As comp in IB continues to disappoint, I was wondering what industry paid as well as IB, and had the potential salary upside of IB for an associate / VP - any ideas? Does corporate pay as well? How much would a Business Development director earn at a Fortune 500 company?
How about consulting? Pros/cons?
Bus Dev especially starting off in bus dev is definitely not as high.
I would say (top 3) consulting, (including perks) is very comparable, and depending on who you are, the job is quite interesting.
Agreed that starting job in bus dev not only pays poorly but sucks too. But if you get in at director level (basically running the thing - something a 2nd or 3rd year VP could do), how much could you make?
IBD is a good way to ensure relatively strong earnings.
Real wealth is derived from owning companies (true equity, not somebody who has 20 shares of KO).
That's why there were so many bankers to be who ran off to the tech scene in the 90's it was another potential shot of get rich quick.
Consulting...
Of course, you can say that IBD is tough work too and I agree. But I'd much rather do 80 hours in IBD and sleep in my own bed, eat my own food, than 80 hours of consulting, 20 of which are my own time, while connecting through God-forsaken Denver on my way to Ames Iowa to sleep at a Hampton fucking Inn.
This is very misleading:
1) Rarely do you fly on Sundays. It does happen, but a good manager isn't going to let that crap happen, because it's that person's time too.
2) Compensated for personal time? Is this a union job? You charge everything to either your client or to internal for all the time you're busting your ass traveling. Regardless, you're salaried, so it's all about what your charge time is and metrics come review season.
3) Hampton Inn? (I really hate myself for being a points snob at this point. But really?)
Pretty much everything you just wrote is false. Except the hours - that's legit. Smaller operations, particularly off-brand IT consulting shops are going to fit your description because they are far more price sensitive - they have much lower bill rates simply to get business, and live in fear of charging clients too much for expenses. Any of the shops talked about in this forum (McK, Bain, BCG, LEK, Monitor, OW, Deloitte, EY, PwC, Accenture, etc.) are going to be as follows:
(1) Most consulting shops - at least the big name ones worth their salt, are M-Th travel, home (or in office) on Friday. Probably quite a few wfh hours on Saturday afternoon as well, but at least you're at home. This can change during crunch time or for very specific projects (see #3), but is generally the rule.
(2) At these same consulting shops, you are generally salaried + bonus (or maybe K1 if you're a partner), so I'm not sure what contract you're talking about regarding payment for personal time. Also not sure where you're getting a contract that requires someone to travel on Sunday. That's all project specific, and you rotate on and off projects with no "contract". You're an employee of the firm you work at.
(3) If you do land on a project where weekend stays are requested or expected for a long period (i.e maybe client wants everyone there 8am Monday -> 5pm Friday), or you really are just working around the clock 7 days a week, a few things happen that generally don't for the M-Th folks: corporate hosing comes into play, so you might get an apartment on location for however long you need to be there. Additional cost of living expenses enter as well: laundry service, and other things they generally wouldn't pay for if you're only on-site M-Th. All of this is paid for by the client, and not your problem.
(4) Firms are generally very flexible with mixing personal and work travel / time. For example, it's almost a universal perk that if you, say, live in Chicago and are on a project in Dallas, instead of flying back to Chicago on Thursday night, you can fly anywhere you want, up to the cost of your ticket home. Maybe you go visit friends in Denver for the weekend, etc.
(5) Location: So many projects are going to be in major metro areas that, while yes you could get stuck in Bum Fuck Iowa - that's unlikely. Most people I know spent their entire careers in Chicago, NYC, DC, San Fran, LA, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Charlotte, etc. Rarely did I know of, or hear of people having to spend months on end in the middle of no where (even though it does happen on occasion - it's just not the rule) .
Well, Big Law can achieve the same level of pay (~$160,000 in NYC), but you're coming in after three years of law school.
a somalian pirate....they fucking rake
BB S&T
PE, if you're lucky enough to get in straight out of undergrad ...
S&T
1 - I am writing about my experience with IBM not some risky dink little consulting shop.
2 - you guys are only thinking about domestic assignments. If you're good - and I was VERY good - you get sent overseas. So, 9 hour flight to Colombia and the client wants you there Monday, 8 am. Guess which day you're flying out? And it's a three week contract. Guess how many weekends you're spending in Colombia?
3 - It doesn't matter who you work for EVERYONE is cost conscious now. The days of the client footing the bill for anything you want are over. Most clients stick by GSA rates and I don't have to tell you how much those suck.
4 - my its was not so much about the scheduling & expenses as it was about the personal time away from home. Unless you've been there, as I have, it's hard to appreciate what it means to sleep in your own bed. Both of you knuckleheads made references ti that without really appreciating what it means.
I stand by my previous statement. You're better off slaving in ib than consulting.
