The Hardest Pill to Swallow About Investment Banking
I was the kid in high school who read about the big salaries, the fast paced environment, the complexity of the work, the negotiation, the teamwork. I didn’t need any convincing. Like Lil Baby with the street life, “I wasn’t no tip toe, I jumped head first.”
I dove deep. I perfected my interview questions and got the offer. In the days preceding the start of my internship I envisioned myself sitting at a large mahogany conference table, listening as my MD sold an acquisition to a client on the other side. I was giddy with anticipation.
But here we are. The internship is well underway now and I’m beginning to worry that investment banking isn’t what I thought. There may be an ugly truth I’m not ready to accept.
The hardest pill to swallow about investment banking: It’s just a job.
So I come to you, an aspiring chimp, seeking answers from those both new and seasoned. Is there more? Or is this just another job?
Setting aside the facts of outstanding pay and career progression, is there anything about the day to day of investment banking that materializes all of the prestige and importance that I read about? Do independent advisory firms live a life of prestige? Am I at the wrong bank? In the wrong group?
Or, have I pulled back the curtain and I’m left facing the reality that most MD’s offices are smaller than Michael Scott’s.
Edit: thank you for the responses. Even though they haven’t given me much hope, they’ve given me things to think about. One last reach: Does the life I’m looking for come to fruition at the highest levels of banking? Meaning, if I become Jamie Dimon or Paul J. Taubman, will I experience anything I was hoping for? Golly-gee man, if a Don Draper / Chuck Rhoades sized office isn’t even what awaits at the top of banking, where the hell does it await?
ok? lol we know
>prospect in IB-M&A
ahhhh
you read fiction and thought it was fact, you are now discovering that it was fiction, simple as
+1 for the Baby quote
Bro i cant tell if this is a troll post or not. No shit it’s just a job, and almost everyone in the industry knows that. It’s the weird WSO college kids that idolize the job and fantasize about “prestige” that have this idea that working at a bank will suddenly make their lives perfect.
If you’re willing to sacrifice your time for money and a relatively reputable career, it’s a good gig. Nothing more, nothing less.
There’s more to life than your job. Just remember to get out of the bubble. Nowadays WSO is like the finance version of college confidential (where they think getting into some hypsmlgbtq is the end all be all)
OP thought he’d be waving off paparazzi and being asked to do interviews for Bloomberg on the way into work. You work in banking, not the NBA.
You still can barely afford rent and have to miss 75% of the social activities with friends in an effort to be somewhat rich in 20 years. Sooner you realize that the better.
See you say this calling out OP but this should be directed at 99% of IBD interns. They all talk about bottle service, gucci sleds, models and bottles, and the girls, yet most of them are just wandering around their office looking lost in their over-priced apparel praying their analyst will say "nice job" after they take hard coded 10-K figures and put them into Excel. Still 50-50 on the chances of the formatting being correct (I know I messed this up at least once or twice).
Sadly, in many ways most of us (certainly myself) were that way. I was excited about the best case scenario, praying that I would receive a FT offer, work on exciting deals, and get to go out and party late night with my colleagues. Find me someone who entered IBD who wasnt at least a little bit excited about the possibility of the best case.
I hope you’re trolling bro. What did u expect exactly? You’re told you work in an office for 80 hours a week on excel and PowerPoint. It’s an office job except you’re working on larger deals. Plus not be a dick but you’re a freaking intern. Why would u be sitting in with an MD? Why would doing anything less than grunt work?
It get reiterated on here a lot but kids don’t listen. It’s just a job and there’s more to life than your job title and LinkedIn title.
Think it's funny that a bunch of people that probably fetishized banking when they were in college are shitting on a kid that's still in that phase of life lol. The hard part is when you get to banking and realize it's just a job but all the banking analysts are fetishizing MF PE so you work hard and recruit for that and you get there and it's still just a job. Then all the MF PE associates fetishize getting the job at Tiger Global or Value Act or Pershing Square and you hop back on the hamster wheel again.
