Why the hate on operations?

Investor1:

Operations people will max out at $500-700,000 per year even if they hit MD, which is not likely to happen and they do boring stuff. Bankers have their eyes set on $5 million and do more interesting work.

That is precisely why operations sucks - simply not nearly enough $$$ and boring work.

Are you seriously looking down on someone that makes $500-700K? lol

I know that's nothing compared to what Bankers could potentially make (although many would burn out/get fired before even coming close to their original goal in terms of compensation), but you have to respect someone that makes that much money.

By the way, I know that ops analyst usually make 55K + 10k bonus to start, but what's the salary progression like from analyst to associate to VP, etc.

Oh yea, my ex-gf works in Goldman Ops and HATES her job. I'm not kidding...during the first 6 months at her job she was constantly crying/depressed...SCARY!

PleaseHireMe:

Is fairly stable. Decent pay entry level and you don't need to be strictly Finance/Accounting major.

.....SNIPPED.

I'm a college senior now, did my stint in Ops and also back office Finance. Neither is glamorous or truly exciting to tell you the truth, but for those like me non from a target without a super high GPA, you have to start somewhere yes?

Exactly. Glad to hear you are open minded. Not everyone either wants or is cut out for one particular lot in life. Too many people with the heard mentality.

SirBankalot:

Thanks for the comments... I'm glad that most people here do think that operations contribute at least something to the firm. At first I thought there might be rife between the divisions because they barely communicate (*equities in dallas), but it looks like the majority of haters aren't even working yet. :) - Want an internship? Your guide to Operations Research - articles, how-to, news, jobs.

of course operations contributes to the firm, otherwise they wouldn't have it. but as others have stated its not as high paid and not a "glamorous" as other positions. still a worthy job though

I personally don't hate on Ops for a few reasons:

1 - Most of my friends are/will be working in Ops 2 - If Ops wasn't there then traders/sales/ibanker would have to do all that work themselves, thus leaving less time for them to make money. At the end of the day someone has to do that work 3 - Many intelligent people end up in Ops because they went to non-targets and that's the only way for them to break into the industry 4 - Some people actually enjoy Ops and do not aspire to be bankers/traders 5 - I personally know a couple of highly successful traders who started out in Ops

what exactly does a job in Ops consist of? Can you jump from Ops to ibanker or trader?

Ops in not exactly a 9-5 job. Work dictates and I've heard of even interns staying past 10PM. You only have 3 days to process the trade.

Goldman ops (not sure about other BBs) is definitely NOT a 9-5 at all. One friend worked in Asset Management ops and worked a ton of hours (think 60,70). Another in S&T ops worked weekends frequently (not sure how often or hours involved, just "frequently").

Its not that Operations is awful, it is just the fact that you know there are the bankers out there dealing with clients, having private equity firms trying to hire them away, working on more high level work, and just overall learning twice the amount as anyone else is. It is tough to know people are doing banking when you are trying to find a miscalculation in the trade date in Operations. So I don't think people truly hate Ops because its Ops, but they hate Ops because they know there is a better job out there like banking or trading

Thanks, this was helpful for me. I needed a job to pay the bills and am taking an Ops role before i could find an interview for IBD. Hope this aint the end of my career.

Phil Collins thread?

What is your goal for FT recruiting?

I'd guess that PWM might be a better internship if you want to do S&T or AM later. I would also guess that commercial banking would be a better internship than ops for breaking into IBD later. But I'm no expert in ops, commercial banking, or PWM, so you should see what other people have to say.

The strange thing is I'm really hoping for this Ops offer because I have absolutely nothing else going for me now.

At this point, I'll take anything (except PWM).

I just got an offer for a MM Ops SA.

I'm waiting on another. If anything, this will be my fallback.

What are your alternatives, smoking weed twiddling your thumbs this summer? If you've got nothing else, take it.

Ops is an ok career and job if you do not want to be in banking. Ops is miserable if you want to be in IB because it is repetitive and mundane work with no impact. Plus your pay does not scale.

