IB Hours
What does a day in IB look like? It’s hard for me to imagine that people can be working for 15 hours a day and still have stuff to do.
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There are times im working 15 hours straight but for the most part I’ll have down time throughout the day. The real issue is that good MDs are often meeting with clients during the day. What that means is you don’t get comments until after dinner, which often need to be turned that evening. So while you aren’t always working 15 hours, you must be available those 15 hours, if that makes sense.
That does make sense. Out of curiosity do you still have to be in the office for the entire 15 hours or do you work online from home or something else. I’d imagine that it’s based on company policy but not sure.
I normally leave after dinner and finish at home.
It’s a dream bro! I jack off in the office frequently.
Where
with deal flow?
90hrs a week if at a good shop with deal flow. “Downtime” and chill hours means your bonus will be 20k, enjoy
Haha, not even true though, unfortunately.
It’s several of these MM International Banks w/ balance sheets that have terrible deal flow and still pay out hefty bonuses sizeable to BBs. Have many buddies at some of these lower tier shops (thinking of SMBC, BMO, Scotia, CIBC, MUFG, Nomura, Mizuho, Soc gen, Truist, certain groups at Wells, etc.) that consistently get bonuses comparable to BB counterparts, while swearing they’re leaving everyday by 9pm at latest.
These banks obviously want to compete in the U.S. and you can’t do that without retaining top talent, which you also can’t do without paying on par with the big shops. Given the nature of smaller deal teams, though, the caveat is that hours ramp up really badly when and if deal flow does pick up. Pretty unprofitable from a stakeholder’s pov, but makes sense given the necessity of competing in the largest, most opportunistic economy in the world.
Not reading all that but congrats on Jefferies dude
Entirely depends on who you work for, who your client is, and who your engaged buyers are on a mandate.
Ideal Scenario: You work in SF for a top MD on the East Coast that trusts the VP and Associates entirely to give and receive comments while also not having them join them for meetings for new business so that they can focus entirely on execution. They write concise and clear instructions that flow into your inbox as you wake up and recycle most of their pitches that are less than 30 pages, and essentially just ask for updated valuation sections for new business. The VP also has also mastered how to be a carbon copy of the MD and understand exactly what the MD is looking for and doesn't try to outshine or perform above his level. On active mandates, ideal client trusts your team fully, has a lot of stuff off the shelf already prepared internally and has sold a few businesses before. They already have 2-3 interested buyers eager to sign an LOI at the start that are based in Europe or India where their DD requests come in overnight so you can handle these during the working day and have calls first thing at 8 or 9AM in the morning. The mandate is done in 6 months.
Worst Case: You're in NY working for a disorganized MD on the West Coast that doesn't understand the vertical they're in and decide the solution is to build as much content as possible. They have meetings all day leaning on the VP to chime in as an expert and lead every one of his calls, and is very particular on final output while giving unclear instructions. They finally get to the first round of comments at 7-8pm your time and the VP and Associates are also brand new to their roles with a chip on their shoulder; deciding their own value-add is to request multiple scenarios, versions of slides, and create non-freely available market analyses that you have to try and build from scratch that get scrapped entirely in final versions. And then lastly, you have a client that is very demanding and thinks their business is worth 10x its actual value, has very disorganized internal workings and your MD has engaged very difficult buyers that hire multiple third-party accounting firms, lawyers, and subject matter experts to come in and ask for endless follow-ups for 12-18 months. The mandate never closes.
Is there a way to find out which MD is which?
Geographic is easy to research via linkedin and targeting West Coast roles, but depending on the firm, you'll regularly be staffed on work with various MDs at different times.
Flexible remote roles (rare, but exist) would be key, or choosing Tech IB in SF and have a better shot at playing the hours game where there's multiple MDs on the East Coast that cover niche subsectors on that (e.g. FinTech or Cybersecurity) and the firm does a lot of international deals with Europe and India. Good place to start is demonstrating a lot of interest in a subsector and getting to know the senior coverage bankers well without having to move offices entirely. Obviously, working with SF-based senior bankers would have its own set of politics and facetime, and the firm does have to already have a cross-office staffing structure in place.
You could sort of suss out management style in interviews by asking questions like "If you had an upcoming pitch, what would a good analyst be sure to include without you asking?" A) this gives you Kudos for looking like you take initiative, and B) helps you understand their management style.
They'll likely open up with how they structure their pitches. If they say anything that conveys "the more content, the better" or stupid phrases like "throw all the clay on the table, and carve out what's best" or "we like to go an inch-deep, but a mile wide", they never know what they want.
If they say anything that indicates "we often recycle a lot from other pitches as a starting point" or "there's never a point in reinventing the wheel", that's a green flag for you.
Been working 15-16 hour days usually. Past week to week and a half, we've been trying to close a few deals and I've been getting worked up to 20 hours a day for 2 weeks straight.
It’s true the days can be that long. The funny part is that everyone is working on made up work.
Analyses that don’t have any real value. PPT pages that nobody ends up reading. More random BS depending on how bad your MDs period is that day.
The whole job is just made up work and the the stability is job longer there because of AI.
You have to take a lot of the comments about hours on this forum with a grain of salt cause half of them come from first year analysts or interns that are shit at the job and didn’t know what sumifs or PowerPoint shortcuts were until 6 months into the job
None of the work you do as a junior is really that complicated and a good / efficient analyst can easily work 20-30% less hours than shitty ones that have nothing left to hold onto other than the hours validating their grindset mentality
Genuine question—how do you guys survive working 15–20 hour days?
Assuming your round-trip commute takes about an hour, when do you sleep, eat, do laundry, or just take care of everyday stuff? That's not even factoring in friends, family, dating, or having any hobbies.
I get that the pay and bonuses are great, but is that lifestyle actually sustainable? Do you just accept having no life for a few years, or is there something I'm missing?
i do it to bring value to the clients but mainly ego in closing
45 hours max bro (~120h / weekly)
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