Best Finance Career for Work-Life Balance?
I enjoy finance, particularly trading, but I have little interest having to work more than 50 hours a week, at least for an extended period. What areas would you suggest?
Iim thinking I'll work in trading for about 10 years (I'm currently trading for an asset mgmt firm) then using my savings and trading skills to daytrade my own capital, thus setting my own convenient hours. What do you think? Any other ideas?
PWM at more senior levels is a really cush job from what I've heard, but may not conform to your interests since you suggested a career oriented around trading. Also, lots of large F500 (Google, Microsoft, Intel, etc.) have internal hedge funds / PE funds to invest the firm's excess cash. Lifestyle is good, more stable if you're looking to start a family.
I'll second the PWM role at senior levels. Know a VP at UBS PWM who loves his job, works until around 6pm and is mad chill. Have no idea how much he earns, but I'd assume at least $1-2mm. Nobody telling you what to do, just chatting with clients and following the markets day to day. Seems like a pretty sweet gig, but may be a bit slow for some.
Working in wealth management now, I can attest to that. There's some guys who only work market hours unless they have an appointment or client meeting; the team members under them handle any other incoming calls or stuff like that.
The thing is, you have to bust your ass to get there. A huge book doesn't build itself overnight, and you need to maintain it.
What about corporate finance and structured finance?.
corp fin depending on your group
So you are already a trader for an Asset Management firm working 50-60 hours a week max. How much better are you expecting it to get?
I do FX sales and hedging for small to mid size businesses. Its grueling work around 100 cold calls a days but there is no ceiling to what you can make (top guy at my firm last year did 2m) and pretty much nobody works over 50 hours a week (although those hours are very busy). The name of the game is volume and after a few years of "pounding the phones" very large money can be made.
Whats your actual role? Are you trading or just building a book of biz for the company? B2B I assume or are you targeting HNWI's?
building book of biz B2B, my bad if I misunderstood what trading actually meant here I am new here. We focus on small - midsize companies (500k - 100M in yearly FX exposure) although occasionally we bring in a larger company who will us for their unexpected FX spend outside of their credit revolver. not sure what HNWI stands for but my actual role is sales. I cold call, pitch (Either phone, webex, in person what ever they prefer) and close. I haven't been in this industry long but its really a game of volume been on the phone for a month and I've already signed up 2 clients even though that doesn't mean much money for me, but I also don't ever have to deal with them again. So the name of the game is to make a huge book of business sitting underneath you while you focus on bringing in more. Than as account management does the trades for them you get paid (though this model varies firm to firm I know some companies let you deal your own book)
Finance Job (Originally Posted: 10/12/2014)
Is there an industry/job in Finance that doesn't have ridiculous 80+hour work weeks? While i do have an interest in working in finance, i have a sleeping disorder and therefore need to have 7+ hours sleep each day (you know, like a normal human being). Furthermore, i'd like to do small things like go to the gym and play the piano, things that help me keep my sanity.
My friend who recently had a summer internship at an IB told me he got to go home by 11 pm (+ on saturday), and that has since scared the crap out of me.
So Is there any finance etc. job straight out of college that doesn't require morphing into a zombie, or should i look for a different industry?
Any job except IB...
Depends what you mean by finance. And what you want salary/prestige wise.
There is corporate finance/commercial banking/etc. Which is much more regular hours but you're going to be looking at not even close to the same comp 80% of the time.
Worry about getting in first, than worry about your existential crisis.
From what I've seen S&T and Asset Management are probably the only two FO sell-side jobs in finance that consistently have less than 80 hour work weeks. Obviously, IB is well above that threshold and even a research role is no guarantee of less than 80 hours.
You could aim for Asset Management, as stated above. Even going directly to a large mutual fund would likely not be 80 hour weeks (I believe). For the record, makes sense for you to pursue a lower key job time-wise because of your disorder, but you can still make it to the gym a few times a week, play the piano etc a little bit working 80+ hours a week
I would look at commercial banking and investment management divisions of large insurance firms. Comp wouldn't be the same as banking, but you'd likely still do well compared to the rest of the world while having a life outside of work (even at the junior level)... most of the time.
Plus you'd be analyzing businesses as an investor (albeit a debt investor) which would be a plus if you're like the typical person that would ideally like to do PE after IB. Also, if you're willing to grind out IB for a bit, you could also just focus on smaller mezz / PE firms that have more work life balance. There are def some of those out there that pay well. Especially, if you're willing to settle down outside of high cost of living places like NY/San Fran/etc.
With all that said, just know that, given the level of competition for deals, you will likely have to work long hours (even if it's temporary) some times in finance.
Good luck!
Any corporate finance job at a F500.
corporate finance. I work ~45 hours a week, almost no weekends. People in my office think that staying until 7-8 PM is really late.
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