Why does LO AM have better WLB?

Does LO AM really have better WLB than IB? And if so why? Doesn’t all the research, reading (to stay competitive), following the market etc also take up a lot of time especially given similar workstreams like modelling etc?

How does a day in life of LO AM research associate look like?

Really appreciate any insights! Thank you!

 

Isn’t the line drawn about arbitrarily? Since the time spent outside of work could also be reading around the industries/stocks you are covering? Just wondering what defines as “outside work” for an AM career ?

 

Like the other poster just noted reading if for enjoyment… in AM you should never turn off the analyst mind set. For instance I cover staples and every rip to the store, ad I see, comment I hear from others about their preferences, I’m thinking how does this affect my coverage who’s the winner who’s the loser.

 
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Work / life balance will vary widely by firm and the analyst or PM you work for so always hard to generalize. I’m an associate at a large LO and work ~60 hrs / week outside of earnings and ~70 or more during earnings. My work / life balance isn’t that great honestly, but better than IB. This probably skews to the high end of AM, as some claim to work like 40-45 hrs in this industry (tough to see how you can do a really good job that way unless you cover a very narrow space).

Generally speaking, when you have multi-year time horizons and you are not publishing to clients (i.e. sell side ER), you have more freedom to move at your own pace and set your own schedule. Yes you will be doing reading outside of work that doesn’t really ‘count’ towards hours.

Day in the life includes modeling & data analysis, meetings & conference calls, writing, reading, etc…different mix every day.

 

Yeah ditto this, WLB in LO AM is a myth. Even if you don't have to strictly be in the office all the time, the job definitely has plenty of hours, travel and stress, especially as you move up the ranks. For me honestly, it was the travel that wore me down and the overall stress of always being switched on. 

What I found when I joined at first was that LO as an industry vertical is full of ex-bankers and PE guys whose baseline was even worse. That's IMO the origin of the myth. It's better than being chained to your desk 24/7, I agree, but at the end of the day, you're still constantly thinking about your work. Some people obviously really thrive in that kind of environment and consider it good WLB, but while marginally better than IB/PE it is still not even close to the average corporate, VC or FoF careers.

 

The firm I'm at isn't filled with ex-bankers and ex-PE guys at all--there's definitely almost a cultural aversion to those backgrounds. I think it's highly firm-dependent at the end of the day. Agreed that investing definitely isn't the kind of career where you can "check out" at the end of the day, but if you want an investing role with good WLB (relative), it'll be hard to find it outside of LO.

 

No deal related deadlines is a big part and no down time. I know a lot of Ibankers that put in big hours but spend a lot of timing sitting on their hands between fire drills. I work 45-50 hours at the desk and not in a particularly narrow space (I cover several sectors) but our turnover is very low and I don’t take a lot of meetings. I’m a believer in hard work but AM really is a, work smarter not harder area… spending an extra 20 hours validating an idea you’re already sold on doesn’t add value. Off the desk, I’m constantly reading and listening to podcasts for my own enjoyment.

 

The WLB in LO AM is pretty incredible. After working in LO AM, I genuinely can believe how bad IB was and how unhealthy the culture was. 

I would say most weeks I do 50-60 hours and don’t work the weekend. Typically 7am-6pm. It’s tough to do less than 50 and tough to do more than 60. Banking was typically 80-90 hours, 6-7 days a week, and very volatile. 

Although I work fewer hours, I feel like I do significantly more work in LO AM. It’s 50-60 extremely engaging, stimulating, and challenging hours. Every day is (actually) different, but usually I will meet with a few management teams, join multiple internal huddles (across asset classes, sectors, etc), deal with one off earnings/announcements, read general news, dig into an aspect of a company I cover, read research, work on a LT idea/project, draft emails, and pitch ideas.  The work can be exhausting because it requires being present, engaged, and constantly trying to draw conclusions / generate ideas. I absolutely love the work though and couldn’t be more fulfilled. 
 

Unlike banking, there are no deadlines in AM (portfolio turnover is low and liquidity can be a problem, so ideas are LT). This is a pro and a con. The pro is you can commit to plans a month in advance and have a lot of flexibility. The downside is that there is always more work you can do. You can read research 120 hours if you want. You have to know when to stop and when it’s time to share an idea. 
 

FWIW, I am always thinking about my coverage and checking on the news / reading topical research. I find it very interesting though, so I don’t consider it work.

 

My large and well-known LO AM firm has significantly better work life balance for junior employees than my previous well-known MM / lower EB investment bank. 

Currently, I work an average of 45-50 hours a week, compared to about 75-85 at my investment bank, so the hours in their own right are significantly better than IB. I never work weekends. I never get to the office before 7am and very rarely stay past 6pm. 

To give you an idea of how good the work life balance even is, the firm ran studies around how to improve work life balance among employees who were working more than 50 hours per week. The idea that someone could work 60 hours a week at my company was considered staggering by some even. 

Now, day to day, the work you're doing at the company is significantly more engaging and consuming. The amount of brain power necessary to do this kind of work is significantly greater on a per hour basis than the work I did in banking. You really have to dig pretty deep into the companies you are looking at, build thorough analyses, and from scratch convince the people around you are correct. That's a lot different and a lot more self-directed than the work I did as an IB analyst, which mostly consisted of getting assignments from associates and working with other analysts. Additionally, you need to engaged for effectively the entire day, while in IB you had a little bit of time waiting for changes or having time to yourself (even if that time did not constitute much of your workday and wasn't present during live deals). 

I think LO AM definitely has a better work life balance, I think people don't realize just how demanding the work can be in its own right though.

 

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