How do holidays work at most investment banks?
I'd assume analysts are working almost every holiday not named Christmas, Thanksgiving, or the 4th of July.
At what level if any would you be able to take off for President's Day?
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Not sure Presidents Day is a thing in IB. I worked for about 5 hours on the 4th of July this past summer, so I'm sure half-days are the norm on holidays for most banks.
Speaking form EB M&A experience, it's very group and deal dependent. At some point or another as an analyst I worked all of the holidays you just mentioned, but I also had other holidays off when things weren't too busy (e.g. Memorial Day).
Does your bank usually let you know that most years, people are off on specific holidays, or do you have to request it?
What’s a holiday ?
haha, Everyday is basically a Monday
What Happened to Monday?
What are weekends?
(+SB) I had a Holiday once, I was told that instead of spreading month to month financials for our client, I only had to do YTD. This saved me 30min, which I then used to work on a pitch book.
Banks won’t tell you this, but if you don’t respond while on vacation there isn’t any actual consequence. That’s why they instill fear in you well before you even start thinking about taking time off. When you do take time off, you’ll be too scared to not respond
This is too general of a question. As mentioned above, it would be extremely group-specific and situation-specific. If seniors at your group comes to work on holidays or expect you to come in even if they don't (more likely), then you'll have to come in. Or even if its a norm not to come to work, you'll have to come in if you are staffed on a deal that demands you to come in.
Depends on group, MDs and circumstances. In my old team it was: if there’s nothing pressing, you get the holiday, so long as you can finish what’s on your plate by the agreed upon deadlines. But there was nothing preventing an MD emailing you on a holiday to get something done (if it’s something last min urgent... or to their whims...).
And if you’re on a live deal, all bets are off.
Jesus Christ... working on Christmas? What the fuck could be that important that you NEED to work that day? Client can’t wait 1 extra day? That’s just outright sad. No other way to put it. There are some sad people in IB (seniors that force a junior to work when it can wait)
It only happened once to me - on a sellside we had three bidders completing full DD to get to a final binding bid in early Jan. 3-4 DD advisors sent in updated question lists on Christmas Eve (intentionally I'm sure to avoid Christmas work) and Christmas for me was processing / drafting responses... but nothing like a little eggnog to keep the mind focused.
God damn lol but still I mean it really couldn’t wait one more day? That’s what I question if I really want to get back into IB (I have an “easy” ish route to do so) at a MM for one of the regional banks.
I’m curious if it’s more lax T the MM banks (particularly more debt focused regional bank shops I.e STRH, Citizens, BB&T) with regards to holidays. Cuz if I can’t get Christmas off to see the fam I think I’ll write that potential opportunity off for good
You clearly don't work in banking...
Jewish MD.
I do loads of valuation work over christmas. Family keeps removing the f**king price tags on my presents so I don't know what to sell them for.
Thanks for all of the responses, from talking to bankers in the field it seems like there a whole gambit out there depending on 1) Where the deal process is at 2) The group 3) The culture
I'm sorry, but you guys give the impression like it's completely normal to work during Christmas or it's completely normal to not to be able take some time off.
This exact thinking makes IB industry so broken and horrible. MDs are just bad managers, do not value juniors, do not value people's personal time and create tons of unnecessary pressure. What could possibly happen if the model is sent out 2 days later? Would the deal fall apart? Would the client finish relationship? He probably wouldn't even fucking care, because it's Christmas and no one who is reasonable person works at this special time.
Get a grip. Life is not only about (and in case of IB usually meaningless) work. If I was told I cannot spend Christmas with my parents, because a piece of shit MD wants me to run another useless model update - I'd quit on the spot. This kind of bullshit is absolutely not worth it.
Most people in the industry are extremely insecure and just take it in the ass, props to you if you would be able to tell your MD to politely fuck off.
Yeah agreed. There’s no way in hell I wouldn’t tell my senior to get fucked if they tried making me work on Christmas. Frankly even anything more than a half day on Christmas Eve id probably go off.
