Is banking dead??

hello just to get this out the front gate i am 16 and pretty much have as much information about banking as wso has to offer... but from what i’m seeing a lot of people are like hating on banking and making it seem like it’s a terrible career. i don’t come from a rich family or anything like that i’m going to be at USC marshall next year, hopefully. the question i want to really ask is what should i expect going into banking idk what type of banking i wanna do yet. thank you

23 Comments
 

I hate this age meme, like bro you're literally only 8 years older than him at most.

 
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Jesus christ this site can be so toxic. This is a 16 year old kid asking a question so instead of being condescending and insulting them, give them some actual help

 
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apolgy for bad english it is my first languagen’t

where were you when banking die

i was at house on WSO when kid post

“banking is kil”

“no”

 

The advantage of banking in your early years is the landscape view and the career acceleration. Forget the pay. If you cover a sector or topic you genuinely like, you get to see these organizations from the top down and there is a general assumption that bankers work their asses off so there's a pre-assumed level of competence and work ethic. You also just crush a lot of information about giant companies and how they work into a couple years. There's no implication that such a process would be enjoyable lol

Ever seen a person who inefficiently uses Excel or Powerpoint? It's painful to watch and if you expect to use those tools often down the line, the net time saved is probably worth it.

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Can you elaborate on the career acceleration? Would an A2A associate who laterals into corporate be at a higher level than someone who started off as an analyst at the firm out of college?

Array
 

Depends on the job and how relevant your additional responsibilities as an Associate were to the new role. Associate responsibilities can expand quite a bit depending on the team and firm. That said, if you found something you really want to exit to, I wouldn't wait around to be an Associate first and make the jump with the expectation of a bigger progression jump.

I would say it's career acceleration in the sense that you may enter corporate FP&A as a position above a person who started in FP&A. You also get a leg up on some roles like strategy & operations at Uber or VC Associate (3-4 years in operations at a series A start up -> VC vs 2 years in IB -> VC)

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Watch any interview with any successful business person and I guarantee what you won't hear them say is "when I was coming out of college, everyone was doing X . . so I went and did that and that's how I got rich."

 

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