How far in advance do you usually plan your vacations and when do you typically notify your firm about a planned PTO sequence? Is there a rule of thumb to follow in IB? Knowing that the nature of the job is rather unpredictable in terms of workload intensity, I figured asking people who have done this in the past would be the best bet.
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I did it differently depending on length of the vacation. If it’s a full week I let people know ~2 months ahead of time and sent a follow up reminder 1 month out and 2 weeks out.
For a shorter one (e.g. taking a long weekend) I would just let them know 2 weeks out.
What person at the firm would you send this information to? Pinging everyone is presumably not seen as very prudent, or am I being overly cautious here
Your staffer would approve your PTO - he/she would likely ask you to clear it with your VPs on your projects as well before hand. Then just send reminders to your staffer/VPs as appropriate. Would also be best practice to give a heads up to your associates informally.
Same thoughts as the poster above. I'd tell your staffer + the VPs on your ongoing deals and then let the associates you're working with know.
For this summer I requested time off ~2 months in advance. After my request was accepted I sent everyone currently working with me on transactions a calendar invite named ‘XXX on leave’ spanning the time period I will be away. So when they look at their calendars they will constantly be reminded of my leave.
If you do this don’t forget to set the invite to ‘show as free’ otherwise it will block their entire calendar and will mark them as ‘busy’ for days on end.
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