Lifestyle as an associate at MM/EB (trying to decide if I should lateral or not...hot market)
I work for a LMM boutique in large non-NYC city. Not great name cache on here but decent reputation in our industry niches. I was promoted to associate earlier this year and am thinking about lateral to a bigger platform. Hours are still relatively bad - we are pretty lean.
So in the spirit of having my cake and eating it too, I would like to lateral but wanted to get a sense of the lifestyle for associates, especially as we pivot back from COVID/WFH.
I saw other threads saying associates may have it worse since they are in the trenches almost as much as analysts but aren't getting as much protection and need to have more ownership on the work product.
I don't care as much about my Monday - Thursdays, would love to be able to get ~2 workouts in during the week and I would be fairly happy. Not expecting to have great hours during this stretch but maybe a slight break in the evening and then back to work?
More concerned with weekends - I work weekends now but wondering how it works for associates at bigger firms with more infrastructure. It ebbs and flows for me now on weekends but seniors usually aren't too awful about turnaround time as long as I get it done/am responsive about communicating turn times. Still have my share of weekend Zoom calls though...
As an example, could I go to a 1PM weekend baseball game, get a little buzzed (or hammered if Saturday) and then work after that? Or is Sunday basically a ~10-12 hour workday for associates like it is for analysts at some of the sweatier shops? Most WLB stuff on here is highly focused on analysts.
I know this is highly dependent on group but just wanted to get a sense, especially since this is a weird time. If it makes a difference, I'll mainly be targeting non-NYC, likely south or midwest banks (so think Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, Minny, other randoms...would consider NYC I guess though). So I am hoping the stereotypes of non-NY banks being slightly better for work/life balance are true.
I care a lot about brand name since it's lacking from my resume now (which is likely to hurt me on the lifestyle point).
Tell me if I'm crazy
tl:dr - wondering I could get a couple workouts in during the week/maybe a happy hour and some have sort of weekend more often than not as an associate
maybe this lack of response answers my question!
Lateral imo
Then again I’m a stupid as fuck intern
Maybe you should consider taking the risk -- would you regret never making the move? And if you make the move and don't like it, you could arguably go back to the same level (if not the same firm) where you are currently at.
1PM on Sunday seems aggressive. Maybe if you bring your laptop to the game and tell an analyst “hey hope you made the most of those Sunday afternoons you had off”
Agree that 1pm is rarely achievable at a larger bank, unless it's some last minute thing where you have a quiet day. I think having "happy hours during the week and some weekend more often than not" is not really happening anywhere until you hit ED. At my bank as a 3rd year associate, a 10-12 hour workday on Sunday would be light.
While being A2A is good for recruiting, you'll also be expected to step up and be a top associate a lot more than an MBA lateral.
This doesn’t seem right. I’m a senior associate at a known sweatshop and even during this hellish year - I still have 95% of my Saturdays off and 50% of my sundays off, 40% less than 3-4 hours, and 10% full days.
Happy hours are tough but are very doable every Friday and probably half of the Thursdays
WBL is group dependent even at the associate level. About a third of my analyst class at a well-regarded MM could attend a basketball game on almost any Sunday, but, in my group, I could only swing that once every 2-3 months. More often than not I worked 10-11 on Saturday and 12-6 on Sunday.
You can sniff this out with LinkedIn searches, networking, etc.
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