Please stop wasting your life
Probably a bit of an outlier here but I just wanted to make a post to all the students out there who feel like their life depends on getting that IB/PE job. Please don't waste your life on this bullshit. Fine if you want to this job, but as someone who got overrun with this obsession of IB -> PE, it will never give you any meaning and you will just look back your youth feeling that you wasted all of it trying to attain a goal which is in itself meaningless.
Are you in PE yet?
Easy for you to say as someone in IB
I regret everyday to choose this job over others when I was at school and the only reason I didn't quit and will probably go down the IB > PE path is because I spent hundreds of hours learning/networking/recruiting for "Finance". I never let that "college kid" truly enjoy his life during college. Might gonna quit my UMM PE (secured offer, but also know it's 2 years and out) after 3 months in but I just have to try the "investor mentality" at this point.
Out of curiousity: what other jobs would you have pursued when you were in school instead of IB, if you had the chance to do it over again?
I will trudge on
Yeahhhh buddy.
An insane comparison: Kid debating Special Ops military career has lunch with a SEAL, looks dope. Kid does research on SEALs, sees how hard it is, but pursues anyway. Kid goes to BUD/S, experiences hell on earth (at least as close as one can come to it). Kid keeps eye on the prize and deals with BUD/S for as long as he has to. Kid makes it through BUD/S, kid becomes a SEAL and balls out for his country.
Comparing a 1st year analyst to a Navy SEAL? Pretty fuckin' outrageous. But who doesn't like pretending they're a SEAL? Gotta know what you want and have the drive to get there.
One of my favorite VPs in banking used to say Kabul was a lot less stressful.
Someone in IB tells people not to work in IB because they're miserable and hate their life
Prospective students tells them to STFU
Prospective student gets a job in investment banking and is miserable and hates their life
The cycle never ends
This is the way
The only reason I said stfu is because he is just bitching. If OP gave an alternative(s) or actual helpful advice then I probably would’ve read it and moved on.
Edit: If you’re gonna throw MS at least explain what’s wrong with my comment
Mouthy nontarget... classic
nontargets should be seen and not heard
Please stop projecting your regrets onto others.
EDIT: I'm seriously so fucking tired of these posts. Spending a few extra hours a week on recruiting, interviewing, studying harder didn't stop you from enjoying your youth. People just displace all their excuses into it to make themselves feel better for their high inhibitions/lack of initiative. Finance guys have zero self awareness I swear.
You are an intern in fucking asset management. You have no idea wtf you are talking about. Your youth doesn’t end in college, but I can guarantee you that no banking analyst in a group with dealflow or associate at a MF has much of a life at all nor are they “enjoying” their youth.
He literally said in the above he missed out on college because he was too busy with recruiting/interviewing for IB. Everyone knows the only people who are truly hard-pressed in their studies in ugrad are pre-med and some engineers.
I'm actually a janitor. I clean the trading desks at night.
IB is definitely rough but I wouldn't have the opportunity I'd have now if I didn't go through it. Slaving away turned to doing something I enjoy working reasonable hours for the sole reason that a head hunter recruited at my firm. Once you hit critical mass in IB you have unbelievable flexibility in where you can go (at least in my experience). IB puts many including myself in control of their own destiny (at least in the short term). If you didn't like the style of work and thus see no hope I'd question what even drew you in in the first place and to think about whether this is a "you issue".
Lots of juniors are getting worked through COVID, I was one of them. Getting worked and being miserable does not in and of itself counteract the benefits IB can provide.
Should you base your life off of getting IB? Certainly not; but people are losing site of a very real upside that exists for many on this site. Keep trucking young monkeys the land of milk and honey is just a few deck turns away!
Lastly, if you were trying to generate meaning from work (particularly in IB) you never stood a chance to start with. You don't need to achieve meaning whatever the fuck that means. All you need is pay that lets you live comfortably and work that's tolerable enough you don't go insane. If you happen to really enjoy it that's upside, but not the base case.
The idea that there are zero seats where you have "control over your life" in IB and more specifically in PE is not accurate. There are lighter IB groups and there are certainly a massive array of mandates in PE that can give you "control" whatever that may mean for you. You don't need to go GS TMT to KKR you can participate in different parts of the market. I went from IB analyst dying like yall, picked a firm that focusses more MM and cross cap structure doing infra for PE, probably avg 50-60 rn. Am I making MF level cash? Surely not. Am I comfortable and happy with the balance of comp and work life balance, absolutely. You have a ton of optionality once you do the IB track (this is what is a shame about posts like this) that you simply won't have after college. I know for a fact those lifestyle jobs come through recruiters after you've done your time (most of the positions are never posted anywhere). So you have to "lose control" if you want to gain control. That's what the tradeoff has always and will always be.
