How many hours do you work?
Just want to make some sense as I don’t know anyone outside my firm in this industry, and have never worked in the sell-side. I myself work around 55-65 hours each week and feel burnt out already. I’m in a SM.
Please don’t tell me that hours don’t matter in this line of work. It matters to some extent, at least for me. And I’m seriously considering if I need to get out of the industry or switch firms or wait out (assuming work life balance gets better as I become more senior which I am doubtful of to be honest).
Thanks in advance
around 50-55 hours a week, closer to 60-65 during earnings.
Im in L/S special situations at a particular bad work culture shop working daily from 9-11pm and 9-6pm on friday. Plus weekend work.
Likely pulling in 65-70 hours on average.
Why do you work there still
$$$
Do you do merger arbitrage or more fundamental event?
Was at a SM L/S generalist. 50-55 hours normally. 10 more during earnings here as well.
I normally work 8AM - 6PM with a few days longer, and very little on the weekends. I’m more senior now, but at most probably averaged around 60 hrs a week.
On the burnout, I find that this is very tied to enjoying the work (or at least large parts of it). I have worked jobs where I was more like 35-45 hrs a week and I felt much more exhausted then than I do now. There are many factors, but I think finding work you like (or that has a path to be in a seat you’ll enjoy), people/culture you connect with, flexibility (I might work 12 hours some days but I’m almost always home for dinner with my family and to put my kid to sleep before turning back to work), and some fairness with pay (up to a certain point; you can stomach 60 hours a week more easily if you have financial independence at 30). Anyway, I would think about what you do and don’t like and what you want life to be like (short term and long term) to help find some direction.
Agree. Having big chunk of $$$ in the bank makes the 50-60 hour weeks more tolerable lol
Thank you for putting things into perspective for me. Truly, I think rather than the physical hours, the combination of factors (bad culture, constant anxiety, inflexibility and low interest in sectors covered) culminated in the burnout. More importantly, felt like I wasn’t really learning things the right way, and that my firm simply rode the beta for the past few years. If the hours are spent on truly value-adding work, I may have felt otherwise. Anyway, I would definitely have to weigh the variables and rethink my goals. Appreciate your constructive advice and thoughts. Thank you.
Holy shit you guys barely work, no wonder the common man hates you
You can work 100 hours and lose money. You can work 20 hours and make money.
50-60 hours is time in office. Hard to quantify how many hours outside that is spent on thinking / being curious / reading, etc.
The stress is much worse than the hours
You mean i-bankers? Haters gonna hate.
80-90 hours a week because I absolutely love investing and can’t imagine another life. I’d say 60-70 “focused” and the remainder shooting the shit with industry folk etc.
Funny way to say "don't have a life outside of work".
One does not simply 9-5 at the fund they own and are in the process of growing...
You’re life sounds fucking awful.
50-60 hours M-F consistently (even through earnings); no weekend work ever
And I'm not actually "working" all of these hours; I have a lot of down-time outside of research calls, earnings call, working on a model etc. so I'm doing things like hornyposting and scrolling through WSO
50-60 hours/week, plus readings during evenings and weekends. An additional 10-15 hours during earnings.
L/S HF doing both Equity & Credit (I cover equity)
Low 50s. Hours don't mean success.
fact
I’ve been doing this ~20 years and I still work 55-60 despite having a team around me. Much less than I worked 10-15 years ago and I get paid better obv.
I’ve decided that’s the inflection point of balancing my comp w effort.
If you cannot take 55 hours as a junior you might as well truly consider a different industry that is sort of bare minimum expectation at times. That is not even having the stress of the position management on you.
I work 40 hours a week, but my workweek starts Sunday as we have pre-market open and I need to review everything by then (basically I am working right now). At times I will wake up 2-3 times a night to check overnight market changes and global markets. Like the other guy, I have a minimal life outside work and probably talk to industry friends 2-5 hours a week on top of that. I will probably review models after dinner and my kid is asleep for another 2 hours at nights (3-4 nights a week). Similar to the other guy, have no real life but everyone is super shocked when I am doing whatever I want at 2pm on a quiet day since I can choose to work less hours whenever.
I really do not know anyone who does this job for "the lifestyle or WLB", gaining gray hair or an ulcer sure.
Sounds like 10-12hour days are the norm. Sounds about right for me. Kinda stupid working so late only to lose money.
As has been said, it's the stress not the hours as you move up into a Senior Analyst/ Portfolio Manager role. I probably work+/-50 hours a week with at least a few more of more informal reading/keeping up on news/talking to people about markets etc.
Excluding earnings, how much variance in between weeks do you guys typically experience? I.e. is there such a thing as an easy week or easy day, or most tend fall between this 50-65 hours a week / 10-12 hours a day range that everyone is saying?
Are you able to make real plans with your friends and follow through on them?
How engaged are you when you get home? Do you consider idea creation / reading for leisure, or feels mandatory because everyone else on your team is doing it too?
This week alone I worked 60 hours (not earnings week for me). I don’t get a break at all, except during lunch. There just really isn’t any downtime. Personally, I dont feel motivated to do extra readings or generate ideas when I don’t even have the capacity to finish the grunt work.
what grunt work are you referring to?
I start at around five get off around 3. Probably add ten hours during an earnings week, though I’m just getting started so it’s been a lot of on boarding and stuff
are you in pacific time?
yup, west coast hours are kinda cool if you like the mornings or like more time in the afternoon
Everyone caps about how many hours they work. I work 40 hours a week making CHEDDAR.
Global Multi-Strat, 55-60 hours per week in office, but no one cares about hours as long as you pitches working out, and you will stare at your phone all the time even when the market is off anyway, efficiency to generate alpha is the key, HF is not IBD
do a handful of 60 - 80 hour weeks as needed but usually keep it under 40. averages out to well under 50 a week over a year.
but as everyone said you are quite literally always thinking about markets so even if you're not at your desk/in meetings you're still thinking about markets and positions.
40-50 hours a week. I work in the RE group of a family office. So chill, thank god I left banking
Not to be that guy, but how is comp at the family office and do you find the job intellectually challenging enough? My fear with family office is that you work for a GP that doesn't need to deploy much capital, so work you do can sometimes be fruitless...
60-75 hours probably a fair bet at a MM
40-45 hours a week. Used to be more like 60-65 when I was more junior.
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