern:

Good post, OP. I like your attitude as well as sharing a different perspective.

It annoys me a little that 95% of the people on this forum equate achievement exclusively with pay and prestige, which is myopic at best and dangerous at worst. While money is certainly important, over-weighting it at the expense of everything else is not a rational prescription for a decent life.

For an accounting guy, do you have any support for your 95% figure? JK. I agree with you 100%.

The most important thing rising college graduates can do is try and take a real honest and forward-thinking inventory of what kind of life they want. It's important to optimize money, free time, enjoyable work, friends/family, and hobbies. It will definitely be different for everyone but an enjoyable life is the sum of many factors, and while money is one, and it may be weighted more heavily in some than others, there are other factors to consider.

OP, great AMA. Can you share at all about your path to a 750 GMAT? What was the ratio of effort/time/instinct/raw intelligence? (weirdly specific question I know, so you can answer as generally as you like).

 
Mr. Manager:

Good post, OP. I like your attitude as well as sharing a different perspective.

It annoys me a little that 95% of the people on this forum equate achievement exclusively with pay and prestige, which is myopic at best and dangerous at worst. While money is certainly important, over-weighting it at the expense of everything else is not a rational prescription for a decent life.

For an accounting guy, do you have any support for your 95% figure? JK. I agree with you 100%.

The most important thing rising college graduates can do is try and take a real honest and forward-thinking inventory of what kind of life they want. It's important to optimize money, free time, enjoyable work, friends/family, and hobbies. It will definitely be different for everyone but an enjoyable life is the sum of many factors, and while money is one, and it may be weighted more heavily in some than others, there are other factors to consider.

OP, great AMA. Can you share at all about your path to a 750 GMAT? What was the ratio of effort/time/instinct/raw intelligence? (weirdly specific question I know, so you can answer as generally as you like).

I posted my study strategy a few posts ago, but it's a combination of both raw intellect and practice.

Sophomore year of college I took a practice GMAT and got a 700, after senior year i took it officially with no real studying and got 680 (I guess my math skills atrophied throughout college haha). I was at around ~650 level when I started studying last year. I got top 1% on SAT's in high school, so I've always been a good test taker.

So you definitely can improve ~100 points, but I don't think someone who is at mid 500's when they start studying is going to get to high 700s, people do seem to plateau for one reason or another.

 

I mean lets be fair and all OP. You are looking at doing a top MBA so you can have other options or make more money. You are going to go into debt because something about your current job/position isn't making you happy.

$100K is fine money and it isn't like you have topped out, but in NYC and NYS it isn't living high off the hog. Factor in a wife and most likely kids and you will definitely want to make more.

 
TNA:

I mean lets be fair and all OP. You are looking at doing a top MBA so you can have other options or make more money. You are going to go into debt because something about your current job/position isn't making you happy.

$100K is fine money and it isn't like you have topped out, but in NYC and NYS it isn't living high off the hog. Factor in a wife and most likely kids and you will definitely want to make more.

That's certainly true, but there's a difference between wanting and needing more money. I have enough, I'm just bored, and like the adrenaline rushes of competitive jobs and dopamine drips of income/status increases. If I stay on my current path, I'd never struggle for money, I'd just be bored.

 

Out of curiousity what are your career goals post MBA? I'm assuming IB isn't something you would enjoy based on this post. Is it difficult to lateral into another finance role (risk, corp fin, commercial banking, etc)?

 
Barcadia:

i was interested to learn 75% of fortune 500 CEOs come from operations backgrounds

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2011/12/05/the-path-to-becoming-a-fortune-500-ceo/

I wouldn't read into those figures. They are not talking about trade settlement/documentation/reconciliation type of operations at a bank. You guys keep telling yourself whatever you want and justify it all you want (i.e. "I do more strategy stuff"). The facts are still the same about working in the back/middle office of an investment bank. It's still a dead end job with low pay, low intellectual stimulation, low respect, and slim exit opportunities.

