Pick you life - Investment Banking

Investment Banking

• Analyst. For 2-3 years, your life is basically spent working, and yes it's mentally hard, can take a toll on your health (weight gain, posture etc.) and you don't really learn that much in terms of practical skills. Let's not fool yourself, you spend most of your time building models and doing powerpoint, but what you're really learning is how to work hard and very fast and be an execution machine. The pros : you're making very good money for a 20 something, and you don't have much time to spend it on anything. Because you're constantly being tortured mentally and physically, it is a good environment to bond with colleagues, and some of them will be friends for life. Even though you might get treated like shit, you're still a hot commodity on the job market with tons of exit options, and most likely single.  Life is good.

• Associate: being an associate is really not far off from being an analyst. You still work really hard, and seniors expect more of you - you're the one who is going to get yelled at and take on the pressure when things get messed up. If you're a bit older, long nights are much harder. You make good money, but it doesn't taste that good compared to when you were an analyst. You're at the stage of thinking about serious relationships, but the job and the hours are really an issue in your relationship. If you are a post MBA with a student loan, you know you're fucked because you won't be able to quit and you're in survival mode. You still don't learn that much more as an associate and your exit options start to get limited, so you feel the pressure much more career-wise. Life generally sucks.

• VP. Ok you made it to VP and now life starts to get a little bit better. You've got analysts and associates looking up to you, you have a bit more time on your hands because you're not cranking as hard as the junior guys, and you don't really have a P&L responsibility. You might even get a small shitty office, but an office it is. You actually start to understand and think about what you're doing. You start to learn about schmoozing and sales. But you also feel stuck - too late to go to PE, a client probably offered you to join their CorpDev department but you know that nobody will pay you as well to do what you do. You're trapped, but money is good! You might even get a long-term girlfriend and start to spend some of that cash. But you're thinking - what's next? Well you made it to VP so you might as well try to make it to MD

• Director: so now you're hot shit and get the right to try to get some business. The title feels senior, you've got teams working for you and get to go to 'strategic' internal meetings, conferences and stuff. But, now you're accountable... you actually have to bring money in... and you're getting quite jealous of those MDs with huge bonuses. You have a family to feed now and private schools and that mortgage are really expensive... if you made it to MD, you could really live the life! you dedicate the next 2-3 years to work as hard as you can and play the internal politics to make it to MD, sucking up to heads of departments and powerful MDs.

• MD. MD! you made it! You're feeling on top. Big office, all kind of new expense accounts, your own clients, your name in press releases. You also feel like an expert in your sector. You've got all the money you need. You haven't seen the kids and wife for a while, probably are having an affair with the assistant or some gold digger you met at the conference or on a business trip. You feel guilty of having spent all those years working so hard. Bitter even. Suddenly you realize that you're just an MD amongst 100s others. You have a very nice house and cars, but you want more. Your house is not the biggest. You want to go on top. You want to be a Sector Head, a country Head, Head of Americas, Global Head, and who knows, COO? And if they don't deserve you, CEO of a public company? You start to spend your time plotting and thinking how to take out rival MDs and showing power. This is just the beginning