Could someone provide insights into the real reasons behind the enthusiasm surrounding investment banking?
This conversation seems to be about IB all the time. Why is that?
Yes, I have personally done it. I am going to be performing an IB interview against my will. (I'm attempting to interview for as many firms as I can till I receive an offer; I'm just in severe need of a new job).
I believe that IB has a bad reputation because of its traditional work-heavy, little-life balance. I occasionally watch videos of people discussing their typical days as investment bankers out of curiosity, and they all appear to despise their lives.
Why is everyone wanting to get into it so badly? Sincere curiosity—no bias. Is it only about the cash?
salary
prestige
more interesting work than other finance roles
learning fast-track for finance
generally surrounded by A-type of people = you want to be associated with people like that
highly competitive to get it, harder o get it = more desirable
mandatory for buy-side = where most people want to end up
probably the highest job a 21/22 years old can get after UG, so perfect if you're unsure about what you want to do
peer pressure to get in if you go to universities like Wharton
hmm... what else did I miss?
I doubt you can say that about other roles in finance, probably if you take FP&A you would list some benefits like WLB, etc. or generally how comfortable it is, but for IB it's a different mindset, you get in because you want to do/achieve more
agree with everything written above,plus it's an IB forum. There would be a problem if the conversation wasn't on IB 99% of the time.
"Why is everyone wanting to get into it so badly?" -> there you've already exposed your fallacious reasoning. Your arguing from a standpoint of sample bias.
"EVERYONE". I interned in Banking and went to McK fulltime (Europe). A lot of it was driven by prestige. I realized last week again when I was consistently working until 2 AM on a CDD that the vast vast majority of people would never want to work neither at MBB nor in Banking.
Heck - even if you restrict your sample to target school (driven, career oriented people) I'd say only ~15% of cohort wants to go for IB and prob. ~25% for top tier mgmt consulting. Out of the total population that is a neglligible amount of people who desire wealth/status/power in a career that restricts your private life to an absolute minimum. Your "everybody" is people on this website or in finance clubs at target universities. It would be same as saying as "why is everyon (football college athlete) trying to get into the NFL so badly".
I come from quiet a humble background and most people there literally don't care what I do for work or where I work. They don't seek validation/fullfillment through work and they also don't see it as prestigious to work in finance or consulting.
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