If you think you're happy and the career fits your lifestyle and your objectives then great, good for you but stop trying to make shit shine. I bet we will see 50 new topics over the next few months with random college kids asking shit like "I plan on doing the BB operations>F500 CEO route, any advice on how to make the transition?"

Under my tutelage, you will grow from boys to men. From men into gladiators. And from gladiators into SWANSONS.
 

People should read the article more carefully. It basically says most CEOs start of in finance/accounting functions, then move around, ultimately becoming COO before moving up to CEO. If you look at almost any succession plan, it's very often the COO who becomes the next CEO. Even at banks, its the COO who becomes CEO. It's not some guy from operations who is generally COO, but a trader or something who is next in line (e.g. Gary Cohn or Lloyd Blankfein at GS).

 

I'm curious as to what you're spending habits were on necessities like food and clothing while working in the city. Did you primarily cook meals at home (breakfast & dinner) and bring in bagged lunches or did you simply purchase meals on the go? While making meals yourself can save money, the time and energy spent buying the food and cooking it and cleaning up can actually leave you at a disadvantage if you're time is more valuable than you value you create making a meal. Also, did you dress to impress or was the dress code casual? Would you have shirts pressed by the Korean joints or would you iron clothes yourselves? Again, curious due to the time/value proposition.

 
Clementan:

I'm curious as to what you're spending habits were on necessities like food and clothing while working in the city. Did you primarily cook meals at home (breakfast & dinner) and bring in bagged lunches or did you simply purchase meals on the go? While making meals yourself can save money, the time and energy spent buying the food and cooking it and cleaning up can actually leave you at a disadvantage if you're time is more valuable than you value you create making a meal. Also, did you dress to impress or was the dress code casual? Would you have shirts pressed by the Korean joints or would you iron clothes yourselves? Again, curious due to the time/value proposition.

I eat out every meal and never cook. Work clothes I generally did Banana Republic and Charles Tywin, and would do trendy outside of work (e.g. Sperry's boat shoes and all that jazz). At work, its dress shirt and dress pants, I hardly every wear suit or tie unless meeting very senior people. My group at Citi wanted us to wear ties a lot, but thats because the managers were a bit full of themselves. I'd get my shirts pressed at a korean joint, I'd generally buy non-irons because I'm too lazy to go often though. I've cut down spending on clothes a bit, and still eat out every meal, and I've been saving $2k a month lately, just by avoiding stupid/extravagent purchases (taking almost daily taxi's because I was 10 more minutes of sleep, $4k trips to africa, Ordering sushi with the girlfriend instead of going to $100 steak places, etc). I got rent stablized which helped a bit though, elsewise I'd only be saving around $1200 a month.

 
wannabeconsultant999:

if it's not too much of a hassle, would you mind doing a very simplified "day in the life" for us?

I've let me bosses know I'm going away in business school, so my average day now is strolling in at 9:15, leaving at 5, and browsing internet all day....but I've answer the question going back a few months ago haha:

Come in between 8:45-9, except once or twice a week where I have to run a global call with Asia/EMEA at 8am. Check my email, and get breakfest (or have a meeting and then get breakfast, since there's a lot of calls with EMEA between 9-11pm). I'm running 7-8 small projects right now (at Citi, it was one HUGE projects), and one monthly deliverable (a monthly metrics thing with commentary that takes a long time to create and aggregate). Beginning of the month is putting together the report, which is combination of excel, powerpoint, and meetings. End of the month focus is more on the 7-8 projects. I'm the PM, so its mostly analyzing what people have sent me, and directing the ship towards the end goal. lots of 1 and 1 catch ups with people, a lot of meetings internally and externally, and lots of excel analysis. I usually take 30-60 minutes for lunch, 15 minute coffee break, and leave around 5:30. Sometimes I'd log in at 9pm to talk to Asia. Have a blackberry but don't use it much. Get 23 vacation days, 6 paid vacations, 10 holidays, and people usually use all of them. I can work from home when I want (2-3 times a month usually).