There's a reason nearly every experienced poster on this website tells people to tough it out if you aren't going to kill yourself/have major negative health consequences. I can't stress enough how worth it it is. In the middle of a global pandemic to have dozens of firms wanting to interview you is a luxury reserved for very few industries. IBD to --> Corp Fin/PE etc was one of them for many experienced analysts. That's an amazing and privileged place to be.
Finance is an apprenticeship profession and you really only become somewhat "valuable" to more lifestyle jobs ones you've gone through some repetitions.
replies to this post made me realize that yeah, you might be motivated, driven individuals, but the majority of prospects on this site are total fucking losers.
15 years in and can say that the people who choose to be happy are happy and those who are not, are not and it doesn’t matter if they succeeded at the highest levels in undergrad/postgrad/work...it just doesn’t matter. And once you have kids, you really will be more focused on them being healthy, happy and keeping your household in some kind of decent order if you have your priorities straight. Meaning, your job and prestige of the job then takes a backseat. I know some will say well that’s easy for you to say you make X and achieved it - fair, but trust me, it just becomes way less meaningful over time. I never thought I would reach a point where I’m getting tired of the markets - its def starting to happen.
I’m going to call it satisfaction with the earnings vs happiness. Regarding happiness, I was enjoying myself more while making $150k in industry (down south) early on and I was single prior to joining the sell-side and then buy-side in MF Credit - but I too had a burning desire to make more and see more while I was in industry. I totally understand the feeling of wanting more, so I was going to amend my earlier post to make sure that folks didn’t think I was discounting that feeling of absolute passion many motivated folks on this site have bc that is a real emotion as well that left unfulfilled I know can pull at you.
Regarding earnings satisfaction - I would say after $450-$500 it didn’t change my outlook or much of anything other than shifting dollars around. That’s a married guy with kids talking , not a single guy. My last three years I’ve made double that roughly (not counting longer term incentives) but even I emailed a WSO member I admire last year and was like hey man, I’m fucking burnt out can I bounce some things off of you?! I’m late 30s and like I said 15 years in, but we still have these feelings of maybe I should do xyz.
Anyway, hope that gives some perspective.
dude fuck off alright? I'm not "wasting my life" I'm grinding because I'm broke as fuck and this is literally the only thing I'm even semi-good at and my family needs money and I have no hands on talent because all I know is white collar shit. Stop being a fucking fanny, you live in the richest country in the world, you stupid fucking Amerifats think that because you don't get paid $500k for 60 hours you're being paid "slave labor" have you ever bothered to leave the US for longer than two weeks and outside of a resort? Fuck off.
Interns and prospects, you have to understand that WSO is a place for people to vent and let out their emotions. Personally, I'm not against this. This industry can be tough and everyone—not only analysts—often go through tough times. The current Covid WFH period is a tough one for a lot of people. The fact that 1 out of 5 posts on this forum is another "this is no life/I'm out/I'm off to tech" post doesn't mean that all these people are going to act on what they say. Some do and that's great. But most people just talk and this is a way to discharge and feel better after another 14 hr day. That's okay too. We all do it. It's the same as meeting a friend for drinks after work and they start.... "Fuck, I'm sick of my boss, I need to get the fuck out of that place etc." That's okay. No big deal.
You are young and you have to try stuff and IB/finance is a cool thing to try. I did and I don't regret a single minute of that 5-year experience. I learned about myself, people, finance, business, communication, politics... Excel! lol I'm grateful for that experience. Whatever way you're considering to follow in your lives, there will be people who will say go left and people who will say go right. You have to pick a way. You may end up liking that way, you may not. And then if you decide to choose a totally different way, it doesn't mean that you wasted your time. It doesn't mean you will always be behind those who took that way earlier than you in their careers. No, no, no! You will be UNIQUE. You can kick their ass thanks to your unique mindset, experiences and skills. You will be the VC, entrepreneur, asset manager, who before did M&A's, PE, tech, consulting, and knows all sorts of people in different industries and is a great manager and has worked internationally and and and...Whatever you do, your experiences, the skills you build, the human capital, the lessons, everything makes you UNIQUE in whatever you decide to pursue next in your career.
So, allow yourself to explore, experiment, and try different stuff. Again, IB is a cool thing to try for whatever reasons you may have right now... even money. Why not? Each one has different values/dreams/criteria and those change during our lives anyway. OK. Rant is over. You see? Knowing that someone may read this and get some value made me feel better. Everyone has their reasons—and that's okay. Go enjoy IB and anything else you wish to try. Much love, Angelos.