A Modern-Day Investment Banking Journey – A Short Story

You’re a sophomore on campus.  You’ve succeeded in getting into the business school.  Your first few business classes are A’s, no problem.  You love business.  You love money.  You love stocks.  You have your sights set to be the next Wolf of Wall Street. 

You hear about investment banking.  You learn that all the top graduates are making over $100,000 in their first year out of college.  Wow.  Without needing to double check your bank account, you know you have less than $50.  You’d be rich in no time.  You hear of one analyst who bought a BMW after his first annual bonus.  People say it’s hard work, but that’s never stopped you.  You’ve worked hard your whole way through high school and the first few semesters of college.  You don’t have to pay for a masters or a graduate program.  This makes way more sense than pre-med and 7 years of residency.  You’ll be making more money than most of your friends in year 1.

You start to research – what is investment banking, what is M&A, what is a bulge bracket.  You sign up for an honors finance class.  You attend an investment banking information session.  You hear from real life analysts working at Godman Sachs and Citi.  You start reading Breaking Into Wall Street.  You read every interview guide you can get your hands on.  You already know what EBITDA means, how hard could it be?  You practice answering sample interview questions.  You sign up for a few mock interviews through the business school.  You start to nail “walk me through a Discounted Cash Flow Analysis” with ease.  You go to sleep fantasizing about how you’ll knock “tell me about yourself” out of the park.

Rumors start swirling that banks are coming to campus early this year.  You add the finishing touches to your masterpiece of a resume.  You scroll through the business school’s job site, Handshake, among the listings: JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Jefferies, etc.  You drop your resume into every single application with the title: Investment Banking Summer Analyst.  You refresh your university-provided email inbox repetitively over the course of the next few days.  Boom, one of the banks wants to set up an intro call with you.  Before you know it, two banks want to set up a call.  Then three!  You’re ecstatic and motivated.  You continue to prepare rapidly, reading interview guides and sample interview questions in between your regular college classes.  You cram as much information on mergers and acquisitions as possible into your memory.

You find a quiet room in one of the campus buildings.  The call comes.  It’s an Investment Banking Vice President.  He sounds stern yet sharp.  He barely asks anything about your prior work history, your high school senior project, before asking you about the cost of debt and perpetuities.  You have the investment banking interview cheat sheet up in front of you on your computer, but the font is too small and nothing really tells you the right answer.  You thank him for his time and hang up.  You’re relieved, but feel sweat under your arms.  You think you still did ok despite stumbling your way through a few of the questions you didn’t see coming. 

The calls come and go.  You hear from a few more middle-market banks located in surrounding cities.  Emails saying “we will not be furthering your candidacy at this time” become the norm.  Until one day, you see it in your inbox.  You can’t believe it.  You’ve been invited to your first superday.  This is it.  The final round.  The all-day event.  The superday.  The word itself sounds intense, but you’ve got this.  The bank isn’t your #1 choice, but at this rate, you need any internship you can get.  You know how the data stacks up – it’s almost impossible to land an investment banking analyst job right out of college.  It’s one of the most coveted jobs in all of business.

You break out your best suit and lucky tie.  Your shoes are your brothers that he wore to formal 4 years ago, but you doubt anyone will notice.  You’re nervous, but you know you’ve read every interview guide front to back 3 times already.  The bank pays for your ride to the office.  You file into the conference room with 4 other rising juniors from various prestigious universities.  They all have another superday to get to after this.  You meet the associates on the team.  They seem like a good match.  You start speed dating through interviews.  One MD to the next.  An associate, a VP, a director.  You’re flying around the office, patiently working around the MDs’ meetings.  You’ve cashed in “why do you want to work here” almost 5 times now.  Before you know it, you wipe your sweaty hand on your suit pants and shake the lead recruiter’s hand one last time on your way out.  Phew.  A few brain teasers and some industry-specific technicals later, you feel you did ok.  Your stellar answers to the behavioral questions will give you an edge, for example, why do you think you can work hard, maybe even 100-hour weeks?

That same evening, your phone rings.  It’s the VP, head of recruitment.  It’s a unanimous decision.  You’ve officially received an offer!  It’s an exploding offer.  You have until the next day at 5pm to respond.  You tell the VP this is great news and that he’ll be hearing from you soon.  You’ve done it.  Time to call mom and dad.  They’re excited for you, but they don’t fully understand what it took to get here.  Your mom questions whether this is really what you want to do.  You assure her this is your dream job and even if it’s a lot of work, you love making money and lots of it!

