Associate to VP promotes: what game in life are you playing?
Obvi this is a super open-ended question, but for those who took an Asso to VP promotion, what game in life are you playing? In other words, what's your motivation in doing this? Imo from my experience / fellow IB friends, WLB doesn't get much better (if at all) despite the pay increase... and your future career optionality continues to narrow
Is it:
-I genuinely love IB so much and want to continue in this career long-term
-I'm trying to achieve FIRE
-I wanna make as much money as humanly possible in my life (if so, for what goal?)
-I have expensive taste and wanna buy a huge house / fancy car & routinely dine at Michelin star restaurants
-I grew up poor and wanna pay off my loans and/or better support my fam
-I have a high maintenance significant other (and/or offspring) I need to tend to (i.e. fancy gifts, meals, vacations, private schools, etc.)
-OR... tbh I still don't know what I want in life and this is the best option for me for the time being, so just going with the flow
No judgement at all... I just ask this question bc the seniors I've worked w aren't the happiest ppl in life... I feel like they have a bit of pent-up anger for not enjoying their younger years in pursuit of the money/power/status, and now they feel like it's "too late" (i.e., wife, kids, house, other big obligations) to make any significant adjustments
Combination of a few things.
I'd also say I am very happy with life at the moment, contrary to what you mention above that you've heard from others.
AI will replace most IB junior and mid-level jobs in the next 5 years so start looking for alternative careers.
You clearly do not work in IB. Will analysts/associates become more efficient with AI, resulting in less headcount? Probably over time. But at the senior level it’s a people game that AI will not replace
I'm a boomerang who went IB M&A AN @ BB (2 Years) -> PE ASO @ MM (2 Years) -> IB Coverage ASO / VP @ EB. Ultimately, while I was given the senior associate promote at my PE job, I chose to come back to IB for a number of reasons:
Tl:dr I find IB interesting enough to make a career out of it, and IB is a great career to optimize risk-adjusted comp
Dang, this sounds like a dream too good to be true. Mind sharing what firm?
Tank you for the detailed write-up. Extremely helpful for fresh grads in banking like me to gain more clarity. Just a few follow-up questions.
Would really appreciate your insight here!
i have a shockingly similar story (boomeranged from PE) and agree with everything here. well said
Similar situation as well to me. Haven't started the new role yet, but I was curious what are some ways that you used your PE experience as a banker? Did you find it helped with BD, execution, diligence, etc.?
SB - What was your comp was VP1 at EB?
I originally pursued banking “because I wanted to achieve FIRE” but now that I’ve made VP things for me have gotten better hours wise. In a product group non NYC and hours are like 55ish/week on average and minimal weekend work.
Figure stick it out as long as I can and if anything ever happens to my seat I’ll be fine
What type of bank are you at? Mind sharing product?
That's actually a pretty damn good setup tbh
Would you mind sharing the type of firm?
Would argue with premise that job prospects narrow. Outside of specific buyside roles, the job market actually gets more interesting to exit to a bunch of different industries. Especially as your network builds in that subsector. Also MD’s can exit to buyside roles in some circumstances. It only gets smaller if you are looking through lense of your standard associate buyside recruiting roles.
Can you touch more on this? What are typical roles available for MDs in buyside? Also typically what level in industry would they go? I'm guessing VP Corp dev?
I’m a VP2.
I like the job, want to FIRE, and have family members to support.
I'm closest to the last one. I enjoy the work enough and the money is hard to walk away from. I am still learning new things and often find it challenging which keeps things interesting.
I recently started at a new non-sexy bank that has an upstart team so even though a $250 base + $200k target is nothing to write home about for a VP1, I am working like 50-55 hours a week. I'll take that trade off which allows me to have a life and spend time with my family.
I'm in leveraged finance and not really interested in working in private credit so that I can build a 100 page deck guessing whether or not we will get paid back. Not sure if I want this long term so will see what the future holds.
your job sounds so good. $450k is what directors at bank of america make these days
Once I put a downpayment on a home and have $1mm in the bank I am happily taking a 50% pay cut to work ~50-75% of the hours. Pretty close now as a VP2, but could see myself milking this until I get RIFed as the risk-adjusted comp is too good.
why not just coast and go downstream to being director at smaller and smaller banks and then getting to MD and clipping as much money as possible?
Prob doesn't want to shift into the sales role of MD I'd imagine, if he's okay with the pay cut
Sitting here in my final associate year and trying to figure out this same thing… appreciate the perspectives in this thread.
I work in product and while I've never worked in PE, I work on PE deals and that world seems to have worse WLB than what I deal with in banking. The "exit" door doesn't close either, it just becomes less defined but there's plenty of opportunities to branch out assuming you've built a network.
Ever notice in these bizarre passive aggressive posts, the OP always hints that every MD they know is miserable and has “pent up anger from missing out on their youth”?
What an odd coping mechanism if you flame out of high finance, to just act like every senior in finance is super mad.
