Never mind the hours, how do people stand the type of work in banking?
A lot of people complain about the hours in banking. Sure, the hours really suck but you kind of get used to it after a few months. What I don't understand is how people stand the type of work. I'm currently a first-year analyst at GS/MS and 80% of the work I do is so insanely boring and braindead.
The work I do mainly consists of
- Admin (scheduling meetings, saving down documents, coordinating the process with other advisors and setting up simple Excel files to track things)
- Formatting in PPT / setting up simple slides
- Creating profiles (I have probably created 200+ one-pagers so far)
- Manually pulling historical financials
- Setting up simple valuations (most often just using standard templates for multiples)
Most of these tasks are extremely boring and completely braindead. I very rarely feel that the tasks are very fulfilling or exciting. Your workload is so high that you never have the time to actually learn about things, it's all just about populating slides with information whether you understand it or not. The work is also always split between the team, so you rarely get the full picture since you're just working on a fraction of the slides. Any type of deeper analysis / strategic rationale is handled by senior associate / VP / MD.
How do people actually find these things interesting and fulfilling? I can stand the hours, but the type of work I have been doing for the past 9-10 months is the most boring thing I have done in my life.
Was just thinking the same thing last few weeks. An1 at a BB in nyc and feel like every day is just focused on cracking out as much execution work as possible, no real learning about the company.
To be fair this is what I should’ve expected in banking I guess. No wonder turnover is so high. I’m moving to the buyside after my first year ends so hopefully my next gig isn’t as brain dead as IB
How did you find the time to prep for recruiting…
Agreed. It's all about outputting as much information as possible. I think the method makes sense because you will not be speaking in any client meetings until you're a VP. As such, you don't need to understand anything. You just need to output stuff to a slide so that your VP / MD who actually understands this stuff has some nice content to present while speaking. However, it also makes the job so insanely boring...
Do you really not talk to clients until VP at BB? Currently six months in at a decent MM and already talking to clients on about model/IC/various slides on a $1.5bn deal. Sure not the most complex stuff but still
This is what I didn’t like about banking. I was at a very sweaty shop just doing a massive output of manual work that realistically wasn’t very valuable to my deals. Spent a ton of time making BS PowerPoints that were never seen.
Other jobs are equally if not significantly more boring (source: myself). Most people don’t realize this until they leave IB.
You of course are not going to be doing the interesting important work with 0 years of work experience. It comes with time no matter where you are.
I don't agree. I interned in VC and at an UMM PE fund prior to starting full-time in IB. During my PE internship, I would get full ownership of setting up the models for some new deals that came in. I would also get full ownership of doing the initial analysis on potential P2P targets and putting together 30-40 page decks and presenting to VPs and even partners in some cases. Also substantially less admin work and many of the more braindead tasks can be outsourced to advisors. Have been in several other industries as well and nothing comes close to being as boring as banking.
Seconding the other response to your comment. I think the issue OP is dealing with is more prevalent in the large cap IB world vs. MM IB and under. I lateraled from a MM IB (HW/HL/Blair/Baird/RJ) where we worked primarily with private companies and executed out of the sector group (no real siloed M&A team) to a BB, and I got to do way more at the MM than the BB with way less dead work (e.g., target profiles hoping a corporate client has interest in the business and hiring us to run the buyside for them and having none ever come to real fruition, helping levfin and DCM complete the coverage sections of a credit memo, creating broad sector slides for "back of pocket" and "senior reference" — all braindead shit that had zero luster after halfway through the first time doing it).
At the MM, we were sell-side machines and got to touch everything as analysts. There was much more disconnection at the BB as well vs. at the MM where MDs and directors would wave us into their offices when clients or prospective buyers / sellers called. It felt very inclusive, unlike the BB I was at.
I'm now on the PE side and it's even better than the MM (granted I'm at a LMM shop, I imagine the disjointedness mentioned above is more prevalent at larger multi-strategy shops).