Acceptance day has come.  Time to throw a few beers back with your friends from finance class.  You start to compare accepted internships with classmates.  Houlihan Lokey, PJT, Bank of America.  All you need to do now is twofold.  One, get a decent enough GPA this year in case you have to show your upcoming employer.  Two, tough out the 10-week summer analyst program and receive a full-time offer.  Prove to the investment banking team that you were made for this.  You will do anything to get this full-time offer.  What will you do?  You’ll help the analysts’ move logos around in Powerpoint, you’ll stay at the office until 2am, you’ll pick up the seamless dinner order from downstairs.  You feel confident.  A good majority of interns can receive the offer if they just show up, do the work, and aren’t an asshole (and they still might get the offer!).  You are well on your way to living the dream.

The month of May comes around.  You buy a new suit, a belt, and a few new dress shirts with your mom’s help.  Your bank account is running slim.  You really need this paid internship to start up.  You sublease a 2-bedroom apartment with 4 of your buddies from college.  You want to split the rent more ways to be in the nicer part of the city.  They too have internships with investment banks this summer.  You unbox your $150 mattress and roll it out on the floor.  You know in advance you won’t be spending very much time there given you’ll be working 90+ hour weeks as an intern.  It doesn’t phase you.  You’re ready to work extra-long hours if it means you’ll get paid more. 

August is here, it’s almost time for full-time offers.  Will all interns get an offer?  What happened to the summer?  Everyday felt extremely long, but it flew by!  You worked every Sunday from 10am – 7pm.  You ordered your favorite Italian delivery dinner 41 times on the company Amex.  You worked out in the office gym 7 times.  You haven’t spoken to your family and friends in a few weeks.  You’ve lost track of the sports world besides a few F1 races.  You were able to hit some of the local bars with your roommates, and only had to leave early to go back to the office twice.  You learned some cool new shortcuts in Excel and Powerpoint.  You can alt-tab like nobody’s business.  And you put your Wall Street Journal subscription to good use – even sending team-wide news article updates a couple times.  You walk out of there with only a few mental bruises and a 17x larger bank account value.  Success. 

The VP calls you the day after you finish your summer stint.  Your full-time offer has come.  “Thanks for the hard work this summer”, he says, “we’ll need a response by EOD”.  Finally, you have summited the college finance student mountain.  A full-time offer letter at your fingertips.  You recognize the summer wasn’t easy, but you assume the next 2 years will go by quick.  If the current full-time analysts can do it for 2 years and walk out with a new Rolex and a beloved private equity job, so can you.  Private equity is every analyst’s end goal.  The perfect balance of high-pay and time at the office.  Investment banking is known to be the steppingstone to private equity and a successful finance career.  You’ll be set for life.  It must be done.  You enter senior year with a little bit of cash, a sweet new job lined up for post-graduation, and not a worry in the world.

Your last few parties as a college student are fun, but it’s time to get serious.  You pass your remaining accounting and finance classes.  You say your goodbyes to your fraternity brothers.  You snatch up a low-cost studio apartment near your new office, making sure it still has all the amenities.  You do your best to make the small space feel like your new home.  You forgot to buy a new pair of dress shoes so you hit Joseph A Banks the day before you start, which allows you to cop a new tie too.  You are up early, showered, and even overdressed for the first day.  You grab your new corporate ID at the reception desk and ride the elevator up.  You shake hands with the other analysts in the office, not yet realizing how much time you’ll actually spend with them.  The admin set you up at your new desk in the bullpen.  You embrace the slightly tilted dual monitors and overused keyboard with a few seemingly random keys missing.  Your directors barely acknowledge your existence, but you know they’re busy.  You’re finally here.  You’re fired up and ready to kick off your career.  You’re handed a new corporate iphone, a gold corporate Amex credit card, and a signing bonus check in the amount of $10,000.  Does it get better than this?

