Is it me or does it feel like the banks have completely sucked the life out of the ER position? The austerity measures put in place on both our pay and our expense accounts have taken what was once a fun and rewarding job and transformed it into a soul-sucking grind to earn incrementally more than an average white-collar worker in exchange for substantially more hours.
It seems that the culture of the various ER departments across the Street is still carried by an older cadre of analysts who still expect their associates to work like dogs (i.e., pull down 12 hours+ a day) because that is what they did when they were associates. However, when they were associates they were paid better on an inflation adjusted basis and got way more corporate "perks" such as frequent travel with their analysts, limos home when working late, lavish holiday parties, tickets to ball games and concerts, etc.
The point I'm trying to make is, it seems like the modern ER associate is underpaid and underappreciated by the bank. We are expected to make more with less and not complain about it. All of the perks that used to exist that helped make working 60+ hours per week tolerable are now gone. Am I just imagining it? Am I just being a whiny baby? Or is this actually the reality?
No you're not exaggerating. Many people I speak to across the street and at my bank have come to a very similar conclusion - and we're all juniors. ER teams appear to be getting smaller while coverage is increasing. Marketing pressure - to do it and spend as little time and money doing so - seems to be getting more intense. Pay has basically not moved in years despite equivalent of like 20-30% inflation. It seems like people are increasingly leaving to non-ER/non-buyside roles and actually not taking a cut (or too big of one) on comp for significantly better WLB.
I personally don't see any reason for this trend to change.
Which non-ER/non-buyside roles? Are you seeing people leaving ER for IB or S&T?
Or are you talking more about IR, Corp Dev, and other non-Wall Streer roles?
Just random stuff. Not even in the financial sphere necessarily.
I fall under this bucket of considering more corp finance/strategic finance/ir roles. I’ve been in SS ER coming up on 3 years and I think I would actually get a pay raise lol. Used to think I want buyside but the amount of work needed to put in upfront for a highly unlikely right-tail outcome just doesn’t seem worth it anymore. I’d much rather prefer the visibility and stability of the income and improved WLB.
While this isn’t wrong, I’d argue that it’s true for almost all young professionals today.
Adjusted for inflation, everything on the sell-side … IB, ER, S&T … paid better back in the day. And, as the environment wasn’t as much of a sterile “efficiency and political correctness” culture, surely they had more fun, went to more dinners/events, and had budgets (+ comp and clear trajectory) that made the hours bearable.
On top of that, ER specifically has faced a plethora of headwinds (regulatory and democratization of information-related) that IB and S&T have not, and, as such, it doesn’t have as direct a revenue stream, so banks are trying to “bare bones” it. This means fewer (and more junior) analysts covering the same number of companies (the coverage is necessary for banking relationships), which means longer hours for all involved, but no commensurate pay increase.
As such, it’s turned more into a “get in to get out” position, as the one thing it does have (for juniors) over most other Wall Street roles is that it provides higher-quality training and more exposure to “real” work at an earlier stage, which, if you’re a top performer, translates into solid buy side exits (which, personally, I think are underrated by WSO)…basically everything banking has besides PE, but with less “pain” to get there. However, it does seem like nobody actually wants to stay in ER, and so I wonder how senior analyst roles will be viewed in 10-15 years.
I agree with this a lot - it seems like most ER roles don't really have much of an advantage to pay/benefits when you compare it to other corporate finance roles that are on the corporate side. Seems like less work hours, more pay and upward mobility if you're working at a corporate (meaning financial analyst/strat analyst/etc at F500 companies - especially when you are at a large tech firm or growth focused company). Have friends that work FA roles in various orgs/companies and have started to see how much more pay they get while also barely reaching 40 hours a work week. Even if it was a slight pay cut, the amount of hours and time you save more than makes up for it in WLB. It really only seems worth it to stay in ER if one you go to the buyside (HF/LO specifically), lateral to banking, and or wait your turn of usually 10+ yrs to become a Senior analyst running your own coverage (in between roles at some firms like VP/Director etc, don't seem to really compensate for the much greater workload and responsibilities imo). Makes me think about next options should be after being in sell side ER for a few years now.
You could just leave…
Idk what you’re on about. I had good pay, meals after 7:00, and Uber home if I worked passed a certain time.
Pay has obviously been below IB and exits as well. Traveled probably 4-5 times a quarter.
You could always leave if you don’t like it? Plenty of kids fighting for spots
Hey Liquid - I sent you a PM yesterday. It's rather long but I'd really appreciate your input. Thanks!
This may be true for many associates. You have be in the right sector, work for a decent firm and analyst to feel appreciated and compensated. That being said, ER is still one of the best jobs out of school and young working professional. The job is highly coveted with hundreds of qualified applicants eyeing for each spot.