I do agree though that if someone is bored with all flavors of IB, they're unlikely to find more excitement on the inhouse corp fin side, but I would encourage those that have tried only large cap/BB IB to go out and see if they like MM / LMM IB more assuming they want to stay in IB and not go someplace where branding is of utmost importance.
EDIT: Also seconding the comment below about getting better experience at MM / LMM IB but it still being bullshit. You do learn more at the end of the day but it does wear off rather quick too.
I agree there are different flavors and top BB probably has more BS admin work. But it sounds like OP is really just lacking live deal experience. Working on major deals at a top BB is great learning experience and if you’re good you get ridiculous levels of ownership for how junior you are. I was leading IPO drafting for a household name with execs as an Associate. We had a client poach a second year analyst because they were so impressed with them leading our modeling during a M&A deal. You get board room exposure you won’t get for another 15 years if you left for corporate. So yes there is admin work but the people who waste their IB years are the ones who think they are too good or above doing BS work, because they never then get asked to do the exciting stuff either. We have a tendency to look elsewhere and fantasize about the grass being greener and I’m just here to say it’s (usually) not. If you can’t stomach a few years of doing grunt work, unless you are indeed gods gift to finance, you will not be leading deals with no work experience wherever you go (despite what they may tell you during your internship).
People I know who had experience at both BB/EBs and MM shops said the opposite. You go from working on interesting transactions to "process" oriented shops where you crank out sell-sides for $10mm EBITDA companies
I wonder how common this is throughout banking. I’d imagine some roles are less so like this (RX for example?). Curious to hear what experiences analysts have had at EBs (and other BBs)
In general, I think that the smaller the deal teams and the smaller the bank, the more responsibility you will get. I've seen smaller boutiques where you have an associate pretty much running the process, handling initial outreaches to potential buyers etc. Have also been on huge deals where you have 5-10 MDs who are micromanaging every single detail with never-ending comments on every page.
Money
You get better learning/experience at MM/boutique but it’s still bullshit
This is the answer you are looking for.
Have you considered the possibility that because you are either insufficiency intelligent or capable, you have only bern assigned menial work? Ask yourself, for whom does the bell toll.
Speaking of insufficient intelligence, your spelling and grammar are incorrect. Pls fix.
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as a 22 year old - does that sound worse than college? I went to a pretty good ugrad and my first year of ibanking taught me way more than 4 years ever did.
also ask yourself, how is this different from biglaw which is 25-27 year olds' first jobs. what about consulting? ppt slides are boring af and you can't even point to a completed transaction at the end of a project. don't get me started on accounting or pwc, deloitte, accenture gigs. oh and all my tech friends programming just to change colors and fonts of logos or debugging shit instead of forming large scale strategic direction as the seniors do. how about being a nurse and getting manhandled and told you're not prescribing them enough opiods because you're a dumbass who couldn't become a doctor? oh and none of my dentist or doctor friends are happy either.
how about non white collar. do u wanna try ur hand stocking shelves at costco? writing up parking tickets as a cop and getting called slurs at work? working in 90 degree weather jack hammering away at a construction site? roofing in july?
every entry job has its negatives, just make sure you're actually learning a useful and legit skill such as financial modeling or business fundamentals. i know this site likes to bitch about everything and that's fine. go create ur own job and start ur own biz. when you hire employees make sure to make it a fantasy wonderland for 22 year olds and pay them seven figures out of your own pocket. good luck!
While I see your point and totally agree that there are many other professions that are equally (or even more) boring, I don't think it's the right way to think about it. It's like those people saying "think about the children in Africa" every time you complain about something.
Sure, there are plenty of professions that are just as boring as banking. However, there are also professions that are way more intellectually stimulating than IB, such as PE, GE, VC, HF etc.
I guess I am just surprised that there are so many people complaining about the hours but no one seems to care about the fact that you are doing braindead and boring work for 90+ hours a week.