IBM isn't little but it's pretty close to rinky dink. My friends there all echo your sentiments: shitty projects, cheap ass clients, boring work... High end management consulting with MBB (not IT consulting) is an entirely different world. Clients do foot the bill for everything, and there's none of this GSA rate bullshit. For whatever reason, the work I'm doing for them is worth more than I could possibly charge for dinner, and they recognize that.
although it's a front/middle office role in working with the S&T team, how is Equity Research as a career for a few years before moving on?
NBA Point Guard. Jeremy Lin majored in Econ at Harvard. Could have done IB after school but stuck with bball and now he's reeling in 800 grand a year
I like how this website denies the existence of the medical profession.
If you're smart enough to be an MD, you're smart enough to be an MD. The question is how ruthless and practical you are.
Could you elaborate? Not sure what you were driving at here...
This is just completely false. The two have almost nothing to do with each other. Sure, there are smart and dumb MDs, and there are some dumb MDs who worked their asses off to get where they are today, but on AVERAGE, I'd think it's pretty clear that MDs are way smarter than MDs. What are you judging intelligence by? Certainly not how much money they make, so are you including street smarts? And how good at making a sales they are? Because I think you'd be hard pressed to find people who would include that as part of "smart" (unless you're asking stupid people who feel insecure about their intelligence and need to validate themselves by saying that being able to pitch and makes sales is part of being "smart")
When you take into the account the opportunity cost of pursuing a medical degree, the cost of financing such an education, and how MDs are getting increasingly fucked in the ass by insurance premiums...f-uck no I would not ever consider that profession
This.
Anyone here mentioning anything in medicine is just plain wrong. With the way insurance is in this country I don't know how anyone willingly chooses med school. Also most of these grads have no idea what it takes to go out on your own. I heard that even a small dental practice can require a 1M+ to open. That's a huge nut to cover with competitive prices and tough insurance rules.
I'll assume you mean outside of other finance jobs, like hedge funds and ER.
Big Law has already been mentioned.
Sales within a f500 can do well, especially if they can build their own book of business. Generally not IB MD level, but still very good.
Real Estate is, or was, surprisingly profitable. Of course, it depends on the broader market as well.
The commodities giants (glencore, cargill, etc.) also pay near finance salaries, but they make you prove yourself for a few years before your pay jumps.
Old, but still rather true: http://www.er-doctor.com/doctor_income.html
Medicine is not something that makes financial sense; 4 extra years of school and then 3-6 years of what amounts to a living wage. Also, you have to consider the 200k+ in debt you wrack up in medical school.
Doctors can make money, but most involve starting an entrepreneurial venture in an in-demand niche. Like a dermatologist who starts their own skin care line. And yes, top neurosurgeons can make $1mm+, but they are the absolute best and brightest of the already qualified applicant pool.
So yes, you can make the same money but you'll be almost a decade older, in more debt and will have gone through significant steps to get there.
That's a good thing. Most doctors are bigger dildos than the biggest dildos in finance. Plus, if you are doing it right you crush their earnings and only the neuros and orthos can compete (except they are old by our measure and by the time they are making their bank they're w/250k+ in debt. )
Or engineering and architecture (granted the earnings potential is far lower unless you start your own firm).
Got a client. Electrical engineer out of a mediocre SEC state university. $139,000 base, $200,000+ all-in comp. Age 29. Not bad.
Careful here. Sister's Husband: USF grad 4.0, 20 years as aerospace electrical at same (top 3) firm. All in $120k.
Petro engineering is good and engineering as a whole allows for the potential to start your own firm, but bare-bones mechanical and electrical have a hard time breaking $150k, at least from what i hear/see.
Public accounting won't be as highly compensated as IB or consulting but the pay is pretty decent after a few years. Here's a chart on big 4 salary assuming you're coming fresh out of undergrad then masters in accounting.
http://goingconcern.com/post/lets-take-second-look-15-year-trajectory-b…
[quote=beancounter]Public accounting won't be as highly compensated as IB or consulting but the pay is pretty decent after a few years. Here's a chart on big 4 salary assuming you're coming fresh out of undergrad then masters in accounting.
http://goingconcern.com/post/lets-take-second-look-15-year-trajectory-b…]
That's absolutely horrific partner comp. Yuck. About 10 years ago (when I was in high school) my accounting class did a day trip to PwC's office in Fairfax County, VA. They told us at the time that a typical partner at their firm was dropping 7 figures. It actually was one of my inspirations for starting out in accounting as a major in college.
Either they were lying to me or the last decade has significantly changed culture in the big accounting firms. But to make a partner level position you'd have to be bringing in many millions of dollars in accounts after sacrificing a good 20 years of your life. Hard to believe $450,000 is the expected comp.
