Future of IB - Accountants, Vets, & Internationals

The culture of IB will not improve. Older men a generation or two behind will not change. What does this mean? A change in workforce until these men retire. 

A2A is a small, insignificant portion. A2s will leave to buy-side and finance as they should. IB is not sustainable for many.

Who is left? Former accountants, vets, and internationals MBAs. Former MC? Tech. Former engineer? MC. Former anything technical? MC.

The younger workforce no longer values hard dollars over interesting work, balance, and personal growth. IB lacks all three.

Will a man who has worked the same way for decades change? Nope. Will he change after earning millions? Nope. Will IB change without change at the top? Nope.

IB is in a death spiral. $100k USD/40 hrs per week is easy to get for anyone that can get IB

Note to senior bankers: Pls fix

 
Most Helpful

Not trying to dampen your mood or anything but this just isn't realistic. I'm very grateful that my "industry colleagues" have managed to convince the banks to raise the base salaries to $100k+ and speaking out about the mistreatment and stuff, but the truth be told, I'm a realist and I just don't really care about the working conditions. I immigrated to America like a decade (before you ask, I'm White and Hispanic, not Asian) ago and I'm very grateful for investment banking. I legitimately don't care about not going out nor not having 'fun' in the traditional way that most college kids define it as. Long hours don't and haven't bothered me because I just don't see it as being something that's that bad. My bank gives me a $25 a day food stipend and I get to live in a studio in NYC that I thought was impossible only a couple years prior. I have no technical abilities beyond typing mediocrely in Excel and enjoying finance a lot, I like reading about history and investing and other things of that sort, so it isn't like if I have a viable alternative that's that much better.

I value money a lot more than anything else and rather grind when I'm young than regret when I'm older. I fear being depressed when I'm older, wondering "why didn't I take that high paying, long hour job." Many of my colleagues who go to better schools and come from better, richer backgrounds bag about the fact that they aren't working on a startup or taking more risk but that's just unrealistic and dumb, it's very unlikely you're working on the next Google or something and if you really were, you wouldn't be in IB in the first place, no? 

Don't want the system to change, I'm happily content, I'll leave after 2 years with around $90k saved in my pocket and get to investing it for the long term with the help of my family and that's that. I'll go off to a PE firm and stay there for a bit, build up my passive income stream through whichever way seems more practical (it doesn't even matter because I'll be making so much and saving so much at such a young age, the compounding interest meme) and look for a wife to set up a family of 5+ kids with because I'll be able to afford it.

I don't care about all this "it's tough and tiring" stuff, and "muh culture", whatever, immigrating here was substantially harder and much more worthwhile than anything else. I was homeless at one point, life has been worse and it could be worse.

I just don't care. Focus on yourself and make as much as you can and block out the noise.

 

Thanks for your service, wageslave. Your masters must be very happy to have imported immigrants like you

 

Not to detract from your point. But you should definitely have saved more than $90k after two years in IB. People will disagree, but that's not really a good amount to set yourself up with unless you do PE longer-term. I just think your math is a bit off. Two years with the new pay (think 2022 bonuses for juniors will be similar to this year given deal flow hasn't been letting up), should let you save around $150k over two years if not a bit more if your top EB or low COL.

 

Even better mate, the more the merrier, I'm a pretty frugal guy and I don't go out. What's the budgeting look like for this though, because I talk to my buddies and they say that's an insane number.

 

I get hit up a lot by the accounting guys who are pretty much getting hit with that senior year regret meme, where they just ate shit for 3 years and never bothered to do much and I just go on the phone for 30 minute virtual consoling-coping sessions because I can't really tell them that it's practically over unless they get their shit together very fast, but even when they do, it's just so tough to break out of the Big 4 meme stigma.

My favorite, but sad, conversation was with one guy who I basically had to break it to that no real companies do on campus recruiting at our school. Dude was an MBA, nice guy but was just completely disconnected from reality. I go to one of those severely overpriced private party schools that ranks well enough on paper but has horrific job prospects in practice and I am literally part of a handful of guys who "made it" and it's just really puzzling to see how freaked out these kids get once they realized they made a huge mistake by just wasting time. On the bright side, I get some satisfaction from it but even then, it's just a weird feeling because they're not even bad people, they're just lazy rich kids who are kind of getting hit in the face with the fact that life isn't over once you graduate college lmao.

