Leaving Investment Banking - Why and What Next
As the title states, I quit IB and felt that due to the lack of "Leaving IB Posts" I felt that I should share my story with you since I've been lurking on this site for a while. I'm writing this for those who want to leave IB themselves but are holding themselves back and also to younger kids who are even remotely considering going into Banking.
First a bit about me
Graduated from Baruch College with an Economics degree in May 2018 with no offer and only a BS PE Search Fund Internship underneath my belt. I originally wanted to be an M&A attorney but after taking my LSAT in Dec 2017 I realized how miserable I would've been as a lawyer let alone just being in law school. Post graduation I got an internship at an Emerging Markets Brokerage shop as an intern that did a lot of grunt work and worked from there on to their sales desks and build a ton of decks and a ton of reading. In Dec 2018 I was given an offer from a lower middle market boutique IB and an offer from the S&T firm and took the job at the boutique, since I wanted to focus on the US market instead of Emerging. After having a taste of the work that is involved in finance I can say this: **It is an incredibly miserable and boring job and has changed me to a point that I didn't like who I was becoming and just dreaded going into work everyday. **
Why I'm Leaving
The work and the job just suck. period. After browsing through this site for I already know i'm gonna get hit with monkey shit and a bunch of guys saying you have no idea how good you have it working in an office when there's people out there busting their ass wishing they'd make the kind of money you would be making for doing jack shit. And while that's incredibly true, I've realized that no amount of money is worth me sacrificing my own happiness and well being. I found that the work I was doing was incredibly boring and administrative. A lot of junior bankers love to boast that "I'm an IB Analyst I make fuckin bread and close deals" when the reality is that I was just an over glorified secretary who's job was to just STFU and push the deal forward. I couldn't stand coming into work, working on deals that I didn't give two fucks about all for a bonus come year end. To top this all off I realized that if I were to continue a career in IB this would be my life for the next 6 years from analyst to associate until i'm put in a more sales-esque role as VP. Which even then I thought long and hard and I wouldn't even want to be in a sales role where all i'm doing is selling you my services for something I could care less about, ie helping your company raise money for whatever project you want to do, or for selling your company to a potential acquirer.
IB culture fucking sucks. When they say the people you work with really matter in the office, it's incredibly true, but this is my own self selection and bias coming to you guys. Every single person I've met in finance is incredibly money focused and don't seem to have any other interests or curiosity about life. All the way from analysts to MD's all that's on their mind is always about money and just closing a deal to see their next bonus, which they never happen to even spend since they never have any free time to even spend it or use it. Coming into work I just saw that people in the finance industry are just too money focused for me and they're not living life because that's all they can think about. The culture is also very much old fashioned and not up to date with current times. My former shop only gave me 10 days vacation time and expected me to be chained to my desk and on call at all times.
They're too scared
Going in I knew this. I've read all the posts. I've experienced the always need to be on call at my EM brokerage shop. At first I was able to tolerate because I felt the excitement of getting to say i'm an Investment Banker! I'm finally getting to where I want to be. But the excitement fades aways fast when you're dealing with BS work all day long and you're expected to live at your desk. Even taking a vacation to go travel for 2 weeks is seen in a bad light. Now this one point doesn't just go to IBers, it also goes to Accountants, Lawyers, and Consultants. All of these high office positions are filled with people who are pussies and are incredibly risk averse. Every single person who I've met that work in these fields are always again focused on saving as much money as they can and always talk about doing what it is they think they want to do, but never pull the trigger. They're too scared. They think and think and think but never act. I've used to live life this way but got sick of it because I found it was getting me nowhere. I couldn't be surrounded by people who lived like this so that's another reason as to why I've chosen to leave.
Some of the older guys may disagree with me since they probably have been through their fair of shit when they were younger and are probably thinking that I'm just bitching but to me this culture of living to work 24/7 for someone and to be grateful for the job you have is an incredibly toxic way of living and no amount of money is worth it. It's total bullshit and I'm done dealing with it. I wasn't put on this earth to work at a desk and then die, and i'm choosing to leave it while I still can.
What's next
I'm going back to school to become an Engineer. Something that after a long time of soul searching, asking myself what it is I want to really do with my life, and putting myself in the perspective of the scene from fight club where Tyler holds a gun to the clerks head and asks him what is he always wanted to be but just never did for whatever bs reason he told himself, I realized I wanted to be an engineer and am going back to school this fall to get my second Bachelors, studying Electrical Engineering. I realized I'm an incredibly curious person and ever since I was a kid I always loved tinkering and building things (thanks legos). This stemmed to me from one day of just sitting at work and asking myself how tf does the computer in front of me work. And for the life of me I just could not answer my own simple question as to how this machine that I grew up with my whole life, works. I want to live of a life of pushing the boundaries of technology and creating inventions for the betterment of humanity. I don't want to be the banker reading about it on the WSJ, I want to be the engineer who created it and is now moving on to creating something totally awesome again as well.
Some of you may see this as a rant that is just me bitching about IB and that's fair, I am fed up with the industry as is. But to those of you who feel like you're stuck in IB and are miserable. Do what I did and act on your passions. Find what it is you really want to do. Ask yourselves the big fucking questions like is this who I want to be? Is this the kind of life I want? Liquid af but miserable at work and never get any time off? Take the leap cuz life is an adventure. You're going to end up in the cold dirt anyways and no amount of money can ever be taken.
Ok
barely a year in the workforce and already a leading expert on investment banking?
Never said I was an expert, but it doesn't take much of a genius to see what the job is really like.
Incorrect, you're defining an industry based on your experience. You can't stereotype the police as being bad just because you've dealt with one cop. Your experience is different than mine.