If it were intellectually stimulating you would never be capable of doing it for 90 hours a week
welcome to adulthood. in real life, 95%+ of jobs are not as intellectually stimulating as classes in college.
I mean I would argue that the only reason college classes are stimulating is because people are learning for the first time. If you are prepping for IB, them most of the class you will have you will probably have learned most of the items and thus the last two years of college can become mundane.
99% of jobs are more bullshit than banking and you're surrounded by far dumber people. "No dude, VC is totally cool!" Oh, so a sliver of a sliver of the jobs in the industry are more engaging? Wow, awesome. Why doesn't everyone in the country just take those jobs instead of being accountants or whatever?
the problem with IB is the hours and requirement to always be available and responsive. You're surrounded by people for more intelligent than the median white collar job, make more money, have much greater exposure to high-profile people, and learn significantly more in a shorter amount of time
Have you seen what biglaw attorneys do? Would blow my brains out
You work at a BB bank that churns through analysts like butter every year. Yes, you will get all the grunt work and will have only some opportunity to take full ownership of work-streams. If you want to stay in banking, stick it out till Associate or go to a smaller bank with leaner deal teams.
Also, I promise you, there are infinitely more monotonous, brain-dead and unfulfilling roles you could have in finance/accounting. Take it from someone who has worked in audit and consulting before doing IB.
As Someone who has interned outside of banking - I can confirm that the even though at the analyst level feels mundane - it is at least far more dynamic then most of the other roles I have done.
I think this is just more of a BB thing. The deal teams are so large and things are automated much more. You’re probably in a coverage group as well, if you’re looking for something more spicy I’d suggest moving to Rx or M&A. Albeit not the greatest will provide better work.
Interesting take. I am in one of the typical coverage teams. How does the work differ for juniors in an M&A team (GS doesn't have one so I'm not sure)?
Never worked in an M&A group, but worked very closely and there was significantly more modeling and "strategy" aka monitoring M&A opportunities across all industries vs Coverage, where it was a lot more pitch work and comps spreading
1. The lowest value tasks are always assigned to the least value add person in the team. That's almost always an A1. If your workload is still 90% this low value shit 6 months or more into your stint, you're the problem
2. This isn't school, there is no more handholding. After the basic fundamentals, 95% of your learning is going to be either self taught or by osmosis, i.e., listening to and/or watching senior guys do their thing. There aren't YouTube guides telling you what to do or interview guides teaching you what to say
3. The "fulfilling" work always changes. When I was an A1, building models was the end all be all of fulfilling. I can't stand that shit now, you couldn't pay me to open a model. The most fulfilling aspect for me now is forging the path from origination to closing
I know this is not easy to hear, most of you A1s come from good schools, have busted your ass to get here and now are being treated like kids. It's a tough pill to swallow, but your grades, clubs, schools all of that stopped mattering. Output and team capital are the most important now.
I like your last point. I think it's very humbling when you start as an analyst. Heading into your internship you feel like an absolute beast. Objectively, you're on top of the world. You're about to graduate from a top-5 school worldwide, you're on track to land a job at one of the most prestigious companies on earth, your starting salary is like 6x the median income etc.
Then you hit the desk and you realize that you're not treated as a king but rather as an assistant who is expected to respond "happy to help" to any request within 5 mins while working 100 hours a week.
I think at BBs it takes really until you're an Associate to start doing real work beyond just micromanaged task completion / admin stuff. Enjoy the lack of your ass being on the line when shit goes wrong, pad your resume and you'll be in PE cranking out actual deal models and presenting to investment committees before you know it.
I’m a software engineer and this job has its same sense of drudgery. I’m bored on a status update call right now, I have a PPT deck to make to present some security things I did to fix our system. Plenty of politics involved. Writing code used to be fun but now is just execution driven to maximize my status updates, not really focus on what’s best for the customer. This experience is not uncommon.