At the end of the day, what one of the above commenters said was true -- you're never going to be in the NBA lol. Even Bill Ackman isn't chased by the paparazzi and doesn't capture the media interest that a five star high school quarterback prospect or teenage soundcloud rapper with a hit single does. Yes, this industry can make you rich, but no, it can't make you interesting.
society is stupid. people idolize the ones who had genes to grow up to be 7ft and became a pro basketball player (how difficult is it to dunk and get rebounds when you're 7ft?) instead of people who possess the intellect, persistence, and hard-work ethics to reach top academic institutions of the world and some the most difficult to get jobs to eventually shape society/economy/business.
Nerd
Bruh this is exactly the kind of mentality I called out in my comment -- I disagree with literally every sentence of what you said lol. The 7 footers you mention are pretty much the equivalent of the kids who's parents were MDs or group heads -- sure, they have a leg up and maybe don't have to work as hard. But the average NBA player? They definitely have to (in your words) "possess the persistence, and hard-work ethics to reach" the "top [athletic] institutions of the world." (Power 5 D1 schools, top camps, AAU teams, etc.) I got a business degree at a semitarget D1 school -- I know several people that played a D1 sport in pursuit of a pro career, and several business students that got good finance jobs -- which group do you think worked harder during college? There's a reason finance professionals commonly refer to college as the best years of their life, while pro athletes spend as little possible time in the system and use it as a stepping stone to get drafted.
Honestly though, the funniest thing you said was about the whole "jobs to eventually shape society/economy/business." Bruh do you, Associate Consultant 1, really feel you shape the economy? Or society? Or business? More than people whose name is stickered on the back of a jersey that millions of people in a city have in their closet? Your MD grovels for a few million in fees to "advise" the corp dev arm of Nike of which you take a meager fraction for your contribution of aligning the logos of the potential targets slide. Nike, Adidas, New Balance, and countless competitors grovel for the attention of the NBA pick, three years younger than you, offering tens of millions of dollars for the right to design to the shoes on his feet while he plays in front of Jay-Z, Beyonce, Mark Cuban, and the mayor sitting courtside. Whose job do you think shapes society, economy, and business more?
Anytime you see a post like this just remember that this is the generation that got into finance because of Wolf of Wall Street
And you are from the generation that got into finance because of the movie Wall Street. What's your point ?
Some good thoughts in this thread but mostly its sad to see people thinking this is just a job; and that is the reason so many people are unhappy in this industry. Any job is just a job. How about a little perspective? If I'm working at Subway making sandwiches I'm going to be the person studying every single detail of the business. Shipping, opening, closing, process, systems, hours, staff, margins, peak times, seasonality, Point of Sale systems, operations, supply chain, inventory, etc... By the time I'm done I'll probably know more about the business that the owner. Apply that same logic to Banking. But now we're talking about real businesses and opportunities to create generational wealth. No other "job" gives you this sort of access. So you can sit there and make the next turkey club down the line or soak up every single shred of glorious insight you can get your grubby hands on when working on deals and with some of the smartest people in the world. Good luck and hope you find a "job" where you can thrive! :-)
Hardest pill for me to swallow was the first time walking into the toilet at a BB during my internship on the first day, feeling like the most prestigious guy in NYC and hearing a chorus of different people shitting and farting aggressively.
I couldn't believe this was happening in a BB for some reason (happened at every company i've worked for since), out of one of the stalls came a semi popular guy that has a wikipedia page about him, whom most of you probably know or have heard of, and I used to look at like some sort of legend with his lips pursed and avoiding eye contact while he washed his hands and other people were still shitting hard in the background.
Thats when it dawned on me that it was just a job and we're all just people and prestige is barely a real thing, its all gritty office work.
Welcome to reality :) It is just another job. And no one outside of your immediate family really cares about where you work and what you do. Like any other job, it comes with its own pros and cons. The biggest pro being that investment banking is one of the highest paying jobs in the current job market which if you keep at it will put you in the top 1% of income earners globally. The biggest con being that you really have no work life balance to speak of. You have to ask yourself why you would want to personally do this. Is this to provide for a family that you love (gf/ wife/parents/ siblings), enjoy a certain minimum lifestyle that the pay provides (maybe stay in fancier hotels on vacation, buy nice clothes and shoes) or maybe get the attention of girls working in the corporate world who actually have heard about investment banking and know the higher potential pay of a man working in this space (this would probably be 10% of the women population).