4 months go by.  Your eyes start to show some bags.  You’ve had to pull some late nights, but nothing to call home about.  You’ve racked up quite the after-hours dinner bill.  Free food is free food.  You generally feel like you’ve learned a lot.  You realize that “comments” is a term you will see often.  Your skills formatting charts and organizing data has helped with Powerpoint decks.  The MDs continue to limit your exposure to deals given your lack of experience, but you want to prove you can do more.  You are working hard on excel models in your free time to show your coworkers you too can model.  You even make some time on the weekends to grab a drink with your other investment banking friends.

8 months go by.  You start to function on less sleep consistently.  90-100 hour work weeks start to put a strain on your body.  You’ve gained at least 5-6 lbs. The amount of Chipotle that’s been consumed after dark in the office could feed a small village.  You’ve made 20+ pitch decks of deals that have not seen the light of day.  You realize you’ve lost touch with a few friends post-college but assume it’s pretty normal.  You haven’t taken a single day of vacation because you don’t have the option to.  You begin to let your mind wander.  What exactly makes this job so great after all?  Was it right for you?  You make good money right?  You continue working hard, albeit with less steam, with hopes of a strong bonus at the full-year mark to make it all worth it.

12 months in.  You’ve made it to the 1-year mark and you have gained some responsibility around the office.  Responsibility, or in other words, more work.  You’ve also gained 13 lbs.  You haven’t seen the sun in weeks since you show up each day before it rises and leave after it sets.  You stared at a screen for 90%+ of your time awake this year.  Blue light glasses didn’t help.  On weekends, you spend working or worrying about working.  If you’re lucky, you’ll get 10 hours a week to yourself.  You used to see friends, but don’t have enough time for much of anything anymore.  Do you have time to do laundry?  If you try to go out and have a drink or two, you’ll be just foggy enough the next day to make working that much more miserable.  You’ve had to sneak out during the week to see the doctor a few times regarding a few tangible concerns.  Was it related to the stress?  When was the last time you went to the dentist?  Ah, phew, the annual bonus is here.  This should help ease your mind and get you back on track; you are here for the money right?  After taxes, you see somewhere in the ballpark of $35,000 find your account.  You feel no emotion.

1 year 4 months in.  Stress has overwhelmed you.  You’re working full 100-hour weeks while job hunting for a buyside gig in your free time.  The grass is supposedly greener in private equity – your saving grace you hope.  You start coming into work an hour early to take phone interviews in an empty office.  You recognize how next year’s annual bonuses are a long way away.  You’ve lost interest in the day-to-day, it’s become almost second nature.  You spend your days with eyes blood red and halfshut while staring at screens.  You ask yourself when the last time you smiled was, maybe days.  Has it been a week?  Your significant other doesn’t hear from you often, if they’re even still with you.  If you were to try to meet someone, you don’t have the time.  You’ve lost social skills given you speak in professional finance tongue every hour of the day.  You start to feel your personality slipping away and turning bitter.  When you go to sleep at night, you dream about work in a stress-like state.  You reconsider the life choices you made to get here.  You worry about your life as it stands. 

1 year and 7 months in.  You quit and walk out one day.  Your desk was packed that night.  Everyone thinks you’re crazy – your coworkers, your friends, your parents.  What about your annual bonus?  How will you make any money?  The moment you walk out of the office doors, you breathe in a breath of fresh air.  You smile so big you nearly laugh your whole way out.  Without a doubt in your mind, this was the best decision you’ve ever made.

You call it a “mid-20s life crisis”.  You make peace with yourself.  You travel.  You spend time with loved ones and don’t take a second for granted.  You spend time alone and spend time thinking.  You seek passions.  You exercise daily, shedding weight.  You rekindle friendships.  Your spirit brightens.  Your skin tans and hair lightens.  You find out what it means to live again.

With time, you work through what’s left of your savings.  You have to make money at some point, right?  Being as smart as you are, you made sure to set up a job before you left the investment bank.  This time on the “buyside” of high finance.  Where many have said that the work life balance is far more favorable, and you get paid just as much or more!  A win win.  You found a way into private equity – the promised land.  The end game and dream of every new investment banking analyst.

A new job, a new city, a fresh start.  Time to cut the hair and break the dress shoes out of the closet again.  Things will be different this time.

1 year and 7 months in.  You quit and walk out one day.  Your desk was packed that night.  Everyone thinks you’re crazy – your coworkers, your friends, your parents.  Without a doubt in your mind, this was the best decision you’ve ever made.