I can't stand ER any more but feel trapped. Pay is fine but nothing to write home about. I believe I could get an IR role with only a modest haircut to comp and I have been looking for a solid corporate exit for years, but I don't want to switch to IR in my sector (financials) because I hate my sector.... But the longer I stay the harder it is to find an appropriate role to leave for.
I did 2 years in a MM bank working in ER. If you think the US is bad, try cont. Europe. Luckily, the only thing ER still has is the exits. I made it into the investment team of a billionaire's SFO. I can fully say my time in ER was a fever dream but at least junior comp was still in line with consulting.
If you end up in ER, try to exit as fast as possible!
I’m seeing a consensus here — ER is a great first seat out of school for training and exits, but not a place to stick around … is this right?
If you can, do IB. ER has better hours but comp is worse (gross, net the difference becomes less). You get all exits IB gets beside PE/PD. I had 2 final rounds with VC funds, albeit I was covering Tech.
I still had some PE/PD interview offers with LMM funds but IBD has it much easier.
Definitely don't stick long term. Comp + industry outlook is dead
Comparison is the thief of joy. 5 years into an ER job at a BB you'll make an income that puts you in the 97th or 98th percentile for a job that requires no special schooling or student loans, which is interesting, with decent job security, and which has a neutral or arguably positive impact on the world. You can feel bad that you're not running a Tiger Cub already, or look around and realize that it's pretty damn good. I think this site has a lot of extreme type A students and juniors who are wishcasting the extreme right-tail outcome for themselves and see anything less as a failure.
OP here. For some context, I am a VP at a BB with over 4 years of SS ER experience. Before I was at my current gig, I worked in ER at a MM bank for ~2 years. So I’ve seen these issues at multiple firms.
HOURS: I am on a team that I would consider to be moderately “sweaty” by ER standards. I work from 8am-9/10pm most nights when it’s Monday-Thursday. Fridays I am 8-5, and I don’t work weekends ever. So not the worst, but certainly not cushy either by any means.
PERKS: I have traveled once in the last 2 years of working here, I have gone to exactly zero company boondoggles (i.e. sporting events, dinners, etc.), and the firm I’m at doesn’t have a holiday party or do anything nice for the department unless the MDs chip in and pay for it themselves. Plus, the bank nickel and dimes on things like meal budgets for working late, making you work till 9pm to get an uber home (it should be 8pm IMO), etc.
PAY: I live in NYC – I have friends who work other white collar jobs in Manhattan (i.e. fund accounting, marketing, tech consulting, etc.) who are 9-5 employees and who earn either slightly less or the same as me. On top of that, it seems like all of these people work at companies that still make working there “fun” for them – i.e. they get to go to sporting events, dinners, have holiday parties on the company dime, etc.
All of the above is what I meant when I said “more work, less pay, no perks.”
All that said, a few thoughts after perusing your replies:
To the guy who said the pay is “fine but nothing to write home about” I couldn’t agree more. This encapsulates ER junior pay perfectly. I’m making more than most of my friends who aren’t in finance, but not enough to feel “rich” by any means. Why not leave? My response: leave for what? Let’s explore some of the exits:
Long-only: is in worse shape than ER. At least in ER our revenue stream is mainly the pods who appear to be gathering assets like crazy right now providing some stability.
POD: crazy stressful, highly unstable, with episodic pay. I am in my early 30s about to have a child, I can’t afford to be out of a job because my PM blew up. Pass.
SM-large elite: these funds are prestige whores. If you didn’t go to an elite school and do 2+2 BB/EB banking to a PE mega fund, then good luck.
SM-small i.e. less than $10bn AUM (obtainable): This option seems to be the winner if you can land a seat here. Only problem is, this option is also fraught with its own risks. Will the fund end up at blowing up? Will a marquee investor pull capital? Is the PM a selfish tyrant who pays you like crap? It’s a total toss up.
Investor relations: pays even worse than ER and does not scale fast at all. Also, I love the markets and I love doing research on stocks. The thought of being at one company and removed from the world of research seems like it would bore and depress me. Only major perk here is that the hours would be a major improvement.
I get it — thank you for this.
Do you get the sense that, given structural changes, ER used to be more of a “high finance” job but is now, in terms of how it fits into the whole finance ecosystem, more of a “corporate job,” but the culture hasn’t caught up yet with the relative decline in “structural value/importance,” so it’s many of the downsides of “high finance” without all of the upsides? That’s a sentiment I hear echoed here a bit.