IB becomes super easy at VP+ unless you’re an idiot and have zero social skills. Sure some MDs might be unhappy, but they’re likely fat or bald or ugly or have a crappy wife, all issues they would still have no matter what they did for a living.
Sorry you’re struggling and don’t get the VP promote you tool.
But acting like everyone in finance is miserable is weak cope.
Good take. None of the seniors (MD and above) I’ve worked with seem to have “pent up anger from missing out on life”. Have worked at two BBs so far and the MDs and above all seem to really enjoy their jobs. Yes, they get frustrated at times for various reasons (lose a deal, juniors turning crappy materials, dealing with some douchey clients, etc), but that’s normal.
I’ve come across a decent amount of Directors though who have pent up anger. It’s usually them resenting their wife or going through a divorce and/or knowing they aren’t on track to get the MD promotion.
Agreed, if you're getting the Director -> MD promotion, you probably are pretty good at the MD role... or at least others see you as being able to develop into being pretty good.
Being pretty good as an MD almost always requires enjoying the core fundamentals of the job and leveraging your junior team appropriately so that you don't burn out. If you like your job and you're pretty good at it, you generally won't be miserable as it fits in holistically with the rest of your life (spouse, kids, LT goals, etc).
Regarding IB being super easy at VP+, I think it's very dependent on firm / team.
At my firm the MDs and Partners work super hard because of how high their revenue requirements are and there being less of 'you get a pat on the back if you win a deal' culture and more of a 'you're going to grilled as to why you missed that deal' culture.
VP is by far the hardest section of the ladder for us because you're sweating it out 24/7, executing 4-5 live deals at a time, doing marketing materials and trying to build your coverage.
I agree on your point about the distribution of resentful seniors - not ALL seniors resent their past, but I'd say a big proportion do have regrets around some of the tradeoffs they made in life.
Yea 100%, every level is sweaty af at my EB just based on culture / perception
Why are VPs doing marketing materials. Is that normal?
that's right...most are deeply angry and $$ did not cure all of it. When I see MD's with more money for multiple lifetimes, still grinding it out at 60+ years old, something is really wrong in their life.
This is 100% accurate—as a VP you get your face blasted off every single day—I have never been so sleep deprived in my years in banking since being promoted, easily working 100 hrs a week now with no end in sight and was consistently hitting no more than 70 hrs the last year even with a similar number of live transactions…
Smoke Frog (lol), you clearly didn't understand the question. Of course not every senior banker has "pent up anger" - although from my personal experience (which is only one of THOUSANDS), I have encountered a critical mass worthy enough of starting this discussion. And I'm still in IB and doing great in my role, thank you.
I think the reason why this thread blew up is because I (like many others) want a better perspective on opportunity costs in life in general... money isn't the only thing that compounds my guy - it's also skills (heavy emphasis for things you genuinely love doing), experiences, relationships, and fitness - those can snowball into many new adventures that make life more fun and gratifying vs. blowing yet another weekend on yet another deal that ultimately dies (after all, we're all gonna be dead a lot longer than being alive)
Where I work (large MM), the Asso to VP comp increases quite a bit, but the hours don't significantly decrease - thus, getting candid senior perspectives from those who decided to make the jump is incredibly valuable. So chill out
facts - itd be helpful since im thinking about longevity of banking, since I'm not interested in buyside for above reasons posted by the VP in IB
Ignore title, am mid level VP now.
If I could live life 10 times, I’d go the hedge fund route for 7 of those times to try and hit a grand slam, and I also find public L/S equity for my personal portfolio to be much more interesting than the rote mechanics of sell side processes, but I do banking because I’m trying to solve for a high probability path to a $30M+ net worth by the time I’m 50. I’d rather have a 50% chance of hitting $30M by 50 than a 5% chance of hitting $1B (even though 5% of $1B is much higher expected value). Incremental utility of each dollar goes down past a certain point.
Currently set to turn 30 this year, net worth around ~$2M, and with additional compounding and saving bonus every year, if I can ride through director tenure, will be in great shape and at a point where I could downsize jobs, spend 100% of my income, and just let the nest egg to continue to compound into a good spot.
Basically, if you don’t have a trust fund, doing banking for 10-12 years out of college is a great sure fire way (assuming you can last through analyst and associate years) to “create” your own trust fund. As a VP, my life is not horrible, and is exponentially the best $ per unit of effort at work that I’ve ever had.
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he says it right there that he is going to ride through the director tenure.
Bro how do you have $2mm at 30. I am 31 now and A2A and have $1.1mm. Am I a bad saver lol
Lol not you. I have just been fairly heavy into bitcoin (buying at highs and lows) and concentrated equity positions that have generally done well over the last 4 years which has led to an above average rate of return in what was already a good time period for equities.
From what I’ve seen, 1mm at around 30 is the norm if you follow traditional banking out of undergrad route and assuming little / no student loans and that you are single.
He probably had some lucky investments.
