There have been tons of threads recently on leaving banking, if banking is not what it used to be, are there better careers to go into, etc. I think there are several things people are not considering when looking at these posts, and its clear the average age of this website is showing when people are discussing on the posts.
- Its clear that the vast majority of people are only thinking about compensation and/or are concerned about making a "mistake". Life is never that black and white, and there is so much more to life itself than someone else's opinion. Know yourself and what you want in a job first before you make that decision. Do you enjoy spending time with people and meeting others? if so, SWE may not be for you as you will have significantly less meetings. But people dont consider these things, they only look at comp and hours, which doesn't encompass much. Look at what actually makes you feel fulfilled, and that will help you decide what job is best FOR YOU.
- Its also apparent that people are lumping every single company into a field as if they are the same, but there are tons of ways to mitigate some of the negatives given you give up something. Do you think banking could be fulfilling but dont want to feel like you are just a monkey? Pick a small local boutique where you actually can speak up and provide value. People dont think of this because its apparently a sin if you dont go to a BB/EB but what point is optionality if you are going to give it up later down the line. Either consider individual companies you can compare or recognize there are thousands of firms in every category (law, medicine, banking, SWE, etc) with unique cultures and situations you can find.
- Money isn't everything. Its a lot, but not everything. I think a big reason why WFH caused an exodus is that all the hedonism many bankers relied on to stay in the field shut down, and because there is no place to spend your money why even make it that way. If you have to spend money on tons of escapism to survive a job its not for you because you dont actually want to be there. You just want the lifestyle, which you can easily get by moving to Texas and being in corporate finance. Money is a factor, sure, but its not just income but also living expenses and your budgeting. While teams are much less fun now, thats just accross the board whatever industry so I think thats mute.
TLDR: Before you freak out if banking sucks now know what you actually want in a job to fulfill you and consider all the different firms that could solve your concerns before jumping ship.
Do you think the exodus has anything to do with so many people joining for reasons such as exit opps, money, or prestige, rather than actually enjoying finance? I understand that this year has been horrible, but I dont understand how people compare engineering and banking. They are very different paths for different types of people.
Of course, in fact I think that became one of the main reasons as the bull market popped off. Too many people went into this for alternative, external reasons which go away eventually
This is true and pay (leverage for WFH) is partially based on supply and demand so tell as many people as you can to never ever even consider a job in banking or Finance.
Instructions unclear, bought Exxon
One of the biggest threats within banking is automation & AI. the work can be done with a fraction of employees. you need an A-team for client-facing activities. the human element counts. but you don't need thousands of staff per BU.
Sure, to an extent. But when urgency calls for a last minute change, or something that does not "fit the bill" - you think an MD is going to say "hey no worries, lets just see what our algo says", if you think that, you have never worked on a live deal.
Further, to become a senior banker, you must first be a junior banker and get the reps - or at least associate (but I bucket that as junior). When all your "A-team" people retire, who's going to step in? Alexa? The guy from tech that has 3 chins and a patchy beard who built the algo that formats some slides?
Blatantly untrue, it's clear you don't know anything about AI.
Great argument, saying "untrue and you don't know anything". What did I say that was untrue?
Going off of you maybe JPM should be reduced down to 1 person to just oversee the AI. Yea lets put trillions of dollars in charge of 1 person running a really good AI I am sure that will go well and the whole system will benefit.
Even to dumb this down to the deal level you could have what 1 MD and no one else is that your plan? My first job was back office at a fortune 50 broker dealer and someone there was payed 50k a year to enter every mutual fund order that a adviser placed into the back office system, didn't even change anything just had to enter the order. That is the current stage of where this cutting edge AI system is currently at.
I don’t agree with your take on automation but I do think you’ll see more outsourcing of IB (and other finance jobs) analyst work overseas, which will reduce the number of seats. Many have already seen this with smaller tasks like graphic design but it wouldn’t surprise me to see increasing amounts of modeling/analysis done by someone in India for 1/10 the cost of an analyst in NY.
Have you spent 1 day in banking? We have an India team, and we have a business support team based out of the U.S. as well. The work product is simply not client ready, ever. Whether it be the wrong graphics used, or poor grammar / messaging, outsourced work needs a LOT of cleaning up. Could AI help with this? Sure, but you are referring to the point where AI can feel human emotion (i.e. proper "messaging" of a deck), and when AI can feel human emotion you are referring to the singularity effect. By the time the singularity effect is achieved, we have much bigger fish to fry than automating out some analysts.