Projects I'm working on here currently are bringing internal businesses into our target operating model (so I work with front office MD's, multiple compliance groups, technology, ops line workers) which is basically taking a business function away from the individual businesses (e.g. FX, equities, etc) and putting it in a centralized group, and on-shoring businesses that had been outsourced. Previous work was actually creating the metrics and target operating model.

 

@OpsDude your experience in Ops sounds a lot more exciting than what I've seen/experienced from interning. Granted I was outside of NYC, but for the most part my role was extremely monotonous and allowed me plenty of time to browse WSO, sharpen my Excel/VBA skills, and even listen to music during some of the repetitive tasks. My team was relatively new, so there were/still are a lot of kinks being worked out. Overtime was nice, but in my opinion the salary is where it is to keep you somewhat satisfied and not "think" about how you're only really learning one set of skills particular (for the most part) to one group/function. Outside of Excel/personal skills, there's really not much that's transferrable to other roles in finance.

I think the reason why Ops has a bad rep is largely because of what others have touched upon but also that there really are quite a few people (from my experience) who are completely incompetent at what they do. That, or they're content with doing the bare minimum while others pick up their slack. I met a lot of smart people when I was interning- for example (one that's pretty relative to people on this forum) there was a guy from a semi-target who went from IBD internship at a BB -> prop trading firm in NY -> Ops mainly because he liked the stability of an income following the financial crisis. This guy pulled 60+ hour weeks sometimes (I know, nothing crazy to some), and basically ran my group/taught my actual manager everything he knew. I'm not trying to "defend" Ops in any way (it really can suck depending on your group placement), just trying to add some perspective.

 

Hey, I am an undergraduate student in the UK and have an internship in Operations starting in the summer at one of Capital One or AMEX (I am probably being needlessly cryptic). Do you think there will be any transferable skills that could lead to a Ops role at an I.B? From what I gather from previous interns the job I will do entails cost analysis and process mapping. Is that a generally similar kind of thing? Congratulations on your MBA offer as well. Regards J

 

You said that the bonuses mentioned on this forum are inflated - you clearly have many friends that work in IBD at BB's and have ample datapoints. Could you shock us all and share what the "average" bonuses are these days for BB IBD analysts / associates?

 
BlueShirt:

You said that the bonuses mentioned on this forum are inflated - you clearly have many friends that work in IBD at BB's and have ample datapoints. Could you shock us all and share what the "average" bonuses are these days for BB IBD analysts / associates?

If you want to hear one shocking low figure, my friend works front office doing securitization at JPM, makes the same exact total comp as me, despite working 6:45am-9pm every day. He has 4 years of experience and I have 5 years of experience. (he gets $80k base, $20k bonus; I got $90k salary, $10k bonus).

 
OpsDude:
BlueShirt:

You said that the bonuses mentioned on this forum are inflated - you clearly have many friends that work in IBD at BB's and have ample datapoints. Could you shock us all and share what the "average" bonuses are these days for BB IBD analysts / associates?

If you want to hear one shocking low figure, my friend works front office doing securitization at JPM, makes the same exact total comp as me, despite working 6:45am-9pm every day. He has 4 years of experience and I have 5 years of experience. (he gets $80k base, $20k bonus; I got $90k salary, $10k bonus).

Something is wrong there. Your friend is an outlier and may not be telling you the whole story of what he does. His base as a 4th year is falling somewhere between 1st and 2nd year IBD/S&T/ER base comp. So he may not be doing structuring but some sort of support function. Or he moved internally from a lower paying job mid-year and his new base level has not been adjusted yet. Either way your data point is misleading and not representative of what the street pays.

In terms of his bonus, yeah it can definitely be that low. I've seen even lower in sales and in research.

Under my tutelage, you will grow from boys to men. From men into gladiators. And from gladiators into SWANSONS.
 
jss09:

During your Ops career, did you ever recruit for jobs outside of finance? Ive heard that most employers outside of the finance realm are more impressed with the name, and assume whatever you did there was solid experience.

