Hey all,
I'm 17 and I'm in the 99th percentile academically. Recently, I've given some thought about career options and with parents who are in the finance industry, I've considered finance, and particularly investment banking itself. I've read a few of the older threads around here, and I've noticed that investment banking sounds a lot more interesting than its given credit for in movies and anecdotes from family friends who are investment bankers, hence the questions :)
It would be lovely if you guys could share your experiences with investment banking (What it involves, Pathway, Salary progression, Work/Life balance etc.). Furthermore, why have you picked financial banking to specialize in instead of private equity or banking and why have you gone into the finance industry instead of med or law?
Thanks for reading this far, look forward to your responses :)
Edit: Sorry if this is in the wrong board.
This entire forum is dedicated to answering those questions.. use the search bar
Majority of answers will be along the lines of money, prestige, learning curve, and exit opportunities. A very, very small percentage of people are in investment banking simply because they truly love the field. That being said, use the search bar, plenty of industry folk have answered/given very in-depth answers to this question.
I would give my reasons, but I think it's important to like things by yourself without bias. Just like you don't want to use someone else's college app as a first read because it might create bias to write like theirs, you don't want to go into the industry for reasons others give.
The same applies for any job, I think it's the most satisfying to do the research yourself and find what you're looking for by just reading and studying. I thought I wanted to go to software engineering but I didn't end up doing it because I took the courses and didn't really 'love' it.
WHY WE DO IT (Originally Posted: 08/09/2017)
Money, prestige, transferrable skill set, great people, free dinners, black cars at night and on the weekends, all the information you need is on the fingertips, you can see how the market and industry sub sectors are doing by creating indexed price charts, learn modeling when you create backup for the charts, learn best modeling practices, always busy so days go by quickly, can read any research you want when you make a PIB or when you just send the research pull to someone, instant feedback from associates and VPs in red ink and you can correct your mistakes real time, sit in meetings with CEOs and CFOs and see how they are thinking about the industry but will not do any deal with us (creates hunger and shows areas of improvement), have a constant thrill for not having predictability, weekend work makes it hard to get bored, always in demand (girls love it), never have time (girls love it), and get respect in the society for doing "God's Work". In my opinion, this job should be the highest calling for any human. I never get why people go into medicine or humanitarian related jobs.
Nice
"this job should be the highest calling for any human"
lol
Just what the fuck are you talking about?
what a great mantra for pulling through those 4am nights changing fonts on a 70 page pitch book
You had me at "free dinners" -- what bankers actually like
the real reason why i want to do bankingis to revenge on my ex bf (Originally Posted: 01/16/2013)
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haha that may be a little too much!
i love you lol
Would it be safe to assume the vast majority (55%+) of banking wannabes don't give a shit about the markets?
Very true
Marry me?
i think that just might work
If you are being honest about this, then you are seriously wasting your own time and life. Don't go into finance to get revenge. If you are going into finance to get revenge on your ex bf, then you are going to be even more worse off then the people who just go into it because they think they will automatically get the big bucks.
Seriously, if this is real, it is pathetic. The real revenge would be succeeding at whatever you do so much so that you become famous/mega wealthy and then he has to see you constantly in the news. But in order to do that you would have to have a brain, and based on what you described here, you don't have one.
Don't you fucking worry about my brain, because I am sure I am smarter than you, unless you have a PhD in Astrophysics from MIT or any equivalent.
Lame attempt at troll thread. 2/10 at best
Bitches be crazy. 2/10 for troll thread.
If you are willing to endure an IBD analyst AND associate program just to get revenge, goddamn I wouldn't want to be him. That's some Count of Monte Cristo shit.
Why I Got Into Banking (Originally Posted: 12/27/2017)
It all started about 5 years ago. I was a junior in high school and I had just started Winter Break. At the time, my brother had just purchased a box of DVDs at a yard sale. Some of the titles were well-known, others were not. The first movie that I picked out of the box was Old School. I watched the movie and I was blown away. I knew what I wanted to do with life: buy a house near of college campus and live there like a dirtbag, hosting parties for college kids and causing a ruckus on campus. I knew that to do this I would need some startup capital. So, I thought about every job in the world that might pay enough to lend this kind of capital. After all of the research I did, I decided on investment banking. Well, it's been about 5 years now and I've followed through on my plan. I'm one step closer to my dream!
Hi unclebiff, whoops, looks like nobody chimed in here.... maybe one of these discussions below is relevant:
No promises, but maybe one of our professional members will share their wisdom: ckochard Ariel-Shain kyo_chung
Hope that helps.
3 Reasons why I chose BANKING as an Undergrad (Originally Posted: 06/03/2017)
DELETED for very important reason...
I agree with points 2 and 3, but would like to add something to point 1. Of course money is important, but there is a diminishing return in happiness with regards to the amount you earn. After a certain amount (I believe it was about 70,000 USD annually, correct me if I'm wrong), there is no noticeable increase in the happiness of a person when he/she earns more. Hence, I do believe that money is important to people, but I also believe that you are much better off choosing a job that pays slightly less than investment banking, but which you enjoy much more. If you do truly love investment banking, then good for you, you made the right choice! If not, your performance will probably reflect that, resulting in lower bonuses and worse exit opportunities.
Just my $0.02.
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