Let's clear a few things up.
First, you're only looking at the first 3 years of partnership, which are skewed because of capital repayment. Typically firms will loan you however much your buy-in is (call it a few hundred thousand) at a super low rate, and you pay it back in your first few years. So those numbers are probably net of those payments.
Second, most partners stick around for another 20+ years. Consider: you're 22 when you leave undergrad, so 12 years later you're 34 when you make partner. Most partners at Big4 firms that I know are in their 40's / 50's, and even a few in their 60's. Every year they accumulate more partnership shares as the older guys retire and sell their shares back. So, while the new partners might only be making $450k, the middle of the pack guys are easily into very high 6 figures / 7 figures. Advisory (i.e. non audit, non tax) is even higher. The very senior partners, either by tenure (more partnership shares), or by rank / position (i.e. regional managing partner, or head of an entire service line in a particular country) can be making $2M - $3M no problem.
Now, granted, these still aren't high end banking / consulting numbers, and Big4 partners work a lot more years to top out their comp, but that $450k number is definitely the low end of the spectrum (new partners).
Lastly, don't forget that Big4 partners have almost unlimited access to CEO's at every large company, and are often tapped as CFO's and CIO's - an older colleague of mine was a partner at PwC and is now CFO of a major F500 beverage company, and he's pulling down $6M - $8M per year with salary + bonus + stock options.
OK, a bit more about myself - I am a post MBA associate in a BB, so most of the options that are mentioned are not options (law, consulting, etc) are not options for me. What other jobs provide comparable pay checks for an associate?
engineer
Engineering doesn't pay nearly as well as finance. Starting salaries may be comparable, but there's much less advancement.
Looking at my friends and removing family money and entrepreneurship from the equation...
Alternatives careers that pay well: - A few friends (surgeons) do well for themselves. - Real estate investments/acquisitions can be lucrative (although very cyclical and finance related sector). - I don't know how well advertising pays (Ogilvy, Publicis, etc...) but a friend of mine is a director at a similar firm and does well for himself. - Certain areas of legal work pay well.
no one is going to mention the oil industry in general?
Petroleum engineering. I know kids from our school who graduate with $110K+ starting salaries.
Equity Research pays pretty well in Asia (Japan, S.Korea) Entry research assistants make around 70-80K. Once you become an associate it jumps up to 100-120K and make it to Analyst, you're looking at around 300K. Get 7~8 years of exp under your belt, you can make close to 7 figures.
Of course it's nowhere near hundreds of millions you IB monkeys are probably aiming for, but considering you have almost zero risk of losing your job in ER, great work-life balance, and decent exit opps, it's definitely a good life. You do however have to be bilingual in Japanese/Korean and English and you'll find yourself doing a LOT of translation work in your first 2-3 years.
Just FYI - in Asia, IBD pays significantly more than Consulting, but also has much worse hours. 100 hours of work versus maybe 70-80, for which you get paid (first year) 150-200k vs 75-100k USD a year.
PORN
STAR
every aspiring porn star gotta do a gay scene to move up, just like the schools of associates getting mounted from behind.
not valuations.
Blow jobs?
The real earning potential comes down to where you top out at, imo. Finance gives you the best chance to make 500k+/year. There are no comparable industries. None. Not entertainment, not legal, not high tech, not energy, not consulting.
There are a few industries/professions where 150k-200k are reasonably attainable.
If you make 250k/year as a programmer or petroleum engineer you are at the very top of the scale and likely very good at your job. That's 5 years of experience for IBD (ie: scum sucking piece of shit).
There is no real comparison.
apply your IBD experiences in organized pimping or drug dealing, I am sure down in Mexico they need someone with M&A skills.
To all of you guys championing Accounting/Medicine/BigLaw/Consulting/CorpFin, please stop.
Accounting: First off, that promotion chart is very dubious. I know senior accountants working at Big 4 firms, and they do not make anywhere near that amount. The only way to make a shitload of money in accounting is to open your own firm, and it's a lot harder than it sounds. In the unlikely event that you are some kind of accounting rain maker at a Big 4, and you do make $450,000 after 17 years on the job (+2 yrs for MBA/Masters), while a respectable amount of money, it is nothing compared to IBD. If you stuck around in IBD that long, you would most certainly be an MD, and would be making ~$1 MM.
Medicine: The best part of Medicine is not the money, it is the satisfaction of curing people, and the ultimate job security. Yes, the money is pretty good, and you'll be making guaranteed 6-figures for the rest of your life, but keep in mind that you won't be able to enter the work-force before you're 30 (22 yrs+4 yrs Med School+4 yrs Residency). And when you add up all those lost years, IBD beats Medicine decisively.