It's called sucking it up for 2 years, paying your dues and then moving to the buy-side. Time is more flexible once you make the leap at least typically.
No, this is an absolute bullshit, stop pushing this. This is what makes this industry so shitty work/life balance wise.
I understand this is not 9-5, you need to work a lot, you have client-focused role, etc, but I'm pretty sure LOTS of work is absolutely unecessary, avoidable, or can be done on a different day than a Christmas Eve. The whole industry is just the pure bad people management, that's it.
There are much more demanding sectors, with more demanding work than putting together excel spereadsheets - and they don't have those utterly stupid schedules.
beta af
What a horrible mentality to life.
They value juniors and their free time enough to pay them quite well on top of the value of the experience. Just my two cents, it's worth it for me.
Everyone has a different slope on that trade-off. I think I am being fairly compensated for my time.
They value juniors and their free time by making them work on Christmas? LOL you sad brain washed fuck. Dear lord.
Value of the experience?
This is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard.
Being a CEO/Managing Partner/etc. is the best "experience" you could possibly get in the business world. But they don't pay these people LESS because they are getting great "experience"
Your time and effort is your time and effort
You get paid for it
Analyst in my group worked on Christmas and Thanksgiving. However, sometimes you can work from home if you are going home for the holidays etc. But again - really depends.
Make sure the shop has a good way to work remotely. As an analyst/associate, I would regularly work from the Caribbean over Xmas/Thanksgiving. Running data room uploads or updating a model over frozen drinks for an hour a day on vacation really ain't bad. You will realize everyone at a higher level works on vacation, it's the way the world works.
Holidays? What sort of blasphemy is this?
IBanking Holidays (Originally Posted: 10/11/2009)
What are holidays that the bulge brackets actually recognize with days off?
There ain't none.
Its 11 o'clock on a Sunday night and I'm at work. I've worked past midnight on my last 2 birthdays, I worked all day last Christmas eve and worked from home on Christmas with VPs/MDs e-mailing/calling/faxing all throughout. News Years was saved, primarily because the client decided they no longer needed to close before year end (after ruining everyone's xmas, mind you).
Its not that you won't have any holidays, its just that if something comes up, nothing is off limits.
Marcus, have you ever considered the possibility that no vacations are awarded to you because you can hardly speak English and it's your first language?
Agreed with Marcus, nothing is scared. They'll blow you up at 10am Christmas morning, at your mom's funeral or any other time, and not even show a hint of remorse. I know a guy who ended up working nearly his entire honeymoon from his hotel in Aruba.
Also, zalley, you're an asshole.
Zalley, good point.
In this industry, the more highly valued you are, the more your MDs and VPs will give you days off... make sure you bring this up when negotiating your offer.
Zalley, what a back officey thing to say. Go back to back office where the hours are 9-5pm. You might even get Columbus day off.
Usually the major holidays are recognized. But a good analyst is a busy analyst. I knew guys who experienced exactly what Marcus did and knew guys who were able to take every holiday off and then some.
I'm making it up as I go along.
And zalley, good luck keeping your DB IBD job with that attitude.
Really weird this topic was brought up, I was planning on posting the same thing today
So, even though you don't get to take them. The days you technically have off are the NYSE trading holidays. Look them up on wiki or google.
You don't get them off usually, but there they are.
Any takes on this?
Any info on Thomas Weisel Partners & Robert Baird?
Do you get any holidays, or its pretty much the same as BB's, you might get lucky or might not. I know Robert Baird is known for its 'work life balance' & Weisel on its website mentions "generous vacation policy"...not sure how much of this applies to analysts in investment banking
Does this mean you can't get out of town on weekends off or for vacations because you will have to be available all the time even though you're off?
Back when I worked in banking, I used to tell people:
"It's not that I don't get some nights / weekends / holidays off, it's that I won't know I have them off until after they are over."
Basically, you're on call all the time. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including holidays. Most times you get the call, sometimes you don't. Either way, every time you plan something, it could get blown up. Plan at your own risk.
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