Why Are Zoomer Interns/Junior Analysts So Soft?
Good god, if I have to see another post from some jackass intern talking about how they're a "shell of their former self" and how their "mental health is at an all time low" I'm going to puke.
A) Half of yall are interns and not even doing real work yet B) It's a tough job, kids. Nobody asked you to apply and nobody is begging you to stay. People work their whole life to get to where you are and most of them still wont make it. I'm sure there is someone absolutely elated to take your spot if the prospect of working past 5PM and actually being held accountable for producing good work cuts you oh so deeply.
You know how many absolute GOOBERS have risen through the Wall Street ranks? I'm talking the frailest, pastiest and nerdiest type of kids. Kids with acne who used to piss themselves until middle school and got bullied for it until they went to college. If these motherfuckers, built from Wonderbread and Hellman Mayonaise, can tough out an IB Analyst stint and you cannot....I just have no words for you.
I'm not trying to be a hardo to people that have serious depression and/or anxiety. We've all been there. But enough with this over-sentimental bullshit acting like landing a Wall Street job is the reason you're depressed. We all miss nap time, getting an allowance from daddy and our first GF. I promise you, you would be 10x more depressed about it however, if you were still working a service job in your hometown because you failed to launch, while all your childhood friends were doing big things all over the world.
TL;DR: You can be depressed in mommy's basement or depressed making multiple six figures as a Wall Street banker. STFU and smell the roses.
It's not about tough or soft. People are tired of you hardos, there are enough other options that are financially viable and not everyone chases prestige/money.
I'm older, but I honestly applaud the Gen Z reluctance to "put in their dues" just because everyone else did. Way fewer prospects want to do IB because WLB is just more important to that generation. IB is not the army, there are definitely improvements that could be made, and until then fewer top college students will choose IB because they have other options to get where they want. WFH is one such improvement - there's benefits to being in the office for sure, but when I was an analyst that was 6 days per week and now it's 3 days. That's huge.
Also, every generation ever has thought the next generation is lazy, entitled, etc. Literally, the Ancient Greeks complained about the young kids' attitudes. Just because the older group had to climb 10 miles uphill in the snow to make it in IB doesn't mean it has to stay that way forever.
I know there was a comment on here a long time ago, and this may be me just mis-remembering - but it was a VP saying something along the lines of that MDs and Directors who have been in the game for 10+ Years - came up in a significantly different world where sure there were long hours, but when you were not in the office, you did not get called up. Where we now that everyone has grown to have their phone as an extension of their bodies, we are basically all online all the time.
I remember that comment, was a really good one. And also back then putting in your time in IB had much higher chances of guaranteeing a really good quality of life - not the same anymore, just look at how unaffordable housing is today.
While, fwiw, we have gotten a fuckload softer since the ancient Greeks. I mean the Spartans used to whip the shit out of prepubescent boys just to make them tougher. Probably for the better we don't do that anymore. But there is a balance no doubt. Maybe we compromise and only whip the bottom bucket analysts and spare the interns who wont get callback offers anyway???
I can't even count how many times I've had to make this point to Analysts and Interns. This is your job and your boss is not your commanding officer, you don't have to do as you're told and if you get a phone call or email on the weekend or in the middle of the night you can actually just ignore them, it's not the end of the world or your career. I've done this my entire IB career to zero detriment.
So true. The whole narrative that the current generation is so much worse than prior generations is ridiculous. Older generations will go on complaining about how lazy/awkward/entitled the current generation is as if they weren’t the very people who raised them. Gen Z kids were the first to really grow up with the influence of modern technology, half of them had divorced parents and abnormal family situations and then matriculated through school systems run by biased, hyper political and incompetent educators. Couple that with the fact that most of them spent a good chunk of their college years stuck at home watching their professors fumble their way through Zoom and yeah you’re probably going to have a group of people that’s generally more anxious and a lot less willing to deal with other people’s bullshit.
Also important to note that it’s way easier to point out others faults than our own. A lot of the more experienced bankers that rip on the juniors probably don’t realize how incompetent and awkward they seemed to their superiors when they first started.
It's called progress. Just because older generations are masochists doesn't mean Gen-Z is weak. It actually takes a lot of strength to stand up to a corporate system that has been functioning a certain way long before they were born because they see the errors in it. This is something other generations have failed to do. I don't care what you say, there were boomers and employees of the other generations that hated working those long hours, but they didn't have the balls or options to say fuck you. It wasn't all strength and perseverance. It was fear that kept them in line.