I started banking late and was an associate in my early 30s. Obviously never had MF looks but almost glad I didn't because I've now seen successive classes of juniors join and not stay very long / in PE. I can't imagine that I'd have been the 1 in 5 to make it to Principal+. Having had a relatively normal corporate life up till joining banking (after an MBA), I have a very 'normal' and collegial personality which has made navigating life with juniors, seniors, and clients come much more naturally to me than others. A lot of people at my level were great juniors once upon a time, great at attention to detail, very type-A; but now when it comes time for EQ-centric things like interacting with other people, they come across as pedantic or overly stiff. The nature of my earlier job before finance was fairly technical so understanding finance itself came easily to me in time. I also very much like where I work; it pays street (and I have always been consistently top bucket) and my group is a good combination of busy but also friendly.
My perspective as I’m a bit older
A2A at what they call today an EB. I stayed in banking even though I had PE opportunities (mistake btw, you could have been a total moron in mid 2000s PE and made insane money, those days are gone) through the associate and VP promote frankly because I was killing it - top of my class, top of the street comp, worked hard but had a lot of flexibility in my time because I was well rated.
it was great at the time but I didn’t realize I was screwing things up because I was so focused on the moment, I gave no thought to the bigger picture of my career. I hit a wall because once you hit Sr VP / Director at some “EBs” there’s no real path to client coverage and there’s this tension between needing to originate, having no real origination skills because all you do is execute and the senior rainmakers expecting you to be their slaves while also criticizing you for not bringing in revenues and hogging clients. As successful as my early career was, my mid career was a disaster and I was floundering for more thana few years. That said, I’m pretty smart and resilient and managed to stick it out, find a niche, become pretty successful around that niche, broaden out and now I run one of the better industry teams. People who see me know assume it was a straight path up when it was anything but.
The reason I say all of this is because you shouldn’t just reflexively take that VP promotion without a clear plan about what you want to do with your career, especially if you want to stay in banking. There are many different ways to be successful but you need to have a path and a plan. I insist my VPs have one because I don’t want people to make the same mistake I did of just assuming everything will work out.
Did you end up staying at the same firm to carve out your niche or jump ship to a new EB?
I’m another guy who has been on the Street for a while now. This actually doesn’t get talked enough about in regards to “EBs”.
Yes the money is great, but if you’re homegrown, it is incredibly difficult to make Partner / SMD because so many of these shops are built on having a bunch of execution guys for senior folks that lateraled in. The problem is a lot of young bankers don’t realize that until late in the game.
With a few exceptions, there isn’t really a culture of grooming homegrown talent to be senior bankers. So many wake up one day as a Director-equivalent realizing they’re effectively a highly paid associate / VP - excellent execution skills, which is ultimately a commodity, but absolutely no ability to originate business because there was never a plan for them to develop and lead a sub-/vertical.
If you wash out on the verge or at the Director-level without any experience even TRYING to originate, it’s challenging to sell what your real value-add is to a new organization (if you want to stay in banking),
And yes, there are a select, few senior people whose main role is execution but I wouldn’t underwrite to that.
any tips on what banks would be great to grow your career? BB vs MM vs LMM? also, how did you start going about carving out coverage? (research, cold email, leaning on sponsor bankers, etc) It seems like being at a EB or BB and carving out coverage is quite difficult but starting your career early there might look nice on the resume. would love if you have any advice in general.
Echo this 100%, and thank you for sharing this! I've had this moment of reflection many a times- and often seek guidance from my peers/look through their experiences about long term success
I've worked at both at a EB and BB, and - the comp at EB is higher (sometimes materially across levels - 100-200k+ consistently across Associate/VP years), yet I still think in the long term the VP and ED years at a top BB can give you the best possible banking experience and set you up for longer term success both in and outside banking:
If the intention is to stay in banking long term, spending years at VP/ED level where you get actual coverage experience is crucial (BBs set up best for this, but not always). If someone is spending 90-100% of time executing (which hands down almost everyone below Partner level is at an EB), they are not going past the ED slot.
i did IB BB 2 yrs -> UMM PE which kicked my entire class out and now i'm unemployed. Thinking about going back to IB and wanted to see if you had any advice.
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I just want to be financially independent asap (not necessarily retire but want to be able to not work for a boss, work remote, do a consulting gig or something and prioritise living).
Frankly it’s the golden handcuffs. Every time I’m about to leave, I look back at the fact that even in the last year (ASO 3) which I considered to be the worst year so far in terms of job satisfaction and WLB, I was still averaging only 50-60 hours a week and clearing $400k+
I still have plenty of time to go out, spend time with my wife and my best friends, game, dine out, etc. and yes, I love Michelin starred dining. Absolutely love it :) Food is important to me.
It feels like my friends at places like startup or consulting are going through the same hours without the pay (maybe a bit more flexibility / predictability in hours).
Just hard to find greener pastures. I’m not smart enough for HF and I don’t get along with people in PE. So I’m content enough for now.
Very happy for you… but where in the world are you working that is paying you 400k+ as an ASO3 working 50 hours/week?
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