The above is ONLY referring to 1 little part of the materials / responsibilities that an IB analyst is responsible for. Further, in a last minute pinch, a reliable analyst needs to be able to make decisions on what comments to make / not make given the tradeoff between quality / accuracy, appropriate messaging / tone, and speed. Again, if AI can manage all of this, we are at the point of AI running the world and have bigger concerns than some analysts losing their jobs.
If anything, AI would be able to help analysts take on more deals and handle more deal flow. The analysts are the ones doing the grunt of the "work" at the end of the day. Banks turn down deals / kick the can down the road with deals all the time due to capacity in times of high deal flow. AI just lets you do more work --> more deals an analyst an work on.
Don't get me wrong, I see your point at a high level, but if you really take a minute and analyze your day in IB you'll see that this is nothing but a dramatization.
Plus, if AI replaced all the IB analysts, who would get the reps / understand what needs to be done to manage an intricate, delicate process? What will the background of senior bankers be? You need a strong bench with years and years of hands-on experience to become a senior banker.
At the end of the day, AI can't grab coffee for your MD...yet ;)
We tried to use "automated spreading" to put stuff into our risk software and had to stop within a week due to it being correct 0% of the time. However if they are able to automate that then the other 60 Pages of my report I have to type up interpreting the numbers and having a pretty presentation would be a bit easier.
IMO it's not just banking. In Pharma there is a pervasive sense that the 'good old days' of high comp, great perks, and a lax attitude toward how one unwinds are long past. I suspect middle monkeys in other industries (advertising anybody) feel similarly.
My 60-something VP, making half a mil a year with a 9,000sqft house, complained to me that VPs had it way better when he was coming up in the 90's.
Is this IB? How can a VP be 60?
It literally says "pharma" in my post. Corp Dev
LOL @ the idea of a 60 year old VP in IB
I'd applaud it, but picturing it....lmaooo
(aware that we are talking about Pharma)
Yep people will always try to make the past more rosy. Yeah sure they were probably getting much higher comp before GFC but it was also much more competitive since tech wasn't really what it is today.
The past was more rosy, you could get paid less and buy more, better quality items. Sure there's more money now, but when it's built on debt it might as well be an imaginary number in your bank account.
Modern finance, gotta love it.
High paying pharma jobs weren't that competitive even 15+ years ago. Can attest to this, know someone who makes half a mil in a role that he would have no chance of getting if it wasn't for the lucky roles he landed back then through a ton of networking (he's an experienced senior employee at some big pharma companies and got opportunities at unicorns at senior, near exec levels. His academic qualifications are abysmal but his industry experience is the only reason he gets some incredible opportunities that he might be underqualified for).
Nowadays, very tough to get those 200K+ cushy pharma jobs. One of my friends has this type of job and it looks great, makes probably $230-250K all-in (20-30% in stock). Don't know the work hours but looks like ~50ish. He's in a role that requires a good amount of traveling so he builds up a lot of travel points. Definitely had to network his a** off to get that role and actively works on trying to help friends with similar backgrounds land similar roles.
Oh no, big businesses have realized they're paying the 1% too much and are cannibalizing themselves. Going to be funny when millionaires are screaming to unionize.
Honestly man pulling in $200K+ as an Analyst with WLB being better than it ever has been seems like a pretty cush deal to me. I think WSO and the prevalence of finmemes caused a sort of rush into finance from people who were never well-disposed for the job to begin with, and I have no doubt that some of those kids burnt out at mach speed, but for those who actually enjoy the gig I think we're in a pretty good time TBH. Profits are record-level across the board and comp is up, up and away. It's like when TFM got really popular in high-schools and every pencil necked geek in the world wanted to be a top-tier frat start until they got bullied during pledging then quit and joined the climate change club.
Where is WLB better than it ever was?
Lol wondering the same. What is this guy on
I'm at a LMM but the ability to work remotely during the evening and general burnout during COVID have substantially reduced the amount of time a week I spend actually sitting in front of a computer. Have heard similar stories elsewhere but in fairness I hear just as many people saying they've been getting hammered since the pandemic.
throughout COVID WLB was among the worst it ever was at my bank
I think for first years maybe it was harder in terms of ramping up. But from WLB perspective, the consensus among all the A2A and senior analysts was that it got significantly better during COVID due to WFH across several firms.
First and second years that don't know what banking was really like before COVID frankly don't have any frame of reference to compare against.
Oh, man. I haven't even made it beyond MO and into banking and people are leaving already. Can y'all keep the industry cool til I get there too? Cheers!
Don't worry, I gotchu
Nice post.
Literally anyone speaking about enjoying a demanding job is either lying or riding a short-sighted high. The demands eventually force consistency that will clash in someway with your personal life.
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