Work-life balance as a junior
Starting out your career (SA / New Grad), would you prefer to work at a shop that pays considerably below market but is 45-55 hrs a week and hybrid (3 days in office), or the usual BB / EB setup that pays market / above market but also anywhere between 65-100 hours a week, 5+ days in office?
Is more work = more learning / experience = better career trajectory / lateral / exit opportunities necessarily true? When do returns on this start diminishing?
The start of your career is the last time to focus on WLB, you should be optimizing for the best learning and future trajectory. As someone coming out of school with no experience, in general more work = more learning / experience = better career trajectory / lateral / exit opportunities does hold true
Ty it’s rly helpful- I was wondering how hard is it to get a decent job in semi-target school
Generally would agree but philosophically I am not sure if it is the right answer. I also started out in one of the most type-A orgs (McKinsey) and while I agree that the brand helps me a lot now and the training was good, I am not sure if I am mentally in a better place now.
Once you cut your teeth in such environment it is extremely hard to let go and live a „normal“ / happy life. It makes you much more obsessed about prestige and how you look like in front of your crowd (who all do hyper competitive stuff), leading you also to opt into higher prestige (and often higher stress, higher pressure) environments.
If OP from the get go questions that lifestyle I would metaphorically caution about which pill to take. I interned at a few sector focused boutiques during University - people there were also decently paid but on top of that genuinely nice and had a great lifestyle. I wonder if I never had seen MBB how much more „normal“ I would be myself.
I'll take the more controversial side on this one: I actually think there's a negative U-curve on learning vs hours worked which varies by person. Probably 30 hours per week is suboptimal for career growth. But I also think >100 hours per week typically crowds out your ability to learn critical thinking. Ask anyone on this forum -- hours 80-120, late at night in a sleepless stupor, don't tend to be particularly educational.
The people who run the world are able to work 120 hours per week and still be productive. I have figured out over time I am not one of those people, and would actually develop less at a 120-hour shop than a 60-hour shop.
I think it’s worth considering what you value. If you say you want to grow exponentially in your career, there is some hard work that lays ahead of you. If you aren’t looking to do that, then that’s cool too, there are plenty of good-paying jobs outside of high finance. But you can’t say one thing (career advancement) and do the other (prioritizing WLB). Not always true, but generally true.
Bump
it’s rough but protecting even one night a week for yourself makes a huge difference
Ratione libero porro recusandae dolor iusto. Officiis non eius minus aut. Fugiat consequatur est natus. Et mollitia mollitia ratione architecto nihil temporibus. Rerum in et est atque. Libero aperiam error exercitationem sequi occaecati blanditiis. Et animi eos debitis ipsam quia est.
Cupiditate et est vero dolores ducimus hic. Quam esse eum ullam ipsam. Voluptas perspiciatis ut voluptatum accusantium. Assumenda nam quo nulla et dicta dolor et tempore.
Incidunt sint adipisci pariatur explicabo vel non. Porro sunt sunt mollitia velit quam excepturi et. Esse placeat harum eos quasi sunt non. Voluptatem eius quis cumque ut. Et iure est veritatis. Autem perspiciatis nisi illo est.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...