Has everything actually gotten worse?
This might sound like a rant but I am genuinely curious if people here feel the same.
Over the last few years I have spoken to a lot of older people in senior roles, both through networking and personally, across finance, law, consulting, corporates, etc. Almost all of them say some version of the same thing: everything feels worse than it used to be.
Not just pay, but culture, recruitment, and day to day life at work.
A few things that stuck with me:
I know someone who has worked for decades at a very well known large firm. He was telling me about conferences years ago where bankers would literally rent a helicopter, fly him, his boss, and a few others out to a nearby golf course for the day, then fly them back. No compliance drama, no worrying about whether someone expensed the wrong thing.
Compare that to a conversation I had recently with an analyst at a big European MM bank. He said these days you have to disclose if you buy a client even a sandwich, and that it is ridiculously easy to get in trouble over expenses or perceived conflicts.
I also have a relative who worked as a London barrister for many years. He talks about how much people used to drink, how there were pubs basically dominated by people in the legal profession, and how informal networking and socialising were just part of the job. That world seems basically gone now.
Recruitment also seems completely different. I remember speaking to a partner at an investment bank about how he got into IB. He started as a grad at Arthur Andersen, it became obvious the firm was finished, and friends at a BB helped him move over as an analyst. Today that would be close to impossible. Everything now feels hyper structured and controlled by HR.
When you put it all together, people seem to agree that:
- Recruitment is harder and more bureaucratic
- HR and compliance are involved in everything
- There is less trust and freedom at work
- Office culture and social life are much weaker
So my real question is, what actually happened?
Is this regulation, litigation risk, social media, ESG, firms being terrified of bad headlines, or something else? Or is this just older people looking back with rose tinted glasses?
Would be genuinely interested to hear from people who have been around longer or who have seen both eras.
Curious to hear more senior folks opinions, but I think this is just the natural maturation of the industry. In the early days, there aren't a ton of rules, bureaucracy is low, it's the wild west. As industries evolve, rules and procedures get added for risk management, compliance, etc. And as firms get larger, you need more structure to manage everything because management can't be ad-hoc in a large firm the way it can in a smaller firm.
Tech several years ago seemed to have no rules and be similarly wild west (in its own unique way) and over time it will likely continue becoming more structured and lame too. I think it's just normal. I'd be willing to bet if you went back to older industries that are now mature (idk A&D, railroads, Visa, whatever) this all probably happened over the course of their histories too.
GE executives used to run around in limousines before Welch cut the fat. Its just a consequence of becoming mature and public.
Not at an EB, but I was speaking to an MD who said one reason he moved from a BB is that he is not hounded by HR for a not filling in forms because he accepted a pen from a client. I am sure private EBs like CVP still gunslinging
The Helicopter story was actually from someone who worked at GE 😂😂😂
Not a senior myself, but I spoke with an experienced MD I’ve got a lot of respect for on the topic.
His view is that things haven’t gotten categorically worse, but that IB has become more like a “standard corporate job.” It isn’t there yet, and probably never will be, in his opinion, but it’s moved in that direction.
Yes, the pay (both in terms of bonuses and entertainment / client expense accounts) has gone down, the culture has become more “standard corporate,” and the HR-ification / bureaucracy of what used to be mundane or taken for granted is real.
At the same time, the hazing has gotten much more tame (to nonexistent in healthier groups), the hours are *usually* better (for every outlier group people complain about here, there are two that work 60-70 hour weeks), the culture is more inclusive and less of an “old boys club,” and there is less yelling / screaming / outright abuse.
Truthfully, if you’re averaging 65-hour weeks in a “tame” culture at a big bank, the experience is not *that* far from a “normal” job with ~20 more weekly work hours in exchange for correspondingly more pay.
This can be good or bad depending on who you ask.
ive been saying this for years to juniors. ib is now a corporate job. opulence got shafted by regulation and dei killed prestige. what you're left with a a standard corporate job with too many hours
ib has been around forever. there is no maturation. its just a loss of opulence and prestige. like the great gatsby. boom and bust
i think firms like lazard roths and guggenheim still carry that attitude which is great.
i heard you get to interact with the roths family which is cool ngl
Tech is still the wild west since it's constant innovation. It's just laws catch up with tech that was hot 10 years ago, while the tech today has no laws or rules since, well, it's new. That's the whole point of tech, innovate or die. Look at AI, there is no regulation for it. Never will be either because it's impossible to regulate it from a congressional or legal POV. By the time they make some rules, the technology will be so advanced that the rules won't apply to it.
tech hasn't been the wild west for a while now dude. tons of politics in big tech now as well
So what industries are im-mature enough today that they might have this extroverted, gregarious culture?
Not sure I have a great example, but probably best answer is just generally "start-ups". Most gregarious culture I can think of is WeWork when it was young. Highly recommend WeCrashed on Apple TV
Trading in prop shops is kinda like this, but nerdier.