Big Law: I have personal experience in this field. When I was in college, I wanted to be a lawyer. I even took the LSAT my sophomore year. But after my BB IBD internships (which at the time I did to be more competitive for Wachtell), I opted for the IBD>PE route.
Moving on... While it is true that 1st year Associates get $160,000 a year (plus a small bonus), it does not get much higher than this as you progress. I know for a fact that a 7th year Associate at Skadden got $302k all in. Whereas a VP3 would be clearing ~$650,000 after putting in the same number of years after grad school.
Consulting: It consists of a shit-ton of traveling, and if you don't want to waste half your life in commute, and don't care about the "perks", there is very little reason to do it. Besides, the pay is much lower than IBD at pretty much every level. If you can't tell already, I'm not a fan of Consulting. However, it has excellent placement into B-School/Corp Strat, so if that's your thing, by all means go for it.
CorpFin: This a really nice gig at the F100 level, but this is a lifestyle job. Sure you'll get awesome benefits, and 40-hour weeks, but you'll never be making as much as Banking at the corresponding level.
Bottom Line: If you want to make more than Banking, go to PE/HF. Audio, provided that you graduated from a Top B-School, you could easily make the transition to PE with some hustle.
Soooooo much experience.
Actuaries make good money for 40 hour work weeks
I doubt actuaries make more than IBD MDs. Besides, getting certified as an actuary takes 10+ years. And since I was accepted to HYS Law School, I think I'm qualified to speak on it, which is more than I can say for you.
I lol'd.
Actuary
If you can get through those monstrous exams that take on average 10 years to complete... I believe an FSA or FCAS will make 250k-300k without even being a manager. This is truly the high-paying 40-hour/week job, much better work/life than Corporate Finance, where you will be putting in MORE hours as you move up to the manager or director levels.
How come nobody mentioned starting your own business?
4 LEGIT ways to make REAL money in America
1) Banking - Cyclic; more of a right time, right place thing IMO.. For all the upcoming monkeys including myself I think we're kinda fucked, at least for the next few years 2) Law - Similar to entry level banking but banking sky rockets in salary at senior levels; plus opportunity cost 3) Medicine - Largest opportunity cost 4) Start your own business - Biggest risk, biggest payout
who said that actuaries make more than IBD MDs? And since when does getting accepted to law school = personal experience in big law?
That's the kind of logic that got him into HYS law school. In his dream of course
The OP was about jobs paying more than wait for it... IB, and not relative to the hours put in. Getting into HYS might not=BigLaw exp, but after I got my decision in December, I went to the Law School to check it out, and talked at length with several 2L/3Ls who had V10 offers in hand. It was then that I finalized my decision to defer my enrollment for my 2-year Analyst stint. Hope I cleared that up.
Just shut up.
No one wants to read your biography.
political lobbyist???
If you open and run a Fat Camp, you can generate unlimited income through the Weight Loss Infomercial Market.
Alaskan crab-fishing Nigerian spammer Fluffer Moriarty-style criminal for hire Dildo tester
Consulting, a lot of people have commented on the travel but it's still mainly M-Th. International projects will take you out of the mix, but you can always travel back on the weekends. And you're always travelling business - not that domestic first class crap. The other thing is that you won't always be staffed on a project - and at times will be 'on the beach' for a couple of weeks or so.
You don't have the same upside until you hit partner but it's a pretty decent way to go if you're covering an industry that you actually like.
Also, it's great for moving into a corp dev/bus dev role at a more senior level.
Hey - I've got three consultants in my immediate family who do this on a regular basis, mainly between NY and London/Zurich/Paris - not saying you're going to be running back home every weekend and it depends on where your project is of course. Bahrain is a stretch - but doing an 8 hr flight every few wkds is more than manageable.
Yes, I've been on my share of airplanes.
You keep talking about your IBM frame of reference, which doesn't translate to other shops. Even the Big4 consulting arms are generous with travel / expenses compared to what you're talking about, and they are a far cry from the likes of MBB, which are quite frankly, lavish. Example: a friend that recently left Mckinsey, had his former project team fly him from Chicago to South Africa where they were having a project close party. They covered his air, hotel, food, and everything else for a week. They basically have like 20% expense budget on top of project fees, and they can spend it however they see fit.
IBM is a big name consulting shop, but it isn't in the game of selling services at premium rates. It's selling commodity IT work. That's why it pimps the hell out of its resources, ships you to Columbia and Bahrain, gives you shit about spending more than $10 on breakfast, and tells you to smile while taking it in the ass. The other places I listed aren't like that (except maybe Accenture).
GJ - I think you have some good insight to share on work and personal life and I enjoy reading what you have to write, but honestly your writing makes you sound like an asshole. I think you would be better off not being so condescending all the time and assuming that you are the only one who knows what you're talking about, because you aren't.
