Am I compensated fairly as an Analyst in NYC?
Currently an Analyst at a boutique ~75 person Investment Bank in NYC and trying to gage my compensation. My group (M&A) is 4 people and i'd say I work 60-70 hours a week with the occasional 1-2am. Minimal work on weekends.
Salary: $70,000
Expected EoY bonus for 2021: 20-25k
Low double digit 401k match
Meal stipends for dinner in office
FINRA test sponsoring (SIE, 63, 7, 79)
Flexibility to work from home if I choose (for now)
I lateralled here from a 5-person shop back in mid-late 2020 after being laid off and am very thankful for the opportunity. I know that Street pay is much higher and I get hit up by recruiters from MM IB and PE shops pretty often. However, where I am now I can walk into the office and have conversations beyond just a surface level with our CEO, Partners, and my MD to the point we are actually shooting the shit almost every day and even went out for a liquid lunch on the firm's tab. We are also growing (record year last year) and very strong in a couple niche spaces.
Is it worth staying here and growing with the firm? Should I ask for higher salary or a higher bonus structure? I don't see myself being in banking for more than a few years, but also do not have any idea what else i'd want to do yet. I'm still learning a ton and the earliest I would leave is probably after the bonus hits in 11 months from now. Would appreciate the insight from an objective POV.
Thats terribly low, I would leave. Granted your hours dont sound too bad but any firm paying less than $120-130k in NYC is a red flag
Sounds like a good deal. Nice hours. Genuine personal connections with very influential people. Sounds like you're going to grow with the firm as well. My advice: stick it out for a while at least.
- Prospect in IB M&A
I say you flip a coin between the above comments
Idk about this one. I don't think the hours are that great-- 70 hours a week is a lot. If you really think the firm has growth potential, its definitely worth it to stick with it...but otherwise get to a shop that will pay you what you are worth, because in my opinion if you aren't doing 85k base with at least 50% bonus as a first year, it ain't worth it.
Don't know how boutique comp works now but double-digit match is really high
That's the first thing that jumped out at me too. Sure, comp otherwise is low, but seems like OP gets treated really well and has an awesome life.
Would be curious to see what the career trajectory is like at the firm. If he can be promoted to VP and earn like 250k per year which would still be low but then work those same hours, not a bad gig. Who knows, maybe there's a path to partner and having small ownership in the firm.
Thinking about this differently - getting paid street and being worked to the bone is easy AF since that's what literally any well-known firm is doing. Finding a banking firm that allows you to have a real life, despite the lower pay, now that's a lot rarer.
I am at a very similar firm in a tier 2 city and analyst base was 75 and bonus was ~50 so I’d say you’re underpaid for NYC. However, most analysts work ~80 hours and at least one day on weekends here. If you have good rapport / think it’s a place you can build your skills / see deals close strongly consider staying. Try and learn if comp scales with tenure/loyalty because you could be in a place where when you hit VP you are making decent money for less work and more personal/professional freedom. But if you don’t care for the work you could probably make the same or more for less work at big four consulting/transaction advisory. Or you could work a lot more for more money because there are IB opportunities out there. One thing to consider is that while you are probably underpaid now for the hours, you are right around the threshold of “manageable” imo. Once you are getting into the 80s+ week in week out you start not only making social sacrifices but health sacrifices. Something to consider.
I can promise you big four consulting or TAS analysts make no where close to 120-130 he would be taking a significant haircut for slightly less work (closer to 60 than 70). That’s more like what a non-mba associate makes
OP said 70 base + 20-25 bonus (so 90-95 not 120-130). From what I’ve heard big four TAS / consultants make pretty close to that (maybe ~85) and if you include travel (assuming no COVID) it’s maybe 60 hours.
yeah, you're underpaid, which is the reason they treat you well. if they treated their analysts like shit for this money, nobody would work for them.
however, you should ask yourself a question: what's more important: to enjoy your job and life or to get paid more but have a miserable life. if 1st, then stay, if 2nd, then try to recruit for roles headhunters offer you. I personally could make 2x my current money but I'd have to work 2x more and have more stress, and I choose to stick with my current job. but you may have different priorities.
Not worth it. Go get some good experience and most importantly, paid. Keep in touch with them and if they like you as much as you think they do then you should have no problem coming back down the line if you really end up missing their culture.
It's the classic Money vs. Time vs. Career Trajectory problem. There is no perfect answer. You're comped below street but if you're averaging 60-70 hour weeks (I'm assuming that's not 100% screen time) and have most weekends off, you're so far away from the rest of the street you may as well be in a different industry.