If it helps, I can speak about myself as to why I chose to NOT pursue investment banking when I got a chance to do so and instead chose corporate banking where I work on an average 40-50 hours a week and have much lower pay but better WLB. In my 20's I had cancer so I have to focus much more on health and ensure that there are no relapses in the near future. I have many hobbies and not limited to travel, reading, writing, working out, singing, watching and critiquing movies. I connect with friends and family at every chance that I get and am focussed on mentoring my brother to achieve his true potential. Most of these things are not really compatible with a hectic lifestyle that investment banking entails.
So I hope this helps you in sorting out the reasons of why you should or should not pursue investment banking as a career now that you have begun to understand that its just another job :)
Good Luck
OP is shocked to learn a job he idolized is still just a job lol
maybe it’s because I grew up poor but I always saw a job as a means to an end. I never understood why people have this delusion that a job is some grand journey to self fulfillment. We do this for the paycheck, let’s not pretend we’d align logos and take our clients and MDs bullshit if we didn’t need the money. Just like I highly doubt the guy who gets paid to haul away trash or fix my plumbing problem (and gets paid well to perform a damn essential service mind you) is doing it because he’s just super passionate about literal shit. Money makes the world go round, and it’s called work for a reason. I work in IB because I have bills to pay and this job helps me pay them a lot easier than the shitty back office jobs I used to have and once I’ve accumulated enough money that I don’t have to do this any more I’m not going to, I suggest you monkeys do the same
OP, as someone 10yrs into banking/PE I was in exactly your shoes when I first started out. The posts above have described it perfectly - at the end of the day it’s just a job (albeit a good one).
So what does this mean for you? Well a few things:
- Firstly the good - as others have said, the pay is much better than the majority of other careers/industries. Also whilst there are more than a few super-frustrating moments in banking (eg having to mindlessly churn out a pointless deck at 2am) it can also be a pretty interesting/varied job at times. It’s a cliche but every day is different, and even 10yrs in I feel I’m still learning stuff (though clearly the learning curve flattens significantly compared to your first few years). So that combination of good pay + (relatively) interesting means it’s automatically better than 90% of careers.
Ok now the bad:
- Being just a job means it won’t magically solve all your problems/issues - “being a banker” won’t suddenly give you an amazing love-life, make you super-confident etc, you’ll still be the same person as before you started. If anything you’ll probably pick up a few negative traits over time - eg irritability, being cynical (there are quite a few threads on WSO covering this).
- No-one outside banking really cares - unlike medicine & law where people think they know what goes on (even if they’re completely wrong) due to the plethora of movies and TV shows, I guarantee you almost everyone outside finance will have no idea of what the difference is between banking vs trading vs PE. To most people it’s just generic “Wall Street.”
Of course girls will likely be impressed that you have a decent job, live in a nice place, have money to spend on dates etc - but beyond that they won’t care if you work in Wells Fargo or Goldman or KKR, I guarantee it (unless they work in finance). So don’t expect girls in clubs to fall at your feet when you say “I’m working at GS” (as I promise you it won’t happen).
Equally your friends etc won’t care, and why should they? They have their own lives and jobs, so beyond the fact you’re doing well in their job they won’t be interested in that mega-deal you’re working on.
- The money is good but it won’t make you a mega-baller - after taxes and the cost of living in a city, your money won’t go nearly as far as you think. Of course it will still give you a great lifestyle compared to most people - speaking for myself I’m in MM PE, make $300k+ at 30 - I’m not buying Dom P and “making it rain” in clubs, but I do live in a nice apartment, take nice holidays etc. But yeah if you’re picturing a Jordan Belfort lifestyle you’re likely to end up disappointed.
Having said all that, any job is likely to be less glamorous than you pictured in college - think being a corporate lawyer is like Suits? Hell no - it’s like banking but 10x worse. Big Tech? As a junior developer you won’t be creating some amazing new app, but be spending hours fixing bugs or adding in features/minutiae no-one ceres about.
Not meaning to be downbeat, but this is also part of your rite of passage into full adulthood/the working world (don’t mean to sound patronizing here, as I said I was in your shoes a few years back). The question you have to ask yourself is whether banking is for you long-term - again bearing in mind that the grass is not always greener.