What’s the first day like as an IB analyst?
What the first day like for the investment banking analysts? How stressful is it?
Any insights would be very helpful.
Thanks!
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Career Resources
Fucking hell
You walk through the beautiful glass revolving door ready to start an incredible career
You head over to your assigned desk like everyone else. Then your MD walks over and tells you
"bend over"
the rest is history
Basically a direct translation of "don't spend too much time on this tonight, but..."
This literally happened to me on the first day of my INTERNSHIP
In reality your first week is just getting set up with everything (emails, laptop, phone, compliance tasks, meeting everyone in the team, learning about the clients and projects) and then you start to recruit for buyside
And then, this
If other analysts are managing their lives as well as her then I'm definitely doing something wrong. For me its like: wake up, reset alarm, wake up again, reset alarm again, wake up again, reset alarm again, finally force myself to wake up and do some work, don't eat breakfast, don't shower, pick up yesterday's sweatpants and hoodie and put them on, do whatever I have to do for work as more major stuff rolls in in the late morning, slam cold brews from dunks, take a coffee shit, pre-made lunch from the grocery store, more cold brews, more shits, more work, think about how I will start working out more next week, watch shit on my phone, cry about my fantasy teams all losing in round one of our playoffs, either pre-made dinner or order something healthy like pizza, more work, play cod, more work again, sleep at like 2am or later, repeat.
“Hey figure out how your blackberry work email works so I can email you throughout the night and limit any chance of you getting REM sleep for the next 2 years. Oh also don’t forget to bring a pillow to put under your desk, just in case”
Do people really sleep at the office?
Kidding (sort of) but seriously at what point does it get tough and not so glamorous?
If it were seem as normal to sleep under my desk, I would. It’d maximize the amount of time I can sleep without having to travel back to my apartment everyday just to lie on my bed for a couple hours then come back to the office. Id prob nap there too after going to the gym, then go straight back to grinding. Maybe I wouldnt even need an apartment at that point and save a bunch of cash.
I am sure it happens, but really, if you are staying that late, you are working on an ASAP deliverable so usually no, you don't sleep. Most groups understand though, and you can come in (significantly) late the next day if you were up till like 6am.
Moving logos around and getting shit on for your terrible ppt formatting skills all the while shitting your pants
Honestly, the first month will be the worst month of your life
Followed by ~23 months of setting consecutive new lows until you reach senior analyst or associate
Lmao nah the first month is the hardest cause you have no clue what you’re doing. After, you just start losing self worth/respect
Assume the position
First day I would be surprised even if you had full access to drives you need access to, email works properly, have access/subscriptions to everything, etc. First day is more getting things setup. You'll probably be given some internal project that someone has been putting off to keep you busy. That being said you'll still be nervous because you don't know what the hell you should be doing
^^ Agree.
First day is getting access to everything, shaking hands and pretending to be busy by reading training materials in your suit. Getting excel to work with the macros properly using takes 3 days minimum
Wear knee pads
Omg, the dramatics in this thread. It’s really not that bad. Let’s be honest, there a a lot of pussies in IB. If they can do it, so can you.
I’m sure the hours is what does it in for people. The work doesn’t seem to be so intellectually demanding that I don’t know if I even want to start in IB. Exit ops are great but there has to be other paths (I hope.)
I really think you should get off this site and focus on high school / college apps. if you are a senior applying to schools now, it's just no doubt stupid to put so much time on WSO. yes it's good that you are gathering info / knowledge and doing that ahead of probs most people, but the value add at this point is just incredibly low. you will be learning about banking / finance as you progress through college, which is when you actually need to put in the work. also, there's a significant difference between planning for the future & doing that in order to escape from the reality you are in.
You spend the entire day calling technology / support to get access to everything.
I also spent mine smashing out compliance training.
Hm I remember my first day ...
Started on a Friday (to ease you in they said). Walked in with my suit and freshest $10 tie, put my bag down ready to meet and greet. Before I had a chance to do that, immediately whisked away by one of the VPs I met from the previous summer, who said he had 'an exciting opportunity for me to get stuck into'.
Proceeded to staff me on a bake-off for our team's 'must-win' mandate of the quarter (i.e. our team head + bank CEO going to the pitch, red carpet rolled out for the client, no effort spared on making sure footnotes aligned on each page of course). Turns out the benchmarking pulled from consensus (of 30 companies +) was all wrong and needed to be scrubbed manually of course, so VP needed an extra analyst because the senior analyst was 'snowed under'. Cue me spending the rest of the day asking around the analyst pool in a blind panic because up until then I'd never scrubbed a thing in my life (outside of the dishes).
Of course, being banking the submission deadline was early next week and the first draft was still stone cold in the oven (as in RAW), and yet to be tasted by the team. Date for two was replaced with meal for one at the office that weekend.
Tell me you won the mandate
That is a fantastic learning experience, opportunity to gain visibility, and great way to prove yourself
hell
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