I am surprised no one mentioned commodities trading, particularly oil trading and also oil brokering.
Commodities trading / oil brokering sounds very interesting... I don't know enough about how that works though. I have a friend at a Trafigura / Vitol type place and he does well for himself.
If you're contrarian, you get into IB now.
I'm in bus dev. / corp dev job for an oil and gas midstream company. Those roles are well respected in the industry and probably pay more than most other bus dev type roles. The hours are good and pay is good. Start at ~55K + 10-20% bonus plus 5-10% retirement matching. After 3-4 years you are making 100K in salary with same bonus and matching. (all in around 130K).
Stay for a few years and you have long term incentives which can be 50-100K over a few years. Someone in their late twenties can be all in comped at 150-200K
Approx 50hrs/wk with some weeks being more depending on work flow. Industry is known for headhunting directors in bus dev / corp dev and directors could be all in comped anywhere from 300-500K. Downside is that you are pretty much stuck in cities that only offer O&G, which is not true of certain professions like law or consulting.
Best would be to lateral into a trading / commercial type role if you fit that profile. You have to be in it for a few years, but if you prove your worth you can literally make the same as IBD for way less hours (if you're good, since it's all performance based). With a good year, bonusses can be multiples of salaries.
I have great interest in the oil industry (i am Nigerian w. family who are oil engineers/ a friend whose dad owns an oil shipping company) and would like to know how u got this biz dev/corp dev role. Can u get in straight from undergrad? if not, what entry level positions would u suggest (other than IB obviously) if the end game is corp dev at a major oil company?
I'm not ignoring anything. It has less to do with the client, and more to do with the service being provided. As previously stated, IBM provides commodity IT service (and shitty service at that - I hear nothing but complaints across my F500 contacts that engage IBM for implementation work), so of course they can't charge more and their margins are tight. Higher end places are able to charge higher bill rates, and higher expenses. I don't know what else you want me to say about it. Your only frame of reference is IBM, and your position is just flat out wrong because you're trying to apply it across the whole industry. I'm still very plugged in to MBB, LEK, Monitor, OW, and the Big4 - and they are all doing fine. In the last 12-18 months, project revenue has been exploding.
OY VEY!
"Project revenue exploding" is not the same as consulting being a better gig. Have you ever thought to wonder that maybe it's exploding because the costs are being cut from other places??? Move everyone from first to coach and the Hilton to Holiday Inn and - tada! - project revenue explodes.
Do you think those partners are telling clients, "Yeah, we'd like to take you on but unless you keep my guys at the Hilton we're pulling our bid . . ." Seriously, man, get with it.
Wow, so many things wrong....
First, I didn't express an opinion about Consulting being better than IB (even though my opinion is just that). In fact, I clearly said if your beef was the travel, then I can't argue with IB as the better alternative where you get to sleep in your own bed.
Second, let's start with Accounting 101. Revenue is gross $$ in the door. So cutting costs does nothing to revenue. Seriously? And you're trying to drop knowledge on other people?
Anyhoo, I'm done arguing with you. The IBM Tivoli Access Manager grunt tells the rest of us how it is. Gotcha.
djfiii is right here (on the consulting discussion).
I wasn't referring to your whole post, I was referring to you saying that you have experience with Big Law when you have 0. and I'm not a freshman
Yes, I suppose I should have made it clearer. I had no idea it would be misconstrued this far. Since my 2-year deferral is almost up, I have been thinking about Law School quite a bit recently.
A while back, you posted a thread about double majoring in Finance & CS, and said that you were only beginning to take intro classes in programming. Since most people experiment with different courses in Frosh and declare their major sometime in their Sophomore year, I inferred that you were a freshman. Out of curiosity, what year are you in?
I have junior standing due to me studying music before coming here. Most kids my age have graduated college, but I have a different path I guess.
Can you just start a major from scratch in your junior year? I transferred from a super-non-target (we had lifeguard "internships" through our career center) to an Ivy, and I had to declare my major immediately upon entering as a junior having already taken the prerequisites in Frosh/Soph.
Thanks btw for introducing me to Madeon via the music thread. That kid is sick.
Yeah he is ha... and I guess I can, I originally came here with Sophomore standing, if that makes a difference, but my counselor doesn't seem to think that this will be a problem.
I am not a consultant and far from being one, but it seems like you guys are comparing firms that are not even on the same rank as one another. McKinsey is definitely not going to compete with other lower tier firms on pricing.
I never compete in pricing with my own profession, what I do is sell our value and sell the client to understand the kind of value we bring. If he bitches about the spread I am charging by comparing me to a lower tier firm that can't handle his kind of volume, I will not budge for a second to tell him to go ahead and try to save a penny and lose a dollar.
