Might be dumb/naive but I have always wondered how much the 9am-4am cliché is real in IB.
From my experience as an intern in LMM M&A boutique, 9am-2am feels like the max the body can support on the long run so what is the life in BB/EB and how do you manage to stay alive. What are the tricks
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It's pretty chill, just check out this promo from JPM. He seems happy...
9am - 11pm was about the norm when I was in BB M&A, with usually 2ish nights a week going to 1am - 2am where needed. When closing a live deal all bets are off. There were periods where I worked 8am - 4am for over a week straight, which is absolutely nightmarish.
Every Sunday I worked at least a few hours, and that would usually spill into Saturday for a few hours as well.
Take away is that IB is incredibly unpredictable, so there's no real good answer to your question.
Sunday spills into Saturday?
Dumb phrasing. I was an Analyst during the first year that "protected Saturdays" were a thing, and they were totally ignored / disrespected. Should've said something like:
Most Sundays there was a few hours of work to do. Default for Saturday was that we were "off", but for the most part if any meaningful work needed to be done on Sunday, it became a whole-weekend grind and an exception to the Saturday rule would be granted.
Sunday into the following Saturday, duh
How many weeks out of the year would you be doing those 8-4 stretches?
Depends entirely on what sort of deals you're on and how much of an asshole your seniors are. That was for a $20bn deal where I was the only junior beneath Director. Those sorts of hours are very rare though.
I was also on a $70bn deal that dragged on for the better part of half a year, and that was like 2-3 nights a week to 3am - 4am for weeks on end. I would usually get in later, around 10am while I was working on that one, though.
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