At what point does it improve?
Currently a first year, and knew what I was getting into regarding WLB, having no life etc, but didn’t think it would effect me this hard. My outlook on the future is pretty bleak as it seems like the lifestyle never improves in high finance, and as I plan the next steps in my career I just was curious if it ever gets better, and what exit truly gives the satisfaction of stimulating work / pay, but also gives you a life. Is corp dev it?
I prepped hard for PE recruitment in college, and have been in contact with the recruiters as I was told that PE has a better path- but I have gained friends on the buyside and their life seems just as shit as mine when it comes to WLB.
I don’t mind working hard but the A: blown up weekends, B: anxiety that work can pop up at any second on a calm weekend are taxing, and I know I can handle it if I really put my head down and made work the center of my life- but I don’t want that.
It does NOT get better. IB / PE same shit. Only thing as you get more senior is that you get to delegate but you then trade that off for more responsibility and direct client management. So say goodbye to an unplugged vacation as a VP, because the client is calling you directly.
Shit blows all the way around. If you like money and can handle NEVER being offline then go full speed ahead
Seems neither IB / PE are long-term options unless you are a psycho or end up at a unicorn type off firm where you have WLB. I know there are bunch of threads on this, but what are your thoughts on where to go from here on out?
If you're serious about what you said in your original post, do something outside of IB / PE. The nature of these industries means you will ALWAYS be online the more senior you get even at the so called "unicorn" shops. At those unicorn shops, its just the degree / frequency to which you are always online, again this will be outside of your control and solely rest in the hands of your clients.
Find something that truly interests you and pursue that. The money will come.
I agree in general with the earlier post, however my WLB as a senior in my team is much better IN MY VIEW than it was when I was junior.
What I value strongly is control or my hours and (obviously) the number of hours. I despised being told to turn up to the office at 9am on a Saturday by an ED when I was an AN just because that time worked for him - same true for irreverant client requests or working until 4am on things which genuinely could wait for tomorrow.
I'm more senior now and I value strongly that I have much more autonomy over my schedule, can dictate the timing of client calls and manage timing of deliverables (always to an extent of course - the client does still come first, but that's not the same thing as responding to every whim and nice-to-have).
As the earlier poster commented, this does come at the expense of greater responsibility. The buck more often stops with you and one area where you lose control is over the quality of work (if you have fantastic juniors, then not a problem, but if work isn't done to standard it's not as simple as "do it again" (obviously though some seem to not quite understand this)). If the client has a question, yes they'll call you at dinner or a holiday or whatever. I find the unpredictability to be much lower now than when I was junior.
The same is completely true in PE. As IA / IM / Principal / whatever you're answering to someone (you can sometimes delegate, but a lot of funds prefer work to be done in-house, and you're still responsible for work quality - you cannot blame the bank), and if, as Partner, your deal is going to IC or your PortCo just shit the proverbial bed, your holiday will be interrupted.
So it does change as you get more senior, in my view for the better (and you get paid more). How quickly it changes in my experience depends on your bank and how lean teams are. If you're on lean teams (e.g. MD - VP - AN), then you'll more quickly get to control. This differs a lot bank to bank and firm to firm (actually this is true in general for WLF across both PE and IB).
I don't have a great answer for optimising the "thing" that is comp, WLF, interest, etc. CorpDev has what I'd term a satisfactory level of pay but clearly a lot lower. HF has much more regular hours but has huge responsibility and again, unpredictability definitely exists. I find that (almost) any high pay job has some trade offs - you're compensated in large part for it (entrepreneur, CEO, surgeon, Law Partner, etc.)
“Stay long enough to see yourself become the villain…”
Agree with all of this.
Moving from M&A to FSG helped my WLB balance a lot. And frankly the value of execution at ED & MD level vs your relationships is much lower. Banks can always find execution people somewhere, they struggle to find those with relationships who can truly originate business for the firm.
VP was the worst. Because you were responsible for everything. You weren't out the weeds like directors and you had full responsibility for deliverables. Often if you had shit juniors you'd also end up doing the work yourself.
Moving to FSG is so underrated!
Second year is a bit better in my opinion. Get less attention and used to the workload
Nope, does not really get better.
Yes you can start delegating more, but then you’ll be managing the client directly. Some people actually prefer doing the actual work than dealing with client BS all the time.
I got to a point where I knew the processes and was good at the job, but then realized this whole ‘deal making’ thing was boring af. Couldn’t see myself being an MD and chasing this s*** day and night. I was in restructuring for what it’s worth, one of the more intellectual groups, but still couldn’t pay me enough to deal with some of these vultures on the distressed side.
Worst thing is just having to be online 24/7. Can never really shut off. This is what made the gig unsustainable for me in the long run.
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