I think top tier consulting firms simply do not take on clients that are poor as it will not be the right type of client for them and knowing when to walk away from a bad deal is even more important than signing a deal.
Totally accurate. Except the only one confusing MBB and IBM is GentlemanJack.
CIA
IB pay isn't that great. Look at the 40 under 40 list; the upside to being a software engineer is much much greater than being an IB analyst.
Wow. This post really devolved. Started off good and ended in a whimper. Thanks to everyone who decided to clog the forum with a shouting match over consulting expense reimbursement. We get it. Consulting sucks if you have to pay for your own meals and sucks a little less if you don't.
There are lots of roles in finance that pay $150k+ in salary with bonuses (it varies with the role, usually less than IBD, but more than other corporate jobs).
These are roles that usually involve sales and such... like capital raising for Hedge or Infrastructure funds, placement agents, etc... You need a book of clients to sell to (institutional or ultra high net worth).
There are also roles within insurance companies that pay 6 figures.
pls don't argue over meaningless things.
+1+1
I like how this thread totally went off track...you had multiple internal arguments over oil, actuarials, consulting...bottom line there are a lot of other careers where you can make some serious money but Finance is the industry where you certainly have the biggest potential upside...the end tail can be very high !
Petro Engineering, Pharmacist, law, surgeon.
This.
I'm surprised that Pharma hasn't come up before. Word around the campfire is that those guys make bank - even the ones working at your rinky-dink Walgreens (or whatever) can make a great living on what's basically a straight-40 job.
Pharmacists make around $80-100K on average, but they will continue to be pressured due to massive consolidation in the retail pharmacy industry (basically only WAG and CVS now) and PBM industry (there's a reason why the retail pharmacy lobby is HEAVILY against the ESRX/MHS merger....they will basically dictate dispensing terms to pharmacies). You also have to go to pharmacy school, increasing debt and forgoing salary.
I'm a graduating senior (math major) trying to figure out what to do with my life. Here is me thinking out loud about my future.
IBD - Fuck 100 hour work weeks S&T - Job outlook doesn't look that great. I'm not passionate about the markets either, so I prob shouldn't pursue this. Risk Management - seems pretty boring. working in market risk might be kinda interesting though? decent work/life balance (I think). Ops - lol jk Quant - too hard Law - Boring as hell and the job market sucks Medicine - Too much school Actuary - Too many exams. IT/programmer - Pros: Good work/life balance, decent money, comfortable living. Cons: boooooooorrrrrrrrriiiiiiiinnnnnngggggg, competing with uber nerds who code in their free time for fun Petro Engineering - not for me (unless they have a demand for math majors or something) Pharmacist - not my style Corporate Finance/Commercial Banking/other finance jobs - I have no interest in working in finance unless it pays big $$$, so no (if you can't tell by now, I don't really like finance that much) Accounting - I took an accounting class once. Most boring class I've ever taken in my life (I've taken a lot of boring classes so that means something) Statistician - Stat classes are so boring, plus you need at least a Master's Consulting - maybe this is for me?
I'm also considering operations research b/c I got accepted into a grad program for that, but honestly I have no fucking clue what it is. Well I have somewhat of an idea, but I need to do a lot more research.
LOL, you said a lot of jobs are boring. How about serving in the US ARMY.
monkey shit? really?
People who are bright, capable, and willing to work hard (pick two) will find a way to pull a decent salary working in F500 companies. The folks from my undergrad business program who didn't go the investment banking or consulting route are making $120K - $180K six years out at places like Amazon, General Mills, eBay, and Fannie Mae. The highest non-IB comp I've seen (not including people who strike out on their own or joined a start up) was $250K for a retail director.
It's not exactly BB VP money, but it's not bad for 55-60 hours a week in lower cost of living areas.
Straight-up retail pharmacists make ~$100-120k.
Most of these folks have their PharmD degrees,though, which require all of the pre-med coursework (2-3 yrs of undergrad) plus 3-4 yrs of grad pharmacy school.
When it comes to pharma you guys are also forgetting the supply side. I read somewhere that those jobs are baby boomer heavy. How many 30 year old pharmacists do you know? Exactly. In the next 10 years you're going to have a TON of retirements in that industry and a high demand for it.
On the flipside, the mail-order market continues to grow and obviously is much cheaper than dispensing via retail brick-and-mortar pharmacies. PBMs - the insurance companies that control the nation's prescriptions - realize this and are heavily pressuring retail pharmacies to take less to dispense while also pushing their clients to receive all maintenance drugs in the mail.
luxury car sales person.
Has to be some kind of high level sales- yachts, mansions, private jets...
I too am interested in the answer to this question. I thought trading would be the next best thing to IBD, but turns out it is a declining industry. It's fun when everyone is making money, but I don't think the glory days will ever return with the incorporation of technology and more transparency in a lot of markets.