The MBA guy though was blindsided hard. Dude was asking me about Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan and I pretty much laid him down gently, cause I didn't have the guts to tell him the "bro we aren't at an M7 or Ivy, no one is coming to this dogshit school for those roles." Like dude wasted $70k for no reason. To think I'll make more than that guy is making at age 35 with an MBA while straight out of undergrad with no debt is just baffling to me because it's just insane to think that's even possible. 

The non-coren school MBA thing is hilarious though because you have all these dogshit schools labeling themselves as "crypto MBAs" and "quant MBA" and all this other copy-paste quirky word bullshit which is just to improve SEO for the online MBA programs on Google claiming that they're going to revolutionize your life with their profound education and you go into the classroom and it's just 12 middle aged dudes from ADP and UPS corporate scratching their balls for 3 hours a day after work while dropping $65k a year on an essentially worthless piece of paper.

I might not have partied nor had fun in college, but Lord knows that I definitely feel satisfied.

 

Proving OPs point. You have fewer options and not much of a skill set transferable to other fields. 
 

IB is no longer desirable to many of its traditional applicant pool and thus, banks will have to expand hiring rather than fix what’s wrong with the culture. 
 

Hope you land in PE! 

 

Hello, it seems that you worry about becoming depressed for not having enough cash - but did you consider that you might regret losing time while you were young ?

 
Funniest

M&A deal volume is at one of its highest points in decades, the Leveraged Finance market broke records, and banks' investment banking divisions are reporting solid revenues.

> OP: "IB is in a death spiral"

 

banks aren't struggling to find top talent lmao. Thousands of students at targets/semi-targets are interested in IB. Banks are struggling to keep top talent in banking for longer than 1-3 years. Huge difference. 

 

Vel quas error laborum et molestiae suscipit error. Illum impedit quia sed quia doloremque. Deserunt earum temporibus perspiciatis minima harum quibusdam fuga. Sed officia culpa fuga numquam omnis et error. Quae alias doloribus voluptas harum ipsa. Exercitationem voluptatem recusandae repudiandae aut. Necessitatibus dolorem blanditiis rerum.

Debitis repudiandae et voluptas ex voluptate culpa. Cum veritatis quas cum sunt. Enim facilis non minima quis. Quia aperiam quas id voluptates laudantium. Dolores quae atque iusto laudantium.

Consequatur tempore tenetur sed. Hic autem dolorem qui quam quo.

Dolor vel qui accusamus nulla cumque velit sint autem. Deserunt qui aut repellat alias nobis quis. Aperiam nesciunt iste iure atque voluptatem rerum qui. Labore at et sequi odio a. Culpa excepturi et commodi eius rerum facere et. Aliquam possimus consequatur earum ratione quo. Et eum ut voluptas quia.

Career Advancement Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Jefferies & Company 02 99.4%
  • Goldman Sachs 19 98.8%
  • Harris Williams & Co. (++) 98.3%
  • Lazard Freres 02 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 03 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Harris Williams & Co. 18 99.4%
  • JPMorgan Chase 10 98.8%
  • Lazard Freres 05 98.3%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.7%
  • William Blair 03 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Lazard Freres 01 99.4%
  • Jefferies & Company 02 98.8%
  • Goldman Sachs 17 98.3%
  • Moelis & Company 07 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 05 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Director/MD (5) $648
  • Vice President (19) $385
  • Associates (86) $261
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (13) $181
  • Intern/Summer Associate (33) $170
  • 2nd Year Analyst (66) $168
  • 1st Year Analyst (202) $159
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (144) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
99.0
3
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
99.0
4
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
5
kanon's picture
kanon
98.9
6
DrApeman's picture
DrApeman
98.9
7
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
8
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
9
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
10
numi's picture
numi
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”