This forum will tell you 99 times out of 100 to chase the incremental dollar and the incremental (and intangible) prestige of a larger/better bank/fund. If you work with good people and do interesting work, are happy with the comp/life relationship, and the career trajectory, why not stay? If your mid-to-long-term goals require a different pedigree, try to lateral to the likes of Lizard, Everbore, or Centerfield Partners ASAP and kiss your free time and mental health goodbye in exchange for longer term career optionality and a truckload of sweet sweet cheddar you won't have time enough to spend.
As somebody who started at a tiny shop earning a similarly discounted salary for similarly discounted hours, and worked with a similarly down-to-earth and close-knit team, I can say in my experience that the cost benefit relationship between extra hours / extra money beyond 60 hrs/week and $100k a year is NOT linear. After a certain point, the marginal utility of each extra dollar is outweighed by the incremental misery of each extra hour worked. Everybody has a different $ threshold for that inflection point and I thought mine would be higher than it turned out. I'd never go back to banking, but I'd go back to that particular bank (and eat the 50% paycut).
I love my 4-handle comp package, comfortably living solo in a 1000+SF 2br downtown apartment, and all that stupid materialistic shit that comes with too much disposable income, but I'd give it up in exchange for the comfort of knowing I'm done work after 6pm, and being able to actually plan weekend trips and vacations without baked-in parachute plans to cancel last minute. I just interviewed for a role that's a 70% pay cut and found myself actually considering it. I also just cancelled a little weekend trip with my long-distance SO that I'd been looking forward to since November, which nearly gave me a mental breakdown. Money isn't everything, but neither is free-time, so take both into consideration along with the broader context of your life goals before making a decision.
/end of ramble
As I always say, I am a bit of an oddball in this industry, so take this perspective with a handful of salt.
So much this. Hoping OP reads this and thinks critically about it. I'm a big advocate of WLB and not falling into the trap of the finmeme accounts and becoming a finance hardo stereotype chasing prestige and an extra buck...
Yep x100. I also worked at a small IB before lateraling to a much larger name. While the experience at the new bank hasn't been terrible, I know that if I continue in M&A long-term it's going to be with a small, close-knit team.
There's a peace of mind and a certain level of satisfaction that comes with being "the" rising star at a small firm that appreciates you that you won't find at larger firms, typically. The competition is too thick and even if you are top-dog in your roster at a larger firm, you're likely working 1.5x+ the effort you would be at the right small firm. That tradeoff sucks.
There may be large banks out there where you can work with the same deal team on every deal, in which case you can perhaps have the best of both worlds if you find the right tribe of people. You're way more likely to work with the same people you like at a tiny bank that only has those people, though, than you are to be staffed with the same team on each deal at a larger bank.
Cant agree with onebagger more. I'm currently at a place that sounds extremely similar to yours. While the idea of going to Centerview or Evercore sounds amazing when you think about more than doubling your comp for a fairly similar role, the other factors cannot be taken seriously enough. Most of my friends do not work in banking and get to hang out every weekend, uninterrupted by work with no thought of it on their mind. They might make $60-$80k a year, but I can guarantee you that all of them are having a blast living up their early twenties in a big city. I am lucky enough to be able to join on some weekends, but absolutely not all of them. If you had said before I started working that I could add 20-30 hours a week for an extra $100k on the year I would have said yes without hesistation. Now I can confidently say that I would turn that offer down.
This forum provides a lot of good but there are definitely some awful things about it like the constant comparisons that you can't help but make when you try to read some posts. Proud of yourself for saving 30k after the first 6 months of working? Too bad, some 22 year old has $300k saved in cash, two properties he rents out and a $1M in his retirement account. Feeling okay with your hours/job/pay? Someone your age with the same job title is making double. I was fully content with my base salary of $70k and lower than street bonus until I came on to this site and saw how much others make. Don't underrate how valuable your free time is and how much so many of these people on this site would pay to get theirs back.
Hey OP here. I'm really appreciative of these posts/perspective and have gotten similar feedback from others a few years older than myself. My objective isn't career banker or even staying in a corporate environment past age 30 if I can help it. I'd like to run my own non-finance related business and go the entrepreneurial route in the future, so the experience i'm getting now is really just to learn as much as I can. I'm essentially being paid to learn in an environment that I don't feel like offing myself in every day. I know very well I could jump to a bigger and more prestigious firm right now and I also know if I want to I can probably do MM PE or Corp Dev at some point. I plan on staying for at least another year and seeing what the bonus is and if i'm still learning then. Cheers and welcome any more comments and advice. Thanks.
Great choice! As someone who works at a group that prospects circlejerk over, I promise you it really isn't worth it.
If I am working as an analyst making $70K with 9-5 hours is this worth it?
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