What are people actually like in IB?
I was going through my connections on LinkedIn and found a bunch of people with ‘Incoming _____ Summer Analyst’ in their profile, and it made me think about the people in IB. I get it’s a high stress, low WLB industry, but are people actually somewhat normal, or is it just the obsessed worker drone type?
I haven’t started uni yet, but even in my year there are many people obsessed with IB for the money who have zero social skills and basically revolve their personality around being an aspiring GS banker. It’s impossible to have a conversation without them bringing up something about ‘target’ universities and what work experience they are organising.
That talk has a time and place but most of the time it’s incredibly dull imo.
I probably sound like a hypocrite considering I’ve posted a few times on here and am probably going to attend a uni notorious for being a career obsessed hive mind, but it is what it is. I’m kind of fed up of these people already, so I’m thinking if I have to spend more years working with them, I might neck myself.
TLDR: Would you want to be friends with those in IB? If not, why?
From my experience IB people generally are type A, neurotic, deeply insecure people who are hyper competitive. I think a vast majority have some bizarre screw loose with a chip on their shoulder. If napoleonic syndrome could be a career it would be IB. It seems like many people are trying to over compensate for something that is missing in their core being. Some are cool, but it’s very rare. Many have sharp elbows and some are malicious, but many more I think are just so competitive anyone else doing well they view as a threat on their existence.
This is a brutal take, but overwhelmingly accurate over the course of my career. The issue is in order to study hard enough and accept the role, you must be a certain type of person. Further, the people who don’t fit in or jive with the culture leave the industry. Or, if you stay long enough, you year after year make the decision you would rather trade social life or the opportunity to pursue a passion for money. This makes the industry have weird culture and values that perpetuate over time.
Currently an analyst in IB, but have been doing internships in other parts of finance (PE, VC) and also been in other industries (Consulting, Insurance, Sales). Obviously not all people in IB will be the same, but I think that the concentration of people with a huge chip on their shoulder is extreme compared to any other industry. I think that the hierarchical culture where more people generally don't speak to more junior people is really weird. Back when I was an intern, it was common that people above associate did not even speak to me. Been interning at several banks where the people sitting right next to me did not even introduce themselves on the first day, but just sat quiet next to me. Compare that to my internships in PE and VC where VPs, Directors and Partners took me out for lunch to get to know me better etc. It's a really weird dynamic when there are 4-5 people in a room during a meeting and people act like you don't exist simply because you are a junior. I think this says a lot about the type of people that typically are in IB, because such a behaviour is obviously nothing short of rude.
I also think that people take themselves and their work way to seriously. People should really take a step back and gain some perspective. I'm always surprised that people in IB can become tilted over the tiniest mistake. It's kind of unreal to think that someone would become completely tilted over the fact that a footnote on p.86 was formatted incorrectly. Take a step back and you will realize that the formatting of the footnote on p.86 is not what will make or break this deal. In fact, most likely no one would even notice the difference vs. other pages. Just ask me politely to fix the mistake. I will never understand how people can be willing to sacrifice relationships with colleagues over stuff like this. It's just a job and most of the time, it really isn't that important.
I also think that people are pretty rude and lack good manors in general. For example when you have been working on a slide deck for someone for 2 days and the person can't even say "thanks for the help on this". Instead, they just drop an email saying "I put some comments, pls fix before tomorrow morning". It is really difficult for me to understand how you can treat colleagues like this. It's even more difficult for me to understand why it is tolerated in IB as it would be completely unacceptable in any other industry.
To be clear, there are some really nice and chill people in IB as well. I just think that the concentration of rude people with a chip on their shoulder is extremely high in IB compared to any other industry that I've come across.