I had some consulting interviews when I was looking to switch from Citi. The comp was good, but the firms were third tier and smaller firms, so I decided to go to JPM because it would make it easier for me to apply to business school (The hours would be more conducive to GMAT studying and I thought the brand would help more). To be honest, I don't know too many people would left finance completely.

 
AllDay_028:

I'm interested if you know what the comp is like in the finance (non front office) people at JPM. Like what are the FP&A associates making? Is it better than the Ops teams generally?

Hopefully someone else can answer this. I know at BlackRock the comp was about the same....but that's 6 year old information. I don't really know anybody in finance at JPM.

 
CuriousAnalyst:

What was your study strat for the GMAT? I have Manhattan GMAT books but havent really began studying.

I decided to apply to business school in late May, and took it beginning of August. I gave myself I think 9 weeks of study time. I took a Manhattan GMAT classes. Surprisingly to me, I was doing better on Verbal than Quant, so I focused mostly on Quant. The class was good because it forced me to study on a consistent schedule and the instructor kept me engaged (he also looked over my essays/resume several months later for free, just out of kindness)...You can probably get by on the guides alone, but figured why risk it. It was a humbling moment too...I never have used a test prep service or anything like that before.

I studied quite a bit, especially the last month. I only took two full practice tests. Usually did an hour or two per day during the week (I'd do GMATCLUB questions during slow time at work), then 3-4 hours per day on the weekend. Once I started to plateau on math, I used the manhattan GMAT advanced quant guide...It really is amazing for 700+ questions. I'd do groups of 10 questions in 20 minutes. I didn't really keep track of what I got wrong or my strengths and weaknesses....there was no excel sheet tracking for me - but a lot of high scorers seems to have done that, so possibly try that.

 

@"OpsDude" thanks for the great post and reading. I noticed that you mentioned that you were the PM for several projects and I was wondering if being a PMP holder would assist when applying for OPs jobs. Also have you seen some of the tech guys go into the OPs side. Thanks and good luck in Business School.

Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum
 
AY01:

@OpsDude thanks for the great post and reading. I noticed that you mentioned that you were the PM for several projects and I was wondering if being a PMP holder would assist when applying for OPs jobs. Also have you seen some of the tech guys go into the OPs side. Thanks and good luck in Business School.

I took about half the PMP courses...then switched teams and pretty much forgot about it. I've definitely interviewed people who push having a PMP and Six Sigma belts...but it didn't really seem to help them be hired. Directly relevant experience, and more importantly, knowing the right people seem to drive most of the hires. I'd say ~80% of hires I've seen have been due to internal recommendations (and internal transfers)..

It's very rare for tech guys to go to op's side...I'm not sure if its because the tech side is more lucrative or something cultural (literally 90%+ are indian, many on HB1 visas). The tech guys who have strong interpersonal skills usually do tech lead or tech pm roles (in essense, they are the face of technology to the ops teams or whatever group, and then assign their own tech teams to complete).

 
Billy Beane:

Just kind of curious. Will you have 4.5 years of experience when you start school, or you had that when you applied? I'm about to finish my 3rd year and having a tough time figuring out when will be the sweet spot to apply.

I'll have exactly 5 years upon matriculation, had a little bit over 4 years when I started to apply (I'm class of 2009),

Average age at most business schools is 27-28 at matriculation (I think Duke might be 29), with girls a year or two younger than guys...so most people in my class graduated undergrad 2007-2010 I'd say.

 
vpa94:

Why didn't you pursue another front office in blackjack or another BB after the economy got a little brighter?

A few reasons:

1) Throughout the years, I was focusing on different things outside my career: Relationships, sports, travels. outside interests, okcupid dates, marathon training, weight training, etc.I could've theoretically tried to make a front office jump, but quite frankly was content with life and didn't really think of it.

2) I saw what my friends were going through and decided I didn't want the IB life style, but didn't really know what I wanted to do...so kind of went through inertia and just stuck out my job. It's hard to give up a 9-5 job that pays you enough money to do everything you want to do (at the time).

