I was wondering what the typical attire is for Saturdays and Sundays in the office?
I've seen a few FT analysts on the weekends wear jeans, t-shirt, collared shirts, etc... but no full suit/business professional.
Is this the same for SA? Is it different at every office?
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You can wear just about anything on the weekends. This summer, I usually game in t shirts and shorts.
It certainly can't hurt to wear your suit on the weekends as well.
No one really wears wso/">suits on the weekends unless they for some reason have a meeting or anticipate being there super late on Sunday into Monday morning... even then, when I pull the Sunday all nighter and see everyone rolling into work wearing a suit and I'm in my jeans and tshirt I get a twisted sense of satisfaction...
Twisted indeed. I get no satisfaction out of seeing the sun rise in my office, much less seeing others start rolling in, knowing I have an entire week to endure on an already-massive sleep deficit. To each their own.
At the firm I'm working at it's dress slacks and button up shirt everyday, ties when meeting with attorney and jackets and tie or suits when meeting with clients.
I dont know what these people are saying. Youll look pretty out of place with a suit on the weekend. I was at a top BB and none of the other SAs wore anything remotely formal on the weekends.
Id fking kill myself if I had to wear anything resembling a suit on the weekend
Like a lax bro on a weekend trip to Nantucket.
In all seriousness it probably depends on the shop. You usually get some guidelines before you start. Err on the side of caution and blend in with everyone else. If everyone dresses in Hawaiian shirts, you wear a Hawaiian shirt.
No. If you are utterly worried and having nightmares about showing up to work in a T-shirt on a business formal day like you did about underwear in grade school, wear business casual your first time in and carry a neatly folded tie/jacket in your backpack just in case. But don't wear a suit- it just looks way out of whack.
I've seen folks show up wearing pajamas and sandals. Yes, coming off the streets of Manhattan.
After you show up and realize all the SAs are wearing t-shirts and shorts on the weekends, make sure that you show up wearing a t-shirt next time.
definitely wear your suit. extra points and almost certain FT offer if you are in the office every Sat/Sun of the summer in a three-piece.
Tx and rgds,
bankbank
This, Sir, was hilarious!
Wear whatever you want. I wouldn't recommend pajamas, but I don't think anyone would give you crap if you show'd up looking like you slept in your cube the night before. When I was a banker, even the company founders wore shorts and t-shirts on the weekend. It's not like clients were parading through the office on the weekend...
Look, if I'm a summer analyst, my goal is one thing and one thing only - to bite, scratch and steal my way into a FT offer. And from that perspective, wearing a suit on the weekends - which are really just additional week"days" for you, right? so this whole convo is irrelevant to begin with - is a no-brainer. When I'm meeting with clients on the weekends - unlikely for a summer analyst, but regardless - or when I'm passing my MDs in the offices on a weekend - I want them to know that I mean business. So if you want to go ahead and wear a t-shirt because you're trying to impress the first-years that work there, go right ahead. But just remember what you're there for.
My time on this forum has really hurt my ability to distinguish between troll and non-troll posts, but I hope to God that this is one of the former.
Needless to say, if you're one of my summers and come in wearing a suit (or even business casual), I will seriously question your common sense. I wouldn't say start coming in with dingy, dirty, clothing either. Come in looking presentable... by that, I mean something not too wrinkled, that smells and looks clean. If you have that down, you're golden. On your first day come in with something a little preppier and then adjust accordingly throughout the summer.
Man, if HireUp's post is real... cringe
I was hoping the part about meeting with clients and MDs on the weekends would convey my utter seriousness...I would never lie about that :)
He got an offer and they didn't.
That's why you're there. Friends, fun, and all that good stuff are secondary: the bottom line is that it's always easier to be a hardass upfront and ease off when people tell you to, as opposed to setting the initial perception of yourself as a slacker. As far as fitting in goes, you'll likely never see most of those people again, so who the fuck cares about what they think? Do what you need to get that offer. Short of murder, I'd say everything is fair game considering the [typically rich, overentitled] pricks you're competing against will use everything they've got.
And as far as murder goes, be sure that when you're trying to turn yourself in that you find someone who believes you.
Well, if all you care about is getting an offer, then sure. If you realize that getting a job as an IBD analyst is actually pretty easy to do, then you might have the brains to realize that us "rich, overentitled pricks" are not necessarily your competition; we're potentially your friends. I suppose I could have sabotaged peoples' notes in uni, refused to help other interns when I was one, and be a dick as an analyst, but then that's all I'd ever be: an analyst processing mark-ups. If you realize that sitting in front of a client, or doing anything that actually adds value, requires much more than the ability to don a suit, and certainly turns much more on interpersonal skills than ruthlessness, you might actually have a shot at being something more than a bitter washout who wonders why your wearing a suit on the weekend didn't get you promoted. Even Rajarantam, who I'm sure you would point to as an example of do-anything-ness, had the brains to recognize that Wall St still turns on relationships.
This question, and 90% of the comments, are so stupid I don't even know how to formulate an appropriate insult.
I want to throw monkey shit at people but I can't figure out who's being sarcastic and who's socially retarded. The internet has defeated me.
wearing anything remotely formal on weekends is just plain ass stupid. When I interned, everyone, myself included, wore t-shirt, shorts and sandals - from the group head to the interns.
-1 Your group head was never in on the weekends Stop trolling
lol. when you've got a bid deadline for Monday and it's a $20bn + transaction you better believe the group head is in during the weekend, even if just for a few hrs.
honestly people. like shorts/jeans and a tshirt/polo is plenty or a hoodie or something. just get your work done and no one gives a shit
ASK THE PEOPLE AT YOUR BANK. each bank might vary
I'll usually just do a beater with some bball shorts and jordans or nike sandals.
I go into the office in gym clothes all the time. And to the person that says a group head is never in on weekends, you don't know what your talking about - I've seen the CEO in the office on Sundays, as well as group heads. Do you think senior guys stop grinding once they hit MD? What happens when they need to get their shit done before being on the road or out of the country for the next week?
DO NOT WEAR A SUIT ON THE WEEKEND.
at my firm people look like they literally rolled out of bed or basically whatever you'd wear out to the coffee shop in the morning - and this includes senior people. Flip flops, t-shirts, jeans, whatever; nobody shaves. If you're seriously worried about this just wear a pair of jeans and a button-up shirt your first weekend, and you can go downmarket on