Poll: If you’re at BofA…

Conducting an anonymous survey: For the people at BofA who are Associates. Are you contemplating leaving either after February 15th or sometime before the summer, following the recent bonuses?

Me and 2 of my colleagues are (1 M&A/FSG, and 2 coverage)

45 Comments
 

Most major banks already closed lateral hiring for the year (except unique one off situations). Spots will not be backfilled. Need major reduction in associates before they’d consider hiring. The normal summer programs/ new classes are still there of course though. Even internal lateraling is more difficult right now. Again, things could change if many people leave but TBD on when / if that happens.

 

No. I see jobs are starting to get posted on LinkedIn, even for IB. I’m probably going to go something corporate though. No point doing 70+ hours a week for a bonus of under 50k for a good rating. My friends with “regular” jobs make 150-200k (albeit no bonus) and work 40h a week and are in office like 2 days a week

 

Lev Fin associate here. It’s crazy how much bullshit work we still do and how hours are still 60-70 on a “chill” week for a “chill” year. I have nothing against MBAs, but all the MBA associate hires since covid are absolutely low caliber versus prior years. It’s almost 3am and I’m still working, fuck this firm. A lot of fat in senior associate and VP level. All these coverage hires from MM firms have no idea how capital markets work. They understand how to run a M&A process and that’s all they’re good for. I seriously hope there’s going to be more layoff. Management is so delusional for thinking that these bonus number would fly with top bucket juniors. IB recruiting may be dead for awhile, but at this point I might as well go work for corporate dev or private credit. Less hours and higher pay. I have nothing line up, would probably just quit once bonus hit and start quite quitting.

 

Agree with you, but the A to As are no saints either. Most of them are there for the promotion money-grab, and then ride on their reputation & coast until they find their next role.

It’s crazy how there is so much bloat, yet a significant chunk of people are still working 15+ hours per day. It’s almost as if leadership cares more about juniors looking ”busy” vs actually making money.

There are ~5-10 associates in my group (one of the sweatier coverage groups btw) who can barely tie their own shoes. It’s not the case that they are relatively competent and just got unlucky with the market, etc. I can’t imagine what it’s like in the slower groups with little deal flow.

The incentives are so misaligned it’s crazy. A lot of my peers in other roles made as much money as I did last year and work ~4 hours/day. We’ll see what happens this year.

 
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