3) Scars of the financial crisis...it definitely took me a little while to regain my confidence.

4) Wasn't really sure of how to jump to front office. I'm very aware now, but since I wasn't really focusing on my career that much, I didn't seek out the answers.

If I wasn't going to a good business school, I might regret the above...but now I get to reset my career, and got to spend my 20's having fun and getting with the love of my life, so things worked out well in the end. From what I've learned, IB analyst stints really only pays off in the end if you get into hedge fund, VC, or partner-track PE afterwards...With a Sub 3.4 GPA from a non-ivy, I wasn't getting into one of those anyways in all likelihood, even if I hustled into BB front office.

At Kellogg, there's a TON of ex-BB bankers and PE people. They might have a slight leg up in recruiting, and maybe some money saved (or not, finance people notoriously don't save money), but they absolutely killed themselves for the last 5 years (one PE guy I met hadn't taken a day off in 1.5 years, kellogg admit weekend was the first time he did, seriously wtf), and it's very possible we both end up with the same MBB job.

 

Thanks for the reply, i understand now. I'm quite the noob and starting my 3rd year of college this fall. This site really is helping me learn and understand the whole wall street gig. Again, thanks a lot and i appreciate your info.

VPA
 

Really enjoyed this post - didn't realize a job with that pay/lifestyle still existed, and it also sounds like a job that would still utilize the "skills" I've developed in finance/analysis/Excel/Powerpoint through banking and PE. Any quick advice on: a) how to make a career switch into Ops b) what level / comp a 2+2 with no MBA would possibly come in at, and c) is the job secure, or still subject to typical finance-cyclical layoffs?

 
Samari Gold:

Really enjoyed this post - didn't realize a job with that pay/lifestyle still existed, and it also sounds like a job that would still utilize the "skills" I've developed in finance/analysis/Excel/Powerpoint through banking and PE.
Any quick advice on:
a) how to make a career switch into Ops
b) what level / comp a 2+2 with no MBA would possibly come in at, and
c) is the job secure, or still subject to typical finance-cyclical layoffs?

a/b) if you're already doing front office, it should be a pretty easy switch. You'll definitely take a salary hit though. There's recruiters you can utilize, but you can probably just ask around your network/people you've worked with. That said, I dont personally know anyone who has done it. I'd assume around $100k salary and $20k bonus, but I'm talking out of my ass a bit (generally the opposite is the case, people in ops want to claw their way into front office). I think you'd be better off taking a corp dev gig somewhere with your experience, more pay, and easy hours also. c) There were major lay-offs in 2008, but since then, I've never seen a person laid off or fired (and there are some really incompetent people). If you're top 30% you're safe even during lay-offs, which coming from front office should be pretty easy.

 
OpsDude:
Samari Gold:

Really enjoyed this post - didn't realize a job with that pay/lifestyle still existed, and it also sounds like a job that would still utilize the "skills" I've developed in finance/analysis/Excel/Powerpoint through banking and PE.
Any quick advice on:
a) how to make a career switch into Ops
b) what level / comp a 2+2 with no MBA would possibly come in at, and
c) is the job secure, or still subject to typical finance-cyclical layoffs?

a/b) if you're already doing front office, it should be a pretty easy switch. You'll definitely take a salary hit though. There's recruiters you can utilize, but you can probably just ask around your network/people you've worked with. That said, I dont personally know anyone who has done it. I'd assume around $100k salary and $20k bonus, but I'm talking out of my ass a bit (generally the opposite is the case, people in ops want to claw their way into front office). I think you'd be better off taking a corp dev gig somewhere with your experience, more pay, and easy hours also.
c) There were major lay-offs in 2008, but since then, I've never seen a person laid off or fired (and there are some really incompetent people). If you're top 30% you're safe even during lay-offs, which coming from front office should be pretty easy.