Gen-Z isn't afraid to speak truth to power in the workplace. Part of that is because Gen-Z is the most informed generation in known history. For example, if a boomer's parent's or teachers told them something, they had to believe it because that was their authority figure, and they had no reason not to believe it. These days a 7 year old kid can Google something real fast and find out their parent's and teachers are idiots. Yeah, the internet has fucked up Gen-Z in a lot of ways, but it has also emboldened them. Gen-Z just has more tools available to them. If work culture sucks they can put their employers on blast for the world to see with the click of a button. They also have a lot more options to the point where it's making Investment Banking look like a job at McDonald's.
Hardos like you are becoming the minority, and it isn't cool or respectable to be a hardo about Microsoft Excel. If you wanna be a hardo then do something revolutionary and fight for something more meaningful. Being a hardo about making richer people richer and plugging in meaningless numbers in a model that no one really cares about doesn't make you hard. I wonder whether most people that talk like you have ever even been punched in the face talking about soft. Like really? Investment banking is just a job.
If you're mad now, just wait until Goldman Sachs, and the other BBs get their first Gen-Z CEO, and most of the board is Gen-Z. Boomers and their draconic policies will die out. Boomers are gonna be rolling over in their graves when banking is WFH 5 days per week with more tolerable hours.
Gonna leave you with a quote:
An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth.
— Max PlanckThis is such an awesome post, and reads like it was written by someone who can think objectively about the discussion topic.
Lets be clear about one thing, the Gen-Z candidates who receive offers arent soft. They didnt get into top schools, crush it at said schools, network like crazy, and then study their asses off to land top jobs by being soft. In fact, to achieve even the SA offers displays a serious level of grit. Talk about setting a goal and working your ass off to achieve it. Anyone who landed a SA in IBD or in a comparable field will know how much time and energy it takes.
For those same individuals to think to themselves, "Im a smart guy / gal, I have always been successful, and I work really hard, maybe I dont need to tie my identity to a job that sucks all the life out of me. Maybe I should explore other areas of interest, and seek out a balance where I can still work extremely hard and allocate a lot, but not all, of my time toward something." This mentality shows that they are smart enough to realize the diminishing returns of a high paying job, and to look for something else that brings them a better WLB while still upholding a high level of gratification.
I've read through the zoomers responses to their IBD stints, and even the majority of those leaving banking have a level headed and mature response. They dont shit on the industry, they dont say they are above it, too smart for it, or capable of generating more in a different manner. They simply say they experienced something, and decided it wasnt for them. That, after all, is the entire purpose of an internship in any given field.
To just blanket statement AN ENTIRE GENERATION as being soft based on limited information seems foolish. Many zoomers may in fact be soft, but I sincerely doubt it is the individuals who tried interned at solid IBD shops. Lastly, there have been shit interns since the dawn of nepotism and laziness, and there will always be a few guys or girls who slip through the cracks. I have yet to see a post by one IBD Analyst / Associate stating that the vast majority of his or her latest SA class was lazy or soft.
You sound like an insufferable associate. “My life sucks so yours has to suck too” type.
As with most things, the truth ultimately lies somewhere in the middle of the OP and the comments that have attempted to ratio him in the thread. I totally agree with @Miracle1111 - he makes great points about Gen Z being more informed and being strong for calling out the toxic status quo. IB is a hard sell to them when they see their friends making their annual salary in a month doing cringy shit on TikTok. On the other hand (and I think where the OP's sentiment comes from), given the amount of information Gen Z has access to from this site and other resources, doing IB then whining about the conditions after/during the fact (while not actively doing something to change them) definitely comes across as "soft." You knew the working conditions you were signing up for (or at least had a good idea) and likely knew the chances of them changing dramatically overnight were slim to none. To the ones who do the internship and decide it's ultimately not for them, great - you tried it and didn't like it, and I applaud your self-awareness. To those trying to stick it out, realize IB is just a job and you are free to leave at any time. If a job is truly causing you that much mental anguish it isn't worth it; go take care of yourself first. You were smart or hard-working enough to get the job in the first place, so you'll likely land on your feet eventually.