I would say around half of this is basically just covid. Like, the bars, the social environments, etc. All that ended when covid hit, and firms realized that doing remote shit over teams was just as effective as getting people in person, and cheaper. It sucks because I would love to spend more time out with people, but when I was in SnT that just wasn't as much of an option. Moving to prop shops, it's way more informal and less structured, and generally this happens more often, with informal stuff.
Part of this is how bad filtering is for non technical roles. I mean, building a DCF is not that hard. Anyone can do it. So you have to filter the thousands of candidates somehow. In the past, you'd just have resume drops at top schools and get a few people from non targets who managed to apply. That was before mass online applications. Nowadays, you can apply to a firm in about 5-10 minutes. So yeah, they have filtering issues because of this. Technical roles kinda get around this with automated technical exams, but that's not a perfect science either.
Again, just happens when you get to a certain scale of business. When your company gets to 10k+ employees, everything is structured and segmented so strongly that having HR barriers is basically a necessity. Smaller firms just won't have this as much.
Again, banks. Going from a bank to a prop shop/HF, I went from extreme risk limits and such, to basically having the freedom to do whatever I wanted as long as I don't blow up the firm
Aforementioned covid along with big firms having real difficulty maintaining a non corporate feeling.
It's worth noting, headcounts exploded during the 2018-2022 span, and haven't really come down that much. Firms are big and bloated. The only way to deal with this rapid expansion is strict control
As a junior I think it’s definitely gotten worse. Perks everywhere have just evaporated. Back in the 90s firms used to pay for everything, especially relocation costs. Now they don’t pay for shit unless you’re an MD. It’s not like banks are making way less now so where is the money going?
shareholders
They used to say plastics was the place to be, or IBM or Madison Avenue. All businesses eventually mature and all industries consolidate. So yes probably, it’s part of the nature of things.
yup thats my experience. senior bankers had awesome glory days and compliance breathes down my ass for a $200 "gift" to clients
and yes referals now are downplayed a lot due to "equality" and "fairness". thats why these virtues work against you if you have power and social capital
Well there is probobly some survivorship bias involved - especially when talking about recruiting
Work in consulting. The perks that my designated mentor (junior partner) talks about during his early days in consulting are wild. First class tickets, world class hotels, getting a client to let him expense a 2 week vacation because an engagement finished early. My next project's manager has traveled worldwide first class for cool projects and now our next engagement is middle of nowhere.
My company also pays ~15% lower for my current role vs. 3-4 years ago (and that's not including inflation).
The pre-MBA company I was at before 2022 was amazing. Once I left, I heard about how downhill it went on the news / ex-coworkers. Perks, great health insurance, and the annual raises are all gone.
On the other hand, I've seen a handful of my startup contacts end up in cool companies, granted pay is probably not great. I just don't know how they're breaking into them, feels very heavy on knowing the right people and getting lucky.
Interesting, a family member of mine is a partner at one of the big 3 and that can’t be further from what they experience. First class flights and nicer hotels for sure but they aren’t putting you up in Waldorf or ritz just because, and they most certainty aren’t seeing clients offering to pay for a vacation. The goal from the client end is “in, work, present, get out” they don’t want to pay a dollar more than they have to in discretionary expenses. Perhaps 20 years ago that was a normal thing but today companies have huge detractors in the C-suite and board who question consultant value beyond a rubber stamp.
Yeah, junior partner admitted that experience was wild, happened 20+ years ago at the EM level. Was at a different firm than the one I'm at now. One of those career consultants who was a star mid-level employee but has struggled to sell as he progressed to the Partner level.
Work life balance is better. The job is also a lot easier day-to-day because of zoom, AI, etc. Diversity is better and there are far fewer assholes. Parties, perks, and pay are all worse.
Young person here. I think one positive is that we live in a much safer world today than 30 or 40 years ago by almost all metrics. When my father first moved to New York in the late 80's, Times Square was a red light district and the South Bronx was decimated by fires. Cities Pre-EPA look like legit nightmares to live in.
Some of it really did get tighter. Rules, liability, optics. I’m not convinced the work itself is worse, just way more monitored.
It’s worse from a “fun” and pay / benefits perspective. For example, my summer analyst program in NYC was one of the most fun experiences because there wasn’t really such a thing as expense policy and compliance monitoring.
Also the pay just afforded a different level of purchasing power than today. Comp just hasn’t kept up with the increased cost of living in NYC. Feel free to look at the compensation detail in the Lehman bankruptcy docs as a reference point; thought it may just make you sad.
I think it may be better from a work / life perspective…and there’s certainly less hazing.
Former an - ass on sales desk here. Have buddies still on the desk and can confirm they still don’t report things they do with clients lol not saying more
This is a result of the feminization of the work place. Fairly simple. If this offends you, you are the problem.
"I also have a relative who worked as a London barrister for many years. He talks about how much people used to drink, how there were pubs basically dominated by people in the legal profession, and how informal networking and socialising were just part of the job. That world seems basically gone now."
Yeah ok God knows I will single handedly change that when I get in
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