Thanks for the response. In terms of Corp Dev, I've spent a decent amount of time looking into it / recruiting for it and while it may align more closely with my experience, I think people tend to overestimate the availability of those positions to 2+2 candidates (particularly without MBAs), as well as the pay, while also underestimating the hours involved (especially during M&A transactions).

 

I'm also in ops and I think I need a top b-school to reset my career. I don't have a particularly strong work history/experience so I'm only a year out and the work is so meaningless. I feel that with such a weak background and being in ops, it becomes near impossible to land a top MBA program. It seems that top MBA programs want the guy that would move on to be executive leaders and donate money back to the school. I feel that my experience doesn't carry enough weight to get me in and so I'm stuck.

How did you leverage your experience in your applications? I don't think back office jobs "wow" the admissions office like a front office job would so what about your application made you stand out? Or does is acing the exams enough?

 
looping56:

I'm also in ops and I think I need a top b-school to reset my career. I don't have a particularly strong work history/experience so I'm only a year out and the work is so meaningless. I feel that with such a weak background and being in ops, it becomes near impossible to land a top MBA program. It seems that top MBA programs want the guy that would move on to be executive leaders and donate money back to the school. I feel that my experience doesn't carry enough weight to get me in and so I'm stuck.

How did you leverage your experience in your applications? I don't think back office jobs "wow" the admissions office like a front office job would so what about your application made you stand out? Or does is acing the exams enough?

Ops is a big world. If you apply and say "I reconciled equity trades for 5 years," yes, you will be in trouble for admissions. I think the following things helped me get into a top school:

1) I was lucky to get into project management roles that had a global focus. 2) Within that career, I was able to show progression: Going from business analyst to a project manager leading global projects. 3) By switching groups, I was able to gain diverse experience, which helped me build a nice story for my goal of transitioning into consulting. Plus, gave me a ton to talk about and tie everything together (e.g. strategy projects, metrics projects, inefficiencies, outsourcing, etc). 4) I gained a ton of transferable skills due to the above, which makes me hire-able to mba recruiters. 5) I went from a mid-tier to top-tier bank, showing another kind of progression

and of course high GMAT and all that helped too.

At Citi, many of the top performing ops people in line roles, or non-nyc roles, would aim to internally transfer into our group (The pay wasn't better, but exit ops and promotion schedule were). I'd recommend trying to internally transfer into a PMO role, or ops strategy role after a year or two. At most banks, if you're rated a 1 or 2 (top ~30%) they make it pretty easy to internally transfer. This will help you build a story.

 

Thanks for your insight @"OpsDude" - Interesting read.

I have a somewhat similar background with operations experience in the manufacturing industry at a F500 (40-50hrs/week is great innit?). I also am shooting for MBB to fill my summer internship. I am hoping to make a decision whether I want to stay in consulting or go back to F500 based on my internship experience. I will be heading to an M7 in 2015.

I'm curious as to what your GMAT is?

The general consensus seems to be that b schools care more about GPA while MBB cares more about GMAT. I assume you have inquired coworkers and alumni about consulting. Do you think your GPA will hurt your recruiting? How much do you think your GMAT will hurt/help you?

 
AnalyzeThat:

Thanks for your insight @OpsDude - Interesting read.

I have a somewhat similar background with operations experience in the manufacturing industry at a F500 (40-50hrs/week is great innit?). I also am shooting for MBB to fill my summer internship. I am hoping to make a decision whether I want to stay in consulting or go back to F500 based on my internship experience. I will be heading to an M7 in 2015.

I'm curious as to what your GMAT is?

The general consensus seems to be that b schools care more about GPA while MBB cares more about GMAT. I assume you have inquired coworkers and alumni about consulting. Do you think your GPA will hurt your recruiting? How much do you think your GMAT will hurt/help you?

I've heard the unofficial cutoff at MBB for non-URM's is 720, but I haven't verified this. I don't expect GPA to matter much if I get a good GPA first semester.