To be fair, I understand the argument Gen-Z knew what they were getting into; however, I think it's a poor argument. Everyone gets into banking because of the money; let's not kid ourselves. But there are people that like money and like finance. It shouldn't have to be a requirement to endure a toxic work environment if you want to be a banker just because you knew the working environment before you took the job. Some people want to work at a bank and genuinely enjoy learning about different industries and valuing companies. They want to network and gain experience to move onto PE or a HF or start their own company. Some people even like the work and want to be a career banker. To turn around and say, "Well, we just gotta be treated like shit because we like finance," is a poor argument. Just because it's the way it's always been done doesn't mean it has to continue to be done that way. That's that boomer argument, "I went through it, so you have to."
The difference between Gen-Z and other generations is that they're not buying that argument where they have to endure being treated like shit because everyone else has always been treated like shit. Being treated like shit shouldn't even be an option. There's a difference between paying your dues and banking culture. Banking culture is borderline abusive. When you have people dropping dead because of the hours or questioning their mental health, there's a problem, especially among some of the supposedly smartest most accomplished kids of a generation.
I also don't buy that other generations didn't suffer from the hours. It's just that it's a lot easier for Gen-Z to make an anonymous post or make a youtube video talking about their experiences. They're a lot more visible. All a boomer could do was go to the bar, smoke a pack of cigarettes, come home, and cry in the shower or something.
And like another person mentioned, there's a difference between a boomer analyst working long hours and leaving his work at the office and a Gen-Z working long hours and then coming and having his email blown up over some bullshit just cause. I don't think these other generations are as hard as they like to believe they are. Gen-Z deserves a little more credit for having to endure some of the bullshit they've been through and inherit some of the mess that older generations have made.
Wall Street is going to have to eventually change with the times. The best and brightest don't flock to banks like they used to. A kid can make a supplemental income by starting a youtube channel talking about his toxic work environment. I've actually seen a few. College enrollment is declining fast, especially among men. There are just too many options for financial security, and I think banks are going to need to adapt. These hardos aren't going to be able to act like this much longer, no matter how hard they try to fight it or how hard they think they are.
Think it's actually much healthier for IB as a business model because the industry got away with inefficient processes due to insecure leaders and poor middle managers. This is a forcing function for newly rising VPs and Ds to ask themselves what really matters because, for the first time, analysts are a real, persistent resource constraint.
Also, this should be a forcing function for IB teams to be better managed. In tech, consulting, and other prof. services businesses, leaders operationalize their capacity usage with tightly measured metrics and balance employee retention and revenue generation. High-time for IB to be forced to the same place.
OP, it's people like you that make finance suck.
OP, you are literally a bitch to your clients, and you’re glorifying it as if it fucking means anything. You know IB is 90% bs work, and for some reason you’ve bought into the idea that everyone needs to take it because that’s how things are done.
I’m personally stoked that these kids aren’t taking bullshit anymore. The fact that the talent pool is getting worse and worse is indicative of the fact that IB just isn’t as attractive anymore. And it shouldn’t be. It’s objectively a shit fucking job, and the myriad of alternatives popping up just proves that point.
The argument about how there’s ppl lining up to take IB spots is also fucking retarded. How far along the chain do we go? There’s kids in third world countries wishing they could get a job at McDonalds in America, so obviously McDonalds workers should just shut up and do the work they’re told to do and not ask for a living wage? You see where this is going? It’s an inherently privileged narrative that needs to get killed. Things only get better when people complain, and things could be a whole lot better. This also benefits you, OP.
So in summary, go fuck yourself and your ridiculous boomer mentality. You’re the reason why I left banking, because people like you are too stuck in your ways while being too fucking stupid to realize it.
"Things only get better when people complain"
Found the blue-haired, feminist activist who lives in Oregon working for a WMOB ESG Impact Development fund and posts about politics on LinkedIn.
Also, you left banking because you're soft, not because of me dunny.
Let me put this into perspective for you. I am the bitch of my PE fund as an Associate, but you’re my bitch as a banker. What does that make you? You are a literal bitch to your clients bitch. That’s how little you matter. You are pond scum that nobody at my firm would ever interact with so they force me to do it.
Put another way, your job is to serve me, who you call a blue haired ESG feminist activist. And you’re proud of the fact that you’re their bitch. So proud that you think people are soft for moving to the client side!
