Was it worth it?
Hey guys,
I'm currently a rising sophomore at a US based school that regularly sends kids to top-ranked investment banks post-graduation, and I wanted to hop on to get some general career advice. For some context, compared to my peers, I come from pretty humble roots so I don't have the most exposure to these corporate jobs and I didn't even hear the words "investment banking" until I set foot in college. Because of that, I'm having a hard time understanding the value proposition behind it that everyone seems to be chasing. People regularly talk about how you'll suffer a shit-ton for two years but it's the best pivot into buy-side roles, but just based off what I've read online, buy-side doesn't seem all that much better.
Please correct me if i'm mistaken, but my understanding is sure your WLB improves, but that means instead of 80/90 hours a week you'll work 60/70, which is a significant change don't get me wrong, but you're also working under more stressful conditions where your work directly relates to the performance of your fund rather than just doing mindless excel/ppt work for 80 hours a week. Aside from that, I see people regularly leaving roles in high-finance for other CF related roles like Strategic Finance/FP&A for instance, but in that case what was the point of suffering through the stress of going through banking recruiting and then working those painfully long hours for 2-3 years? If you were looking to work in corporate finance from the beginning, wouldn't it make more sense to start your career in those companies in the first place or in similar roles? In fact, I was reading on mergers and inquisitions that people with Big 4 backgrounds even have advantages in those cases (though I looked through LinkedIn and while ex- Big 4 did have more people in CF, I didn't see THAT big of a disparity myself). I know a lot of people saying they want to get into buyside from the jump which is why they wanna do IB, but as 19 year old students, I can't understand how these guys seem to know exactly that that's what they wanna do for the rest of their lives, especially since the vast majority of us can't say we've experienced it at this age. I realize that for those who don't know entirely what they want to do, IB might seem appealing since it "opens doors" and presents people with a good amount of exit opportunities after doing a 2-year stint. If that's the argument, then isn't consulting a better route to consider? Consulting isn't nearly as big at my school compared to IB so I apologize if i'm wrong, but from what I know, doesn't consulting open a lot more doors than investment banking? (excluding buyside investing roles) The tradeoff comes with a hit to compensation figures (25% less from what I've seen on ManagementConsulted against Mergers and Inquisitions) and I guess the frequent travel being a pain in the ass, but on paper don't consultants have access to a greater variety of exits than investment bankers? If they realize later on that the job they picked wasn't for them, I've heard that they're also the best careers that feed into MBAs, which they could then use to pivot into something else (though i know that not a lot of people have the luxury of considering an MBA).
I see so many people talking about how investment banking and buyside as the be-all-end-all and looking at it as some sort of holy grail, but I honestly just can't seem to understand why. I'd love to hear from anyone who's been in my position before, and hear about your decision-making process and how your experiences have been so far and what your long-term goals might be. Any response is appreciated, thanks!
No it wasn’t
It would depend on how much you value free time and your interests, family, friends, hobbies and a relationship which may lead to more early on in life. In high-profile corporate jobs, a lot of things in life could be delayed until you are on "more stable footing".
I recently left my 20s, I am still not married, my gf and I may never get married, I have lost friends along the way - and made new ones. Lived and worked around the world, traveled a lot and brought in new business. At the end of the day, this is a lifestyle question.
My friends from the small town I grew up in looked for local jobs without a degree, they worked themselves up, made enough to buy a house and married/settled down in their 20s. There is nothing wrong with doing it that way. At the end of the day, after having spent more than a decade of my life with big city life, it would be difficult to give everything up and transition back to small town life. I am a country boy and I miss that lifestyle, but there is no going back to being a waiter or helping out at the local garage/fix cars.
Let’s not kid ourselves, the reason you do IB is for the money you’ll make from it throughout your life. It’s a concrete well trodden path that if you play your cards right, you can choose to become rich by sticking around in IB for a while (MD for example) or absurdly rich by moving to buy side and killing it for many years till your now built up fat carry kicks in. It’s one of the most “consistent” ways to make a huge amount of money compared to riskier endeavors like entrepreneurship. While your WLB does improve if you go buyside, it will never be amazing, but your apartment will be. At the end of the day you gotta figure out what matters to you.
You are generally right that it’s not super optimal if you plan on going down entirely different more corporate routes, but if your end goal is those routes & you want a nice WLB, IB never really should have been the goal in the first place. Don’t underestimate the valuable experience though you’ll have from the skills you’ll gain though
I chuckled at "your apartment will be" lol
Can tell that you have minimal experience. These are all bullshit we can all recite better than our own SSNs from the many reps of lying to incoming interns. Just wait until you actually see how banks actually work and what the corporate dynamic is like.