Sweatiest Shops - 2022 Edition

Which firms are the sweatiest post-COVID and what are the hours like? Has any place superseded Moelis LA in being the ultimate slaveship? 

I'll start: have heard that Ducera and GS Industrials have been notoriously bad

160 Comments
 

Deal flow is still pretty strong actually, but they've really put their money where their mouth is and hired enough juniors to space everything out and make the role/hours a lot more reasonable. It should be telling that in a thread with the opportunity to complain about hours nobody has actually commented FTP sincerely - who knows if this will change come the next big wave of FinTech enthusiasm but for now FTP is a really great place to be.

Source:I work here

 

Apparently Moelis (at least NYC) has somewhat improved according to some of my friends there 

 

Connected with an alum who was just about to jump into MFPE who almost explicitly told me to take a different offer bc they cranked juniors.

 

EVR - across all the teams (including Energy) got clapped. The turnover in 4 of those teams at mid/senior level was high (feel free to LinkedIn search this) - know a bunch of bankers that left the industry/joined BBs, etc. for a variety of reasons.  (One of my close friends moved from EVR to JPM, a move that they wouldn't have ever contemplated pre-2021 given how political JPM gets at mid/senior level and lack of WLB). They have been heavily recruiting laterally at senior and mid-level since mid 2020 and that has significantly changed the culture. Lots of new senior recruits are ex-mid-tier BB people (they had a hiring spree specifically from Citi, BofA, Barclays) trying to peddle deals - definitely not a good look for the culture. In some of the groups, more than 50% of the team at mid-level joined in last 18 months. It might change again (who knows)- but EVR right now is not what it was 2 years ago.

 

Luckily all in analyst comp this year was still around $240k (120k base 100% bonus) per the bonus megathread, so hopefully makes up for the culture difference against 45k BB bonuses we have been seeing 

 

is FIG that bad? spoke with like 5 people while recruiting and they said they had protected Saturdays, went home early (no later than 9pm ish everyday), and had good culture

Was that just all a lie lmao?

 

Banana_1

is FIG that bad? spoke with like 5 people while recruiting and they said they had protected Saturdays, went home early (no later than 9pm ish everyday), and had good culture

Was that just all a lie lmao?

I don't know who needs to hear this but saturdays are protected unless you are working on a live deal

...and the job is working on live deals 

 

Excellent question.

Jeff Houston will kill you from what I hear. We should start a charity for their therapy copayments.

Always here to help!
 

RBC M&A - all of the bullshit they feed you about the friendly culture but the reality is 80 hours is minimum and 100 is common

 

Coincidentally this whole thread, out of 34 comments, only has two comments giving actual numerical data. One of them is FTPinsider talking about his $140k base...

 

GS industrials, yes. But GS in general.. like wtf getting the crap beat outta of me here + other analysts.

 

Honestly, HL is pretty great. Days start earlier than most banks (9 AM, sharp, with emails coming before that) but they also end earlier. Working past midnight is rare. 

Very professional set up, I'm happy here. 

 

The people are truly great as humans, that's what makes it such a strange dynamic

The hours can be absurd and being in communication with friends at other banks drives that point home. How are my buddies at Moelis/MS/Barc/Blair/Lincoln routinely appalled by my hours? How can my friend tell me he's worked past 2am "a couple of times, definitely under 10" in the past year, when I have worked past 2am 90% of my nights Sunday through Thursday since April?

Baird my be THE best bank to be a career senior banker and I want to be here long term which was always my plan when I joined as an analyst, but the reputation among juniors is struggling. To be clear, there are interns that chose not to come back to Baird (and went to other banks) specifically because of the hours. That really shouldn't happen imo

 

Honestly, HL isn't terrible. It used to be the worst, but they've made significant changes and the "no work after midnight" policy is pretty respected. 

 

How can Baird be viewed as a sweatshop? Everyone I met there seemed so nice - like they are "not assholes"

 

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