How to maintain a normal life in IB
I knew going into it that the hours would suck but so far it's been pretty bad. How do you keep a normal life while in IB? By that I mean how do you see/keep up with family. Is that something that goes on the backburner or is it possible to do both?
Good luck! It gets better!
Does it really get better? I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel and I'm not good enough for PE or especially to ever be a partner like yourself. What advice do you have for young men looking to be wealthy in the next 10 years?
crypto
Aim for middle bucket and don't compare yourself to others.
I’m sorry to tell you this—but you can’t. As an analyst you aren’t going to have a life anywhere at any shop and it will be impossible to build any consistency of interaction with people unless you live with them. The key is you just need to let your close friends know it’s something you need to do for a year or so and be appreciative when they invite you to things and you bail.
This is just not true. Yeah it is for some shops but not all. I go out twice almost every weekend, see my friends and family regularly. You might have to give up weekend trips but having a life is definitely do-able depending on your team and company.
How much better does it get as an associate?
It’s tough. You need to set clear expectations with those around you. You can’t keep a normal life while work in IB. Just try to make time to call them on a slow week and spend the holidays together. Also, make sure to take time for yourself so you don’t burn the candle from both ends. After a long week, you might need Saturday to yourself. Hopefully those around you can understand that.
First 6-9 months are gonna have some really hard times but it really does get easier / better. Don’t try to hide the hours with your friends or family - being open about it makes talking to them easier and even working around your schedule a bit.
Working out and eating at least somewhat healthy is really important to makng ithe job completely run you down.
And learn how to unplug. Recognize that that if you need to work then you’ll work and if you have free time you need to enjoy it.
Be a mid-bucket analyst. Serious advice. I got a great bonus, but push back on a ton of work / timelines so have a much better lifestyle than most analysts.
This is really the sweet spot in life. Sure you might not get the early promote, but hell you won't get burnout, you can keep your sanity, if you are smart you can maybe get a date in during the week and typically still have time to work out.
How many hours do you do or what’s your weekly schedule like?
Agree. Being a top-bucket will get yourself staffed on a lot of deals while your bonus $ is not meaningfully better than that mid-bucket analyst's.
Who tf cares if you get $5K post-tax after pulling extra 500 hours throughout the whole year? It's not worth it.
Sad thing is I'm that top bucket analyst (I think thinly veiled show-off is a thing).
You need to surround yourself with understanding people who can relate to your situation. Also, try to develop some hobbies for your weekends and make an effort spending quality time with your friends/relatives/significant others. As a junior it will be very hard to have any time but things improve after some years
Work your ass off for the first 6 months to assert yourself as hardworking and build trust with your team. People will cut you way more slack once you establish yourself
After that, learn to push back on deadlines when you need to and ignore all non-mission critical emails on weekends. If you treat every request as an ASAP one you are going to have a very miserable time in banking. Understand that some of those 1am emails in your inbox can wait until the next day
I've implemented the above and it's made the job much more sustainable (still work a ton, but now have time to workout during the week and go out on most weekends). My year end reviews actually improved believe it or not lol.
You can’t
By setting boundaries. Be responsive to MDs and communicate to your staffer if you won’t be around a given weekend for whatever reason.
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