Seems to me a lot of this boils down to luck- being at the right place at the right time...
A better question is- can anyone identify the next big industries? You know like something in medical records, alternative energy or social media??? If not IBD then what's the next best thing?
Am I the only one who thinks that it doesn't really matter in the end? All professional industries (Law, Finance, Medicine, etc. ) are taking a hit and no matter what happens these sort of professionals will still earn more relative to the rest of the country. Many of these types of professionals will still be in the top one percent of earners because their services are highly valued in our society as not everyone can do them. The whole country is suffering and it's not just ibankers, lawyers, doctors whose salaries are decreasing. Salary is just a number at the end of the day. What really matters is how far your dollar can go. With everyone's income decreasing, goods are going to be cheaper and purchasing power of the dollar will be higher. Many professionals in these fields will still be in the one percent and will have the same standard of living as they had before.
Trade stocks n'shit.
What about other buy side opps, like working at fidelity etc
S&T
window cleaning... my pops business does $35K a month just in WC... and he has downsized the WC side to just 3 employees... I started and ran my own route 4 years ago and made $18,000 (no tax) in 6 months at 19 years old while still at home and with basically zero expenses...
its not prestigious but its fucking lucrative... im itching to go back myself
Exit ops? Pool Cleaning?
Retirement. You only need exit ops if your current gig isn't going to get you there. People tend to lose sight of that. Sounds like this guy could expand to a few more locations, maybe bring revenue up to $150k/mo, do that for 10-15 years, then move to Nevis for the rest of his life.
This reminds me of those commercials, "Product X allows me to work only 20 hours a week and never leave my house. I made $20,000 last week! Camera zooms out and the speaker drives away in their 2005 Corvette"
I think I've told this story here before but one of the richest dudes I know started out as a plumber. After a few years, he bought an old ambulance and started a 24 hour 'emergency plumber' type thing. It expanded and he sold it for mid 8 figures.
Not all of the roads to making money run through prestigious colleges and graduate schools. Most, if not all of them, run through hard work and forward thinking.
Heck, it doesn't even take that. People often forget that making money comes down to two things: (1) what is your percentage gain and (2) how much money can you run through the business in 1 year (ie what is your total percentage gain - income). A perfect example of this is bail bondsmen. You don't need college for that and you make 10% on every deal. Once you've set up shop, it's all about how many bonds you can write - you wanna make $100K? Write a $1M of bonds, rinse & repeat. It takes no great financial mind or training to know that 10% is lucrative.
And then when they skip bail you call in the DOG
This is a really good point as well. One of the richest individual clients at the brokerage firm I worked for right out of college started a company that makes toilet cakes (the discs you piss on in the urinal). Apparently he made a better toilet cake than whatever was previously on the market, and he eventually sold the company for $20 million. A lot of really wealthy people have stories like this -- found a niche, make some smart moves, sold out. A lot of higher education experiences (such as law school) are a complete waste of time. Way to make yourself a commodity and incur debt going into a profession with overcapacity.
I have a relative who made a small fortune importing high-end lingerie to a number of third world countries. As ridiculous as that sounds, I am not making it up. Talk about a random way to make a living, but they have a pretty good lifestyle. Like Ravenous said - find a niche and make some smart moves.
Kennedy school ---> Senator + consulting to hedge funds
Dentist. If you go in state, it is 4 years at ~$200k. Out by 27-28, start $110k. Tops out at $500k (though i have never seen this) and avg $200k with a 3 day - 4 day (3 days 4 days 3 days 4 days a month) 7am - 3pm schedule. Great lifestyle. And yes, it is a lot to start your practice, which is why you buy into a partnership.
To reiterate the conclusion of this thread, you will still not make the 500K+ that is seen in Wall Street senior level finance. Or Entrepreneurship.
Out of state tuition is $300 - 500k, pushing the economics of this.
yea my friend's dad just moved from trading to running an office cleaning business...60k a mth
Buy Side Equity/Credit Research (a la Fidelity, Wellington, Franklin Templeton, T. Rowe, PIMCO) is a great career path, with 7-figure upside assuming you're a talented performer (i.e., you become a PM). Even if you spend your career in Research, without ever making the jump to becoming a true-blue PM, you're sitting comfortably in the high six figures. Not bad, I'd say.
Really, it's one of the few areas of finance I'd even be touching at the moment, along with a couple of areas in quantitative finance.
Of course, there's plenty of other non-Finance paths with similar long-term upside. Life is a lot more about your own personal ability than WSO seems to acknowledge. Be the best at whatever is you want to do. Bill Gates said it about programmers, but it applies to a lot of high-end careers: "One great software engineer is more valuable than a 1,000 good ones," so be great, and earn a slice of the 999 salaries you're displacing.