If you can't get into FO IB go do something challenging and dynamic elsewhere. I think people get mesmerized by the name on the card and just do anything they can to say they are a banker. If your going to do boring work at least get paid and have a chance to do less boring work in the future.

Ops is just that bad - the only time ops would be interesting is at a small buy side firm where you'll actually have the chance to run the entire firm's operations which would include the more interesting aspects of ops (beta reports, performance reporting, meeting with PM's and investment managers to review numbers), however that's probably as interesting as it gets. Plus at a small buy side firm you'll hear about why certain investments are made, etc and some knowledge will rub off from analysts and traders through word of mouth etc. just because it will be a more tight knit group.

Sell side ops is horrible - repetitive work. All an operations analyst does is fill in for something a computer can't (or hasn't YET been programmed to) do. The most interesting thing you'll do in sell side ops is some sort of project work where you try to streamline a process or work yourself out of a job (which isn't interesting anyway)

Trust me, I've been doing it for a couple of years and the day-to-day isn't pretty. BUT if you get into a firm via ops, it is not as hard as people say to get out. You won't become an IBanker but there are possibilities to get into the myriad of other jobs that aren't really discussed too much on this forum. A lot of these BB's have divisions that aren't related to M&A and IB that still do well and are interesting - a lot of project managing goes on across all divisions of banking as well as a lot of intercorporate roles that are not as well known.

Good luck.

Everything here is pretty spot on. People say analyst work is boring but ops is on a whole new level.

maybe just post them here so you dont get inundated with pm's

I can't speak for full timers, but I wouldn't rule out ops as a dead end option if you are looking for a summer internship.

I have several friends who have been in ops or tech and landed front office positions in banking, s&t, and research this past recruiting season.

froyo, could you please elaborate or send pm? I am currently deciding between ops and PWM, with a lean towards ops because Iike the team better, even though most people are telling me that it is going to be much harder to spin for IBD SA

Woah, just to be clear we're talking specifically ops at a bank, right? Ops guys outside banking definitely get into top MBA programs, and the work is far from boring. The pay is corporate with no bonus, but it generally beats engineering pay at least.

"Ops" outside WSO might refer to supervising production of military tech, optimizing Amazon's supply chain, managing fulfillment of infrastructure equipment, etc. When the Iraqi government tells you they need a billion dollars worth of parts before the summer heat so they can fire up power plants and avoid civil war, things become anything but boring. It doesn't make for a bad resume story either.

Obviously none of this will help you out in banking, except maybe the top MBA part. I just wanted to point out that your 2. (boring) and 3. (no top MBA) only might apply to ops in finance and not ops in general.

Ops pay is better than engineering? Definitely not at any BB.

Note the "outside banking." I do think its entertaining that banks have "engineering" though :).

Dude, when we say "ops" on this board we are not talking about Special Ops lol. Basically data entry kind of stuff. I think Ops pays on par with engineering in the beginning.

Clearly I understand that, which is why I made it clear in my post that I was talking about ops outside of banking and WSO. This is the "Other Road" board, jesus. And I'm obviously not talking about special ops either.

I understand what ops at a bank is, but for the rest of the business world there is also "operations" and "engineering" etc. Operations is a lot of what the people who actually run companies do... It's the "operating" in "operating partner" to use PE terms.

Jamie Dimon is an operations specialist that is what he studied at HBS and what he did for Weill and ultimately at what became JPM.

That is not what the OP means they are talking about supporting parts of a bank, or back-office/middle office.

its that simple, dont do it

Any reason as to why? Pay? Work? Thanks

what if your a second year? Could the experience be beneficial at all or should I still only do it if I have nothing better to do this summer.

I did operations at a top IB firm my sophomore year and was able to leverage it into a internship in Ibanking(at an other firm though) the next year.

I am also from a non-target and so kind of know ur situation. If you don't have options that sound much better I would seriously consider it.

To be honest the operations position is not going to be very difficult(or really shouldn't be if you aspire to be in Ibanking) so if your young(not a junior) and have no better option screw it..do the job blow all the other kids away try to internal mobility to the other side and also mingle with other banks the Lehman's name should make that part easy enough.