Work can just suck sometimes. I wouldn’t do this if they didn’t pay me well for it, so it’s likely a similar thing elsewhere. It’s why it’s called “compensation”- to compensate you for doing what you do.
Blinder spotted lol. Why are you on wso 🤣
No, actually. I hate Blind. I’ve been on WSO for several years because I started my career in CRE.
You have answered your own question. “Any type of deeper analysis / strategic rationale is handled by senior associate / VP / MD”. This is exactly the answer.
In order to become the VP / MD, people must go through analyst phase. Every MD who does fun strategic work used to be an analyst doing grunt work.
I spent time working in data science for a while. At least you hear from CEOs about their strategic plans, can make yourself visible to CFOs and help them build financials, these things have value. Even if it doesn’t seem like it now
If you are working FPA at a company, your ability to move up is limited and lateral up is less.
Dude this resonates with me so much and I am also a first-year analyst at GS/MS. I consider myself ambitious but trying to accomplish something meaningful and big is not easy as a first-year analyst because of the workload, so this is what I did.
Try to develop a different mindset for different tasks / work. When it comes to fucking mind-numbing work like scheduling, populating and etc, tell yourself this has to get done in order for us to get this deal done regardless of how it turns out, literally say it out loud if you have to, and imagine as if you were owning this. If you were running this deal by yourself, you would have to spend energy and time on admin even if you did have an assistant (k maybe not so much).
Then ask yourself what in this job fulfills you and think about how you can fulfill it and how you can add value. For me, i love learning and learning anything new fulfills me, so I try to add value by having a good understanding of the business and creating slides that VPs may have missed but could be useful. This way, I learn, add value and learn to develop trust with seniors.
Back to mindset, when taking notes, I will always tell myself there is one more thing to learn from this call with clients so let’s just listen, and usually, you do whether that is about the business, how client is thinking about the business or how we should interact with clients and etc.
Hope this helps man, and if you have a long-term goal, you can get through it!
What a great attitude. Accepts that there are shitty tasks and just gets on with it, interested in continued learning, takes initiative, zeroes in on big picture.
Almost every entry level job or job in general is mundane. I interned at MBB and at a top bb and it was super boring, now i work at MBB.
The difference is most jobs you work 40 hours of brain dead things and then do whatever the rest of the week. In IB you do mundane 80-100 hours a week and consulting 60-70
Yes. This is why I think positions such as An1 are so likely to be replaced by AI. Why pay a 22 year old $130k to plug and chug when AI An1 will do it for an upfront cost that is a fraction of that?
Don’t mean to go full foil hat, but my point is I agree with you. The work we do requires very little human creativity and it’s getting to me as well. Just gotta keep reminding ourselves that it’ll somehow pay off.
did my time in a small group at a MM, my experience was full of all the admin shit as every analyst does, but I had incredible exposure in all my deal processes, holding pen on models as an AN1, working hand in hand with CFO's in their offices building bottoms up operating models. Coordinating DD with potential buyers/capital providers etc. MD's looped me in to their rooms for calls and would even have me talk through specific deliverables i put together on zoom calls w/the client, I learned an insane amount in my 2.5 years and would do it over 10 times out of 10. Was not at a "strong group" and was at a "weak bank" so getting my foot in the door for PE was a bit of a grind, but FWIW I'm at a shop with ex-BB guys who never once touched models in their time in banking and my ramp up was significantly quicker than theirs because of the insane exposure I got in banking.
Wax On, Wax Off
S&T monkey here chiming in with my 2 cents. Last week I had to build out a PPT deck for a potential client and after about the 5th revision request from my MD/VP I almost quit haha IDK how you guys do it.
Other have said it but just move to MM/LMM if you want to actually have a role in the transaction and meaningful tasks
It is always a balance choice between short term and long term career path
What is it like in industry-focused boutiques that run with more lean teams (think Qatalyst, Arma Partners, FT Partners, GP Bullhound)? Is it still a lot of admin and non-existent responsibility as a junior?
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