How much work do you ACTUALLY do? And how much free time do you ACTUALLY get?

I feel like this information is skewed because there are a bunch of hardos on here who love to be like - 100 hours every week, no time for anything, nothing at all, no family, no gym, no TV, nothing, 110 hours a week bro.

Then I talk to a few buddies working in the industry and they’re telling me their average week is like 65 hours or so, just depends on the week.

How much do you ACTUALLY do? Cause you could just be in the office hanging out, not doing a whole lot of legit work. Then also, as a first year analyst how mentally draining are the tasks from an intellectual level? I see people all the time say they just move shit around on PowerPoint lmao

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It's so hard to even quantify I think for a lot of people because it's entirely dependent on how the markets are doing, how much your group is pitching, how many live deals your group has going on and what you're staffed on, as well as the staffing composition of each group.  You won't find a consistent answer at all.  If you just rolled off a deal, for example, and your MD's have a lot of live deals going there won't be as much pitch work, so you might have super chill hours for a bit, whereas if you're staffed on two live deals, the group doesn't have a lot of juniors and the other MDs are pitching a lot you'll get crushed.  There's no consistent answer aside from that the hours can be brutal but aren't always.

 

Curious as well. I just rolled off two live deals that are now dead and have been having super chill weeks for a month (~40-50 hours). Before I was consistently working 75-90 hours for months. I felt pretty insecure about it since it feels like everyone else is getting crushed and was wondering if I did anything wrong - how’s everyone else’s hours been so far? Is it normal to have such a prolonged period of downtime? My staffer knows I’ve been chilling but hasn’t reached out to me to staff me on a bunch of new things

 

Analyst one here in a very busy product group. First month or so on the job was grinding on a few deals consistent 80+ hours of actual work. Past month I’ve been CHILLING. Will spend an entire day BSing around at home with occasional deliverable I can crank out in a couple hours. Averaging like 60 hours max month of October still with the occasional 1am night but barely anything on the weekends. It’s EXTREMELY variable. I have two live processes and a pitch all ramping and / or going to market at the exact same time next week and plan on pulling 100+ until thanksgiving starting next week, following a lighter thanksgiving week and picking up again rapidly until Christmas week. Just the way it rolls. In banking, when it rains it pours. 

 

I think the issue is that some people are in the office and so even if they have no work and are waiting for comments it feels like they still are working which is a justified feeling imo. Whereas those WFH can do whatever for the most part during downtime so it feels like less work.

Personally, might just because I'm not at an EB and I'm WFH, the amount of actual hours I work is not much maybe 40-50h as someone else said. Yes, there are things that need to be turned at midnight or I might need to wait around until after dinner to start on something but the rest of the day is free and waiting so in terms of actual hours worked for me it's not been much at all. But I understand I am likely an exception and am not at one of the banks circlejerked on here.

 
Most Helpful

Just finished an IPO deal and clocked in 90 hours the last week or so.

Past 2-3 months have been ~70/75 hours average, but at the beginning of 2021 for like 2 months I literally worked 20 hours per week tops. 

Pitch: My group constantly pitches but MD tries not to do meaningless pitches. Well, he tries.

Execution: 3 live deals. 1 of them is pretty much dead. Hit a milestone for #2, and on-going with #3. 

Overall: I sincerely believe it entirely depends on whether MD and VP are psychopaths.  

 

My year so far- was getting crushed during January through March (90+ hours every week), had 2 months of downtime (50 hours a week max), 2 months of moderate busy (~80 hours), then I've been in downtime (50-60) ever since with a few weeks of 80 hours here and there. It's so dependent on the deal flow and what stage the live deals are on. My group also doesn't pitch a ton, but still had an overall relaxing year. Also a 2nd year analyst and I feel like I've become very efficient at analyst duties. Last year, I had maybe 4 weeks where I didn't work under 75-80, so I gained a lot of reps and efficiencies there to help myself this year 

 

If I’m working on a startup at the same time when joining FT, will I have time to contribute? Given there’s this “downtime” in between waiting for turns on comments etc.

path less traveled
 

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