 

i feel that you are very underpaid. I work in a non-revenue generating role (albeit more analytical/interesting) in a far cheaper city than NYC with similar amount of experience and I would quit immediately if I had your comp. You might want to find out what the market comp is. That base is fine although a little low but that bonus is outrageous.

 
helloworld12345:

i feel that you are very underpaid. I work in a non-revenue generating role (albeit more analytical/interesting) in a far cheaper city than NYC with similar amount of experience and I would quit immediately if I had your comp. You might want to find out what the market comp is. That base is fine although a little low but that bonus is outrageous.

He's definitely not very underpaid, though maybe slightly. I have a feeling you don't understand/haven't tested the market. If you are making significantly more than 100k 4 years out in a non revenue generating role that doesn't require an advanced degree you are by far the exception, not the rule. The only non-revenue associates I know at my BB making significantly more than that are in things like market risk (almost all have advanced math degrees), strategy (mostly ex MBBers), and legal. The Ops people, at least where I work, make a little less than the back office finance professionals and credit professionals (especially post analyst) as well and I think that's industry standard.
 

Right granted I work in investment risk and am not on the sell side, but I have always thought the pay differential amongst non-revenue generating people is minimal (i am probably wrong then). In fact I have always been envy of the incompetent ops grunts making similar money (not saying all ops people are incompetent but the proportion is certainly way higher), but I guess I don't really have a case there then. Apologies for the misinformation.

On a different note, I did test the market recently. Based on what I hear from headhunters they can defintiely get me at least equiv if not higher comp packages. btw i dont have an advanced degree.

AllDay_028:
helloworld12345:

i feel that you are very underpaid. I work in a non-revenue generating role (albeit more analytical/interesting) in a far cheaper city than NYC with similar amount of experience and I would quit immediately if I had your comp. You might want to find out what the market comp is. That base is fine although a little low but that bonus is outrageous.

He's definitely not very underpaid, though maybe slightly. I have a feeling you don't understand/haven't tested the market. If you are making significantly more than 100k 4 years out in a non revenue generating role that doesn't require an advanced degree you are by far the exception, not the rule. The only non-revenue associates I know at my BB making significantly more than that are in things like market risk (almost all have advanced math degrees), strategy (mostly ex MBBers), and legal. The Ops people, at least where I work, make a little less than the back office finance professionals and credit professionals (especially post analyst) as well and I think that's industry standard.

 
helloworld12345:

i feel that you are very underpaid. I work in a non-revenue generating role (albeit more analytical/interesting) in a far cheaper city than NYC with similar amount of experience and I would quit immediately if I had your comp. You might want to find out what the market comp is. That base is fine although a little low but that bonus is outrageous.

What I'm making it normal for ops people with my experience (infact I know many who started at the same time at me and are still at ~$80k all-in comp due to sub-optimal decisions or performance). There are certain non-revenue generating positions that pay more than ops (e.g. risk...but keep in mind they work longer hours too). But I do agree it's not enough money for me, which is (part of the reason) why I'm going to bschool haha.

 

Congrats OP on your path and journey. Though clearly you are the exception, that said every firm has exceptions like you which is needed to help the front office truly execute their goals.

Reason I say you are the exception, you went to a target school with somewhat of a scholarship, decent GPA, great GMAT, decided when you wanted to reboot your career and so on. That is different than most of the people I meet in operations, who seem to have got stuck there and do not have the pedigree that you do to quit tomorrow and land a job making a similar wage. Most ops people have the golden handcuffs on them and could not make the change you made so quick. The fact you did not chase OT and left at 5pm, while focusing on the GMAT and other things truly I would say is very rare mentality with most of the people you see land in ops.

 
marcellus_wallace:

Congrats OP on your path and journey. Though clearly you are the exception, that said every firm has exceptions like you which is needed to help the front office truly execute their goals.

Reason I say you are the exception, you went to a target school with somewhat of a scholarship, decent GPA, great GMAT, decided when you wanted to reboot your career and so on. That is different than most of the people I meet in operations, who seem to have got stuck there and do not have the pedigree that you do to quit tomorrow and land a job making a similar wage. Most ops people have the golden handcuffs on them and could not make the change you made so quick. The fact you did not chase OT and left at 5pm, while focusing on the GMAT and other things truly I would say is very rare mentality with most of the people you see land in ops.