However, I’ll push back on a few things; not saying ER is better than what you say, more that IB isn’t paradise either. They don’t really get fun events anymore. That — and the cheapness of banks — is universal post recession. Pay is also, inflation-adjusted, worse for IB than it was a decade or two ago. At the junior level, the IB-ER post-tax pay gap isn’t that large. Maybe $20-50k/year (as an analyst, or, in ER, “junior associate” or whatever), to do (in my opinion, and probably most people’s) far more interesting work and ~25 fewer hours per week. What’s more, most IB analysts don’t make it to MF PE, and don’t “survive” a decade in IB either. Looking ten or twenty years out, I don’t think that the comp gap is as large as you think; of the many people who start in IB, most don’t finish there, and don’t end up eventually making as much as a senior ER MD/HF PM, unless they stay the course…which most don’t.
I think your early 30s is where it hurts the most. Your IB friends probably haven’t left for (chiller) pastures yet, the comp gap has widened from the analyst phase but hasn’t narrowed yet (once you get meaningful coverage, comp between ER and IB narrows again, have heard it described as an “inverse barbell”), and your situation, which is worse than most in ER (as is mine so I sympathize), but average at my bank (mid BB in NYC, not II analyst) is probably ~55-60 hours/week. When you walk out at 6:30 and see the bankers there until midnight perennially, a slight comp discount doesn’t seem as crazy as when you’re leaving after them.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that I view it as not a high finance job anymore. I think what I’m trying to say is that I think the senior analysts of wall street need to recognize that the pay at the junior levels isn’t commensurate with the level of commitment that some of them expect in terms of hours. The reality is, most associates are making like 130-170k all in, which is nice, but not knock your socks off money and hardly enough to demand a 65+ hour work week and inflexibility on days off and vacation time. People can and will continue to quit in droves and senior analysts will be stuck constantly training new staff rather than maturating together with their teams. Also, rather than keeping their best people and having multiple members of the same team competing for open senior roles when older employees retire/leave, you will just see the last man standing step into the role. Rather than senior analyst seats being filled with the best of the best they will be filled with whoever was willing to put up more work, less pay, zero perks for long enough to outlast the others who ran for the door years ago.
The one reason I may hang around is this – when you are a senior analyst you can set your own schedule and so you can make the $/hour economics work better for you. Most ER senior analyst at BBs clear anywhere from $600-$1mm a year. I’ve heard number 1 analysts in certain sectors still fetch $2mm+. So while I definitely do feel that the pay-to-hours ratio at the junior level is slightly out of whack, it seems that the pay for seniors is still pretty good. Plus, as a senior, you don’t have the episodic payout structure that comes with “having down years” on the buyside. You are earning $600k-$1mm on an annuity, with minor ebbs and flows based on bank performance.
Also, great point on this just being the trend at banks in general. I forget that my brethren over in IB are dealing with the same issues.
Biz school to IB associate?
You don't even necessarily need to go to B-school to switch to IB if your bank has half decent internal mobility.
Hey, can I PM you
My experience has been super demoralizing. I love the job — in college I would write my own research reports / build models for my PA positions.
First 6 months I ripped upwards of 70 hrs a week — come bonus season I was a little disappointed, but understood it’s only 6 months in.
Next 12 months I keep up the intensity and the results show. I easily rank number 1 in my analyst class based on the internal metrics they track. My bonus and overall comp is fucking cut and THERE ARE NO BUCKETS.
I have a quick chat with the DOR basically saying I love working here, but what’s the comp ramp look like? He is vague and won’t even guarantee I’ll get a raise this year.
I’m busting my ass for what? To get paid exactly the same as others who work market hours? To get paid down 2 years in a row? To help some pod guys buy a second vacation home?
I want to care but I feel like I’m just being taken advantage of and blatantly disrespected.
Don’t even get me started on the perks…the way I feel nickel and dimed makes me want to quit by itself — I’ve spent >1hr to go through my banks shitty system to pay the $0.03 I went over on my pathetic $25 dinner stipend out of pocket.
At a BB for reference.
Ahhh yes the old paying the bank 2 cents because your dinner order went over. Ridiculously rigid and dumb.
Same exact experience at MM. seems like the options are 1. Lateral to another bank for higher pay 2. Make a stink of it and push for your own coverage 3. Accept that effort isn’t rewarded and reduce your output accordingly
I feel this so hard, and my analyst was blaming me for not finishing up the expense matters when office managers are pain in the ass to deal with on top of the earnings hours. Making us feel like it's our fault/incompetency to complete things.
With more access to information, the value of ER is in decline so it makes sense that banks tighten staff and increase their responsibility
The problem is this — there’s no “direct” revenue stream for research, but companies need to be covered. If they aren’t, the buy side, traders, and, to some extent, bankers, are flying blind, and nothing keeps management in check.