My parent's friends know a guy that invented some heart transplant device... he's pretty loaded now
My friends uncle also invested heavily in AOL when it first came around, his reasoning: the availability of porn on the internet haha... he's rich now too
political correctness is overrated
Venture Capital: I have been doing venture capital at a good fund for a couple of years now. I get paid in line with what I was making in banking and work about 45-55h a week. I did pull in 80-100h work work weeks for 3 years to get there though.
Just become a retired teacher
In 1997, a retired school teacher invested $16,000 in Apple. Yesterday, he attended the annual shareholder meeting with about $2 million worth of Apple shares.
http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-blog/2012-02-23-apple%E2%80%99s-shareholde…
so trading has been clubbed with banking here!! why not any1 said it before..
what about politicians? people in the congress, how much do they make?
the downside of being politician is you have to deal with other politicians, and politicians are the biggest scum bags in this universe, a cancer slowly growing and eating away at our society.
if your a scumbag and of particularly inferior intellectual ability then politics may be your calling
PWM is awesome if you play your cards right and run your own book (aka, don't go in as an analyst). easy hours. lots of schmoozing. all the real work is done by the support team and ER/S&T guys at other offices assuming you're at a big enough bank
Nah fuck that. I'm going to be the next Skrillex, touring around the world and playing music. I just need to produce some quality shit and then I'll blow up and never have to resort to being a corporate cocksucker. Or at least that's the plan...
Yea you and every other aspiring lazy ass hipster
no "lazy ass hipster" ever makes it in the industry
Loan officer at a mortgage bank. My buddy was making $15,000/month as a 19-year-old. Of course this was in 2004...
Our last 3 presidents...
Lawyer, if you don't want to be a lawyer then comp. sci. or engineer
It's actually really hard to make a lot as a lawyer. there is a heavy oversupply of lawyers. Getting a job at a big law firm that pays six fig starting out is almost as hard as getting I-banking out of school.
Most lawyers outside big law don't ever touch six figures. hell, many lawyers in this market are unemployed.
Law school is highly overrated and most people don't realize it. The top few percent do make bank but the overwhelming majority are no better off than a manager at a mid size corp with no degree of any kind. Solo practice is very hard to get off the ground financially and newbie DA work is like 45k/year working with shady ass people all day
Touche.
One career that many kids on this site seem to dismiss is a career in accounting. You can make a lot in accounting.
my dad is an accountant. He used to work at Big4 in audit, but started his own shop later. His firm grew to become a mid-sized firm and has now 30+ accountants. My dad makes between 800k and 1 million a year, which isn't bad at all even compared to salaries for executives in high finance.
Besides, my dad doesn't have to give up his life slaving away like I-bankers. He plays golf like 3 fucking times a week and loves his life.
If you go accounting and make partner at a decent sized shop down the road, you can make bank. Or, you can start your shop and establish your own business, but that is riskier.
If you look at placement data for the T13 law schools, they actually place a strong number of their graduates in biglaw. Also keep in mind that biglaw isn't the most sought after position coming out of law school. Academic positions and A3 clerkships are much more competitive than biglaw, and certain government and public interest positions attract top talent among liberal hippie do-gooder scum. The catch with law is it gets exponentially harder to do well coming out of school as you drop past Cornell and UT in the rankings.
law school is much like MBA: it's top 14 or bust.
for finance/ consulting recruiting, if you attend a non-top 15 MBA, your chances of breaking in is much smaller than someone at M7. Likewise, a law student at T6 has much better job prospects than someone at a T20 law school.
however, the question here concerns all lawyers, not just those biglaw attorneys who went to top 10 law schools. many law students outside of T14 have a trouble getting a paying legal job. I know some 'lawyers' who are working at Abercrombie and GAP, folding clothes. Job market for lawyers is fucking terrible. (insane oversupply of lawyers)
Those things lead a select few to gigs at places like the US DOJ, etc. Those clerkships and academic accolades put you in the running for ultra competitive slots in DC (far more competitive than biglaw associate). The end game is politics and / or lobbying, or if you're really ambitious, US Supreme Court judge. Doesn't get much more competitive than that.
relax poncho. you said you didn't understand the point of doing those things. I explained it for you. I didn't say anything to compare competitiveness to compensation. Clearly, someone making those choices is doing so knowing they aren't maximizing compensation. That's a perfectly reasonable choice to make for plenty of people. Not everyone is driven to make $1M a year.
you really aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you? You're suggesting that because the overarching theme of the thread is compensation, that all other angles of conversation become irrelevant? That's retarded. Pretty much every thread in this place deviates from the OP. The more I see you post, the more I'm convinced you drank bleach as a child.
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