Is banking worth it?
I want to get some insight from senior bankers who have spent a considerable amount of time in banking. Is it worth it? I really want to go into finance because of the salaries and interesting work but don’t know whether the stress and long hours are truly worth it. I also have the chance to peruse tech which I’m not really interested in but it has much more flexibility and better WLB. I’ve seen a lot of posts on here talking about the massive struggles that you go through in your first few years. Do the high salaries justify the damage that banking can cause to your body (both mentally and physically)?
There is no universal answer, it depends on your goals and preferences and a billion other factors.
If comp and WLB are your only two factors, don't pursue banking. You can make more comp and have better WLB elsewhere.
Is it really possible to make more somewhere else? If so, why would people even pursue banking?
From a risk/reward perspective comp is great. You're an employee and you make bank coming out of school with a lot of optionality to pursue opportunities where you can make the real bank - tech, entrepreneurship, PE etc.
The work is grindy early on, but once you get into managing clients/origination/ideation, I think it gets super interesting.
This is the equivalent of asking: "Is Harvard Medical School worth it?"
No it’s not
I think it’s definitely worth it for two years if you especially don’t know what you want to do. There is objectively not another field where you receive the same pay AND optionality after leaving a pre defined period of time. If you treat banking as a two year boot camp to get a valuable skill set before moving to the next thing that’s more fulfilling, then it is absolutely worth it
I also grew up poor in a family that did manual blue collar labor, so even the “lowest comp” that gets laughed off this page makes my eyes water with delight. Being at a top group now I’ll definitely sit in the hot seat for a couple years for the pay I’m getting
It’s worth it for 1-2 years. Beyond that, absolutely not unless you get really lucky and find an incredible unicorn team.
This is a permanent topic on this forum and I'm convinced that people who say it's not worth it come from wealthy families who already have everything. If you went to an ivy or other expensive school with no debt, already have a nice car, have already traveled the world growing up, and your parents help you with rent or a down payment on a $1mm house then of course it's not worth it.
Analyst pay is not a lot in the big picture although a lot in relativity for one’s age group
You’re not in FO. Banking is soul crushing.
Ridiculous answer. Most kids who are good enough to do banking are good enough to do other middle office / corporate jobs with solid sub 100k pay and 40 hrs per week.
You are making it seem like it's banking v a shitty minimum wage McDonald's job when the argument really is 90 hr work weeks with 160k in banking out of school v the jobs that I mentioned above
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