On some level, it’s the tragedy of the commons.
.
You're definitely not alone in feeling this way. Many in ER (and finance in general) have noticed the shift—higher expectations, fewer perks, and relatively stagnant pay when adjusted for inflation. The culture of grinding still exists, but the incentives that once made it worthwhile have dwindled. It’s not whining; it’s a fair critique of an industry that’s changed significantly. Do you see any potential upsides or is it all downside from your perspective?
OP here.
I think the biggest upside remaining is that the exit ops out of equity research are really strong. The only exit opp that is not available to an equity research associate that would be available to one coming from investment banking, is private equity. We have all the same exit options otherwise, and probably even have a more favorable chance of breaking into long-only AM, which in my opinion is the best exit available in terms of balancing pay and WLB.
That doesn’t bode well for the banks and their turnover rates, but it bodes well for those entering equity research as a first/second job out of school.
The other thing I’ll say is, I haven’t made it up the ranks to being a lead analyst yet so take what I say with a grain of salt. I don’t have the whole spectrum of experience to base my opinions on.
That said, to me, being a lead analyst is not worth it for anything less than $1 million a year. This job is a GRIND. You are under constant pressure from the bank to put out research, to hit the road and do marketing, to do webinars, to host experts calls, get your II rank up, etc. It is exhausting.
The exhaustion is made worse when you consider that at any given time you could exit to a cushy IR job and probably make $350-$500k starting out and work significantly less and have significantly less stress.
I would need to be making at least $1 million a year justify being a lead sell-side analyst. I’m under the impression that there are still a fair amount of covering analysts that are nowhere near that level of compensation. In my opinion, that is just insane. I don’t know why anybody would do this grind of a job for a penny less than $1mm, especially when you consider the less sweaty alternatives and how much they pay.
The one saving grace is that if you can get into a seat where you’re making $1 million+ on the sell-side, then I still think it’s worth it.
Also, if you can get II ranked and build a massive following, other banks will likely try and poach you away from your current bank and offer you multi-million dollar and multi-year guaranteed packages. I’ve heard of some getting what is called a “3x3” or a “5x3” in industry slang. The 3x3 is 3 years-$3m per year, guaranteed. The 5x3 deal is 3 years-$5m per year, guaranteed. These deals are rare, but they do exist, but only for the top of the top performers.
That sounds pretty nice, doesn’t it? Well I want to emphasize that in order to get to that point in your career where you hold enough sway for another bank to guarantee you $9-15mm over a 3 year period, you are going to have to grind like a freaking dog for upwards of 15+ years and put up with years of substandard pay and forgone opportunities to make more money on the buyside working less hours or making comparable money in IR working less hours.
So in summary, the TLDR is: the biggest upside is the exits. Staying in ER is only worth it if you’re towards the top in terms of pay, otherwise it isn’t worth it at all in my opinion.
Not only is being an analyst a grind, but literally associate all the way to lead analyst is a grind. God forbid one of the two associates leave and the other associate is doing the work of two while also being the point man/woman for the lead analyst for literally whatever they want/need.
There's only two types of analysts; 1) those who can manage their time and day well enough to know when to pack it in, or 2) those in an perpetual "there's more to write" mindset. It's a never ending cycle, which is something that completely deters myself and other from doing this more than a year and a half to two years.
This job has taught me a lot traits that I'll keep with me forever (i.e. developing thick skin, working hard and late, knowing when to stand up for yourself, thinking about the markets and calling BS...) but it also taught me that working 12+ a day absolutely blows and 99% of the time does not need to happen. Forget about $1mln a year as a paycheck. I'd rather have consistency and stability over the hype of working on "wall street". Also forget being at a HF/LO, you're telling me I need to do what I do now but worry more about my positions actually being correct? Sure bud.
The days of babysitting a note getting approved at 2am just to hop on the morning call are almost over, just gotta keep working on the exit op...
You're not dreaming—many people in the emergency room feel the same way. For many associates, the role has become a high-demand, low-reward grind, particularly when compared to the salary, benefits, and career path it once offered. If you're experiencing the shift, you're most certainly not alone.
The benefits are gone, but the expectations haven't changed. It's not just you; ER feels like it's trapped in a legacy grind with diminishing upside.
Basically … it’s incrementally more pay than a standard corporate 9-5 for 150% the workload, but with strong exits. ER -> Pod Shop, ER -> IB -> PE, and ER -> Long Only are all very doable … and ER is good training for a first job.
For a genuinely passionate student, even one from a non-target, ER is not an impossible first seat to land. If you apply yourself, it can be a launching pad into “high finance” for people who didn’t know what they wanted to do at 20 years old. It was for me.
Hey,
Can I PM?
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