PM me if you want any mo info

i know several kids who went to great schools that got stuck in ops and worked there way out. via gmat/masters.

Frankly, you're better off working in Ops, than doing nothing at all. Take what you can get for the time being, and work on your certificates/B-school apps on the side.

2 years ago, yes. But my career advisor says that it's quite a good career path now with some good opportunities.

I worked in ops for 8 months and now on a trading desk. Depends on you, your shop and your boss.

more factors have to work in your favor then you simply being good at your ops job

monty, what factors were these if you don't mind me asking.

1. has the move been made before

2. is the group growing

3. is your manager open to idea?

4. is fo manager open to idea?

5. how do you compare to your peers?

I can only speak for a certain firm but Ops get way worse of a rep here than people say. Call up a VP or such like I did and ask them yourself. In most cases you'll be fine and your future will still be bright and shining.

doing ops is better than corp fin right? it seems like its the better of those two for finance exp and bschool.

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ops can sure be used as a dashboard for alot of things...first u ll hv enough time in ur hands to get ur certifications and study time for GMAT etc...2nd all things equal ull always hv the label of a big bank/Corp on ur resume...and third you can always put ur hands up n say you learnt alot of stuff on the investing side by being curious and going out of ur way to help etc which you can really leverage...i did and now i work in PE!

and looking at ops as a career even though i was always cynical and hated ops for people who can do it ops can be a really good career too with good progression and some really good money to be made at the upper level which you can reach in 5-6 years exp i guess...have a good balanced life and work free weekends for life! and work wise even though half of it is clear admin stuff but if you take it seriously there is alot of responsibility u can get, stuff to keep u busy and certainly i admit it aint as bad as its made out to be as long as you dont fall into the comfort zone trap and actively work on something else side by side.

My opinion is that Ops is fine for an internship but you probably don't want to be there fulltime. It definitely puts a stigma on your resume and most people realize it does nothing for your skillset. I pretty much agree with dosk/Brian from M&I in his reasons for why you shouldn't work in operations or the back office.

How big and how prestigious is this fund?

yes its the kiss of death. i got an offer for DE Shaw finance + ops. i turned it down but my friend took it. he is ROYALLY SCREWED so trust me, do not do ops.

I interviewed with DE Shaw finance & ops 2 years ago for an internship. Turned it down for a BB but want to make the observation that despite its reputation, all the people I met with had high credentials - Ivy or top 10 undergrad overall programs, rigorous analytical majors even if they may or may not use it at a ops position. Not sure if that says anything, but the quality of people at hedge fund ops appeared better to me than people at banking ops.

To clarify it's not DE Shaw but one of the other funds i listed. Im not concerned with pay at the moment as i know the bonus will be small. Im more so wondering if there is mobility inside, the fund touted that "they would find the best fit for each candidate" but im unsure if thats true (they did give several examples of people moving from ops->trading or ops->management) but i cant seem to decipher if it's just a bunch of malarkey

the cold hard truth is: doing ops you learn the mechanics of the securities, not how to value them

people on this board don't make a big enough differentiation between buy side and sell side traders. if i may be so bold, the sell side (for the most part) is the frat guys and the buy side is the nerds.

from what i've seen, you have a better shot of moving from ops -> sell side trading at a bank than ops -> buy side trading/investing at a fund.

...i disagree that sell-side ops is worse the buyside ops. Learning the mechanics of the products the firm trades is just as important to becoming a trader/PM as is learning valuation models. I did buyside ops, was able to become an analyst and eventually a trader/PM and consider my time spent in ops as a huge advantage I have over other analysts who really dont understand trading. Many analysts will never be able to advance because they understand the concepts that they are involved in, ie economics, interest rates, etc., but they just dont have the product knowledge neccesary to take risk. This may not be aplicable in equities, but it is true in fixed income/macro.

I agree that the distinction between buyside and sell-side traders is huge...buyside is much more free-thinking people who come from much more diverse backgrounds whereas sell-side traders do tend to be more black pants/blue shirt, played hockey at Cornell-types.