How Risky is a Career in IB?
Just how risky is a career in IB? For example, during this last downturn, how many MDs/VPs/associates/analysts were laid off? And especially compared to careers like consulting/medicine/SWE?
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Be good and slave away and you can greatly reduce your risk in the field.
After you get the first job at a good bank, you can always find another
are you joking, banking is the most risk averse thing you could possibly do
It's risky to your personal life
I mean medicine is the safest job of all, but compared to almost every other job out there, banking is safe.
Ask a Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers banker.... oh wait!
Is this some kind of "gotcha"? Most good bankers at Bear and LEH just went to JPM and Barclays.
It is sarcasm, but I was working in boutique real estate I-banking before the 08 GFC, it was a brutal blood bath. Not sure how many is "most" that got to stay on with JPM or Barclays but there were many, many who were just flat let go. Some took years to get rehired.
The fact that this post exists shows how short term the memory of history is. Black Swans can wipe out firms overnight, and most do not get a job with the firm buying the assets out of BK, if they do, it's often with pay cut, loss of seniority/title, and zero'ing out of any equity/long-term comp.
Not to say finance is bad, far from it, but the big salaries + bonuses come with risk, missing that fact will leave people with huge blind spot.
Ouch
The above posters must be juniors.
I can only speak to coverage as that's what I was in
It's extremely risk averse from Analyst all the way through VP. purely a function of how hard you work and willing to sacrifice mixed in with a bit of office politics (as is the case with all corporate jobs).
From then on it's extremely risky. It's a eat what you kill field with the primary function of killing being your ability to sell. Sell yourself, your firm (if you aren't at a white shoe firm), and your ideas. If you can't do that, you're out.
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