Who the Hell Dives into IB right out of college?

I’m in Corporate Banking for now for 1 year so i can learn the ropes before I jump into something insane like IB

analyzing companies and reading and reporting on tons of annual reports of different companies in different industries that we give loans to

and i’m just learning the ropes on how to do all this

How the hell do people dive into something as intense and demanding as IB out of college?

You don’t know shit? Don’t you feel lost? out of Control? There’s no way you just do financial modeling and automate excel about stuff that you don’t even understand head to toe

and you get paid 150 grand out of college for that?

i can’t imagine the loss of control, the stress, the shit from bosses, colleagues don’t like you because you’re literally a fresh virgin in the belly of a corporate monster like IB

10 Comments
 

The job isn't that hard if you're intelligent and have a modicum of interest. I didn't even study finance in uni and I was able to understand 95% of the technical work on the job as a new analyst because I took the initiative to learn.

 

Honest answer is you trade everything for 2 years and only care about your job and you learn pretty quickly.

  • Some people do the time and move on
  • some people are broken and need to do the job to justify their self worth and keep doing jobs like it because they are addicted
  • Some people it shreds and they are broken by the role

Really depends. But the “how and why” is usually rooted in extreme delayed gratification personalities that are very competitive and money motivated

 
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“You don’t know shit? Don’t you feel lost? out of Control?…

i can’t imagine the loss of control, the stress, the shit from bosses, colleagues don’t like you because you’re literally a fresh virgin…”

Literally all of these negatives you listed are true for anybody when they start any job, not just IB. You went through this at your current job too I’m sure, unless you showed up and were instantly a god and knew how to do everything, and your coworkers all lined up to service you because you were so valuable. I literally experienced everything you listed when I had my first job in foodservice as a teenager lol. 

I’m not gonna say IB isn’t challenging, but every job has its own set of challenges. You show up and people expect you to know literally nothing at all, you learn everything from the ground up and from precedents. From there you’re expected to pick things up quickly, ask good questions, become independent, not repeat mistakes, etc. I don’t think this is too different from any other job, only difference being more pressure because you’re paid a lot and work a lot, with and for sharp people. 

Of course the job has its unique challenges but that makes it “different” not harder. I think the idea of doing a different job to prepare for IB is silly. You’re gonna suck the first 1-2 years no matter WHAT you do to prepare, so the optimal path is to get those first 1-2 years out of the way as quickly as possible, ideally at 22. You say you’re in Corporate Banking, that’s a front office role and literally the same division as investment banking in many (if not most) banks.

More general life advice, If you want to get good at something, you just have to do it. Period. Don’t fuck around wasting time “preparing” and shit and tricking yourself into thinking you’re making progress. If you wanna get good at biking, don’t run for 2 years first, just hop on a bike. If you want to get good at play piano, don’t practice reading music for 5 years first, just get on a keyboard. If you wanna get good at M&A, don’t spend 10 years mastering the income statement, just jump into the best M&A role you can get and start climbing the learning curve as quickly as possible.

 

You’ve made some really good points, Essentially because you start out as such a newbie, it’s hard not feel completely out of place and dealing with that feeling feels like shit but atleast i’m not working 100+ hours in IB, i’m not preparing for it, it’s just that it will allow me to effectively become sharper and sharper more disciplined allowing me to effectively manage my analyst stint when switching over to Investment Banking, that’s all i’m saying

 

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