Hope this helps you sleep at night bro.
to all the people shitting on OP, imagine if:
1) police officers said fuck it I don't wanna chase criminals and risk my life
2) fire department said fuck it I'm not going in this burning building and risking my life to save some strangers
3) doctors said fuck it I don't wanna deal with sick and see blood, shit, open bodies, and death
4) teachers said fuck it I don't wanna deal with these little pricks who don't appreciate that I'm trying to help them succeed in life
5) pilots said fuck it I'm sick of constant jet lag and dealing with turbulence, it fucks up my body
6) farmers said fuck it I'm sick of busting my ass under the sun doing physical work
7) construction workers said fuck it I'm tired of inhaling chemicals, carrying heavy shit, and risking to get a physical injury
8) movers said fuck it I'm tired of lifting couches and wardrobes
9) delivery drivers, bus drivers said fuck it I'm tired of dealing with constant traffic, inhaling gas exhaust all day
overall, every single job sucks. nobody fucking wants to works. but most of us have to fucking work. so just take it on the chin with grace instead of whining. nobody likes this but we have to do it to keep the world running. you want to have a roof over your head that somebody needs to build and maintain (and they don't enjoy doing it), you want to wear clothes and use electronics that somebody needs to develop, manufacture, and deliver to you (and they don't enjoy doing it), you want to have food on your table that somebody needs to grow, deliver, cook, then deliver again (and they don't enjoy doing it), so shut the fuck up and do your work - nobody cares that you don't enjoy doing it, none of us does. our jobs actually suck way less than vast majority of others, especially for what we make. a lot of people would do anything to be in your place but they didn't have a rich daddy who told them about IB when they were 14 and got them into target school.
As a millennial (32yrs old in PE) I actually have to agree with Miracle’s post above. Whilst I think Gen-Z can be a bit soft/self-obsessed at times, on this I think they’re completely right. The pandemic in particular has highlighted how life is short and how sacrificing 5-10+ yrs of your life for some distant future image of a perfect life (which may well be a mirage) just isn’t necessarily worth it anymore.
Also for me the biggest thing which I don’t think has been properly touched on yet is what your salary actually buys you these days. In the days of Gen-X you could be a mid-level banker making a few hundred $k a year and live a very very good life - big house, maybe a vacation home, kids in private school etc. Nowadays? Not so much. With the current state of real estate prices, earning $400k vs $200k a year actually means having a slightly bigger suburban house - it certainly won’t give you a baller lifestyle.
I mean just speaking for myself, currently I make $300k in MM PE, working 60-65hrs a week. If you’d asked me a few years ago if I would move to MF PE to make $600k+ annually working 80-100hrs a week (ie having very few free weekends) I would have taken that trade no question. But now I honestly don’t think I would (not that a MF would be hiring me anyway).
As what does earning $600k vs $300k really mean in a HCOL area these days? Really not as much as you’d think after taxes - basically a marginally bigger house (but still not a mansion) and maybe a nicer car, but that’s about it. Is it worth sacrificing a very significant portion of your free time? Hell no imho.
Now of course that’s a very privileged position to have compared to most Americans - but the fact still remains that having $400k in savings instead of $200k won’t make that much difference to your life. At the end of the day you can only buy so many Rolexes or Gucci loafers, and the novelty of conspicuous consumption wears off in my view.
Also added to the fact that Gen-Z see all these crypto bros/influencers etc making more than them whilst working way less. Of course there is a massive survivorship bias with these influencers/crypto guys, but I’m sure it’s still quite demotivating to see as a young kid when you’re working 90-100hrs a week.
And finally as mentioned I think the pandemic has had an impact on people - imagine you’d worked 80-90hrs a week for years hardly seeing your parents/relatives so that you could enjoy a golden future with them when you finally ease up, only to see them pass away suddenly? That combined with the move to wfh (and showing that it works for companies!) has really changed young people’s mindsets - and tbh I really can’t blame them.
Addressing mental health does not mean you are soft. The boomer generation was taught to ignore their feelings which led to depression, anxiety, health problems and suicide. Taking care of your mental health makes you a stronger person. As someone who has worked in banking for many years, I totally advocate for taking care of both mental and physical health. If you are working 80-100 hours a week you should have a two hour exercise or gym brake as well as an hour mental health break a day. People are not productive when their mental and physical health is poor. I think the hardos of banking need to take a step back and reflect and reassess their own perspective.
As of early recruiting, that needs to stop. Most people that young of an age do not know what they want to do. This could cause a very miserable situation in banking. So what if the banks do not get the ivy league grads. There are plenty of non-target grads that are smarter and can do circles around the target grads especially if they are the right fit. Also there should be more of a recruiting pipeline for fp&a, big 4 roles and other experienced hires other than just trying to fill the spots of those who dropped out. Experienced hires know more about themselves and what they want out of life and career. They are more centered. I hope this helps.