Thanks. One thing to clarify, I was not OT eligible, I was salaried/bonus. I've heard newer analysts at some banks are now OT eligible, but I never was at any point in my career.

I do agree there are plenty of people in ops who aren't going to get into top business school (especially people outside the NYC offices or on an ops line doing trade recs). But I will say there were quite a few people from good schools in the project oriented roles - the new analyst who was sitting next to me at JPM went to Cornell for example. My Director went to Notre Dame. Another director who wrote my rec went to Carnegie Mellon. The average person in NYC ops is more likely to be a high GPA student from Rutgers/Stony Brook/Albany/etc level of schools though. Its important to keep in mind most of the banks have worked towards "professionalizing" operations in the last 5-10 years, so the junior analysts tend to be significantly more qualified from a school/GPA stand-point than the older managers.

That said, for whatever reason, going to business school does seem rare for ops people....full time at-least. Met quite a few who did Stern PT MBA (some of the older managers did worse school part time MBA's). The only person going to full-time business school that I personally interacted with is someone who is going to Tepper.

I also think I was "helped" by the fact I graduated during the financial crisis...if I graduated a year earlier or later I would've probably gotten a better job, so it is unlikely someone with my stats would end up in ops if they are graduating this year (when I was interviewing for job for GPA was a bit above 3.5...I let it drop senior year because I stopped caring after job offer).

 

If I have gotten a position at BOA as an technology production support analyst for check deposit systems, should I take it, given the fact that I don't see any exit opportunities besides moving up to a more management role? For some reasons, this job does not even excite me before I even take it. Or should I take this job, get paid and at the same time looking for an operations analyst position elsewhere?

 
leabc:

If I have gotten a position at BOA as an technology production support analyst for check deposit systems, should I take it, given the fact that I don't see any exit opportunities besides moving up to a more management role? For some reasons, this job does not even excite me before I even take it. Or should I take this job, get paid and at the same time looking for an operations analyst position elsewhere?

Is it in the commercial bank or the investment bank? I'll be honest I know little to nothing about what your role will entail, but if you don't have any other options, you should probably take it. Recent grads are often scared to quit jobs, but it's completely normal to quit jobs, sometimes quickly. If you find something better, leave...in general, I wouldn't choose unemployment over a relatively well paying job. It's incredible easy to jump around once you have your foot in the door as analyst/associate...but the key is to actually having a job first.

I'm assuming your an average person, if you have a huge trust fund, or amazing stats, my advice may change.

 
OpsDude:
leabc:

If I have gotten a position at BOA as an technology production support analyst for check deposit systems, should I take it, given the fact that I don't see any exit opportunities besides moving up to a more management role? For some reasons, this job does not even excite me before I even take it. Or should I take this job, get paid and at the same time looking for an operations analyst position elsewhere?

Is it in the commercial bank or the investment bank? I'll be honest I know little to nothing about what your role will entail, but if you don't have any other options, you should probably take it. Recent grads are often scared to quit jobs, but it's completely normal to quit jobs, sometimes quickly. If you find something better, leave...in general, I wouldn't choose unemployment over a relatively well paying job. It's incredible easy to jump around once you have your foot in the door as analyst/associate...but the key is to actually having a job first.

I'm assuming your an average person, if you have a huge trust fund, or amazing stats, my advice may change.

I believe that they are trying to implement a new software system for processing the check deposits and I believe it's retail banking because I heard that the software deals with ATM systems. Yes, I am an average engineering grad who has absolutely no experience and background in finance. Even though I got some referrals from alumni from my school, I know that my chances of getting those operations interviews are slim. But I think I have a couple of more interviews coming up, a project management role for IT service team or trade app support role at BBs.

So would you still suggest that I take the job? What if they want my decision immediately, if i get accepted?

 

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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...”

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From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

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