Your experience is shit because you didn't have an option, you took what you could scrape by. You weren't able to do due-diligence on the culture of your group, you chose a sector you don't enjoy (i work in tech banking and fucking love it), you're obviously working at a shitty boutique and not making market pay, and you treat banking like a stepping stone (if you see yourself working in banking long-term or one day starting your own bank, suddenly every aspect of the M&A transaction becomes interesting because you want to get it down).
My first year of banking, I shared your exact sentiments and it took another group to realize that banking isn't that awful after all. In fact, the pastures look greener than most exit options.
Jamie_Diamond
I'd be interested to know how you did your own DD on the new group.
That is, bankers always are good at marketing. The new group will always sound awesome when compared to what you have. Plus it's difficult to discern what people will be really like until you have worked with them, until you're together in the trenches under tight deadlines, and then see how they really act. Especially within banking, where harsh behavior is tolerated, it really comes down to the nature of your team head, and a lot of times you just have to take-it-or-leave-it in terms of offers, etc.
@Jamie_Diamond I agree 100% with your statement above. Banking can be awesome if for the right group, and it all comes down to figuring out the personalities. But it's just so darn hard to do so, and I'm curious how you've managed to navigate and find a good group. I've on occasion found myself working for saints or devils - and it was really dumb luck what they really turned out to be like.
If someone can figure out the bullshit in 1 year versus wasting 5 years of their life, I congratulate them! Cut your losses early.
It's understandable from the perspective you are coming from. Do I love banking and the markets, yes, is it my passion? Yes, it something I want to do with my life. Now the contradiction, realistically I love medicine and I love engineering. If I wasn't in the position I am in right now, I would be an anesthesiologist or a chemical engineer.
Also, not sure why anyone would be angry with you or give you bad responses, banking isn't everyone, if you feel like this isn't your place, find comfort in yourself and leave. Do you what love in life, no matter what.
At first I was a bit hesitant about the idea of going back to school post graduation. I thought about how embarrassing it would be. But everyday I was going to work and I was incredibly miserable and knew I had to make a change in my life and pursue what I actually cared about and what made me happy. I do think it makes sense despite being older than my peers in my classes, but after doing some research and reading & hearing other people's stories, there's actually a ton of older candidates who leave their jobs and pursue engineering (mostly mechanical) but still it's more than normal. So I'm not worried about the students being younger than me. If anything that's something that I've kind of prepared for. What is going to suck is paying for classes again and not having an income lol.
Wishing you all the best! But do expect to suffer a lot for your Engineering degree. Do expect to be chained to your desk, very probably sacrificing to some extent either your social life or sleep as well :) Hopefully you'll succeed later on and build things that matter!
Confessions of a Tobin & Co analyst
I trained as an architect undergrad. There's a big part of me that misses the whole problem-solving, creative-thinking aspect. I loved getting a difficult site, a complex client requirement, and being told "solve this." Architecture is a dead industry tho. I-Banking hours (80 hrs/wk) with minimum wage salaries for a decade, while you try to climb your way up the corporate ladder so that one day you might be making a living wage. I just couldn't bring myself to do that, but maybe it would have been more fun. Certainly miss problem solving, drawing, client-pitching, etc.
You've got Asset Management - Investment Advisor written all over you.. and I mean that in a good way. That's what I do and the freedom the job offers is something I wouldn't trade for anything. There's days I work from home, days I travel to see a client (just for the hell of it) haha, days I strictly do nothing besides analyze risk and performance in clients portfolios. People like to shit on IA, but the truth is it's actually a really great gig when you can build your book up enough.
Not to mention it's nowhere NEAR as monotonous as IB. I can only go on what others say about IB who have worked in it, but it seems like it is incredibly boring at times.
You sound like a reasonably well-adjusted, self-aware human, who oddly enough fought a battle over prestige. Weird but cool.
I want to address the whole "Do what I did and act on your passions" bit. If there is something that peeves me about our generation, its this whole mantra about "follow your dreams". Truth of the matter is, only a select number of people will have the privlege and good fortune of doing what they truly love for a living. I LOVED baseball, I imaginged myself playing centerfield for the Yankees some day, but guess what? I wasn't good enough, and not for lack of trying. So I had to find a career that I was good at.
If you can afford to invest 6 years into a career only to realize you don't like it and then starting over again, by all means, do it! But the reality is that not all of us are able to do it. I admire people like my dad, who vacuumed (to the point where he's lost part of his hearing) and cleaned toilets for a living. Do you think he had a "passion" for cleaning? OF COURSE NOT. But he couldnt' afford to "find himself" and find his passion because his family depended on him. I always used my dad for inspiration, wanting to get into finance so that one day I could support him, and my mom, so that they can retire.
I studided at an ONLINE COLLEGE, Thomas Edison State University, anyone heard of it!?!?! of course not. I networked my ass off and found a job in Prime Brokerage, where I currently work. I don't know what the future has for me, but I'm glad I didn't "follow my passion".
If I can give any advice to any of you chimps out there, following your "dreams" is rarely the best choice
The main point is the IB world is shrinking, so you’d better gain other skillset and get into another sector like AI. IB is not even as interesting as it used to be as the amount of restrictions that the regulators impose don’t allow to have the sexiness, which would make your job appealing. Culture of organisations is another story, but certainly banking has more aggressive people, and the more the industry is shrinking the more aggressive they’re becoming as they think they need to defend their role. Been for 12+ years on both sell side and buy side, but mainly sell side. Got from the back to the front of the bank ...still the job would be more interesting if there was s real clean up of incompetent idiots that keep repeating things the same way for years, 1st cause they are scare to leave their comfort zone, second because of they don’t understand! In the interview process they seem genius, reality a bunch of ignorant. Well done to get into studying again, you always have to do what makes you happy! Get coding skills if you don’t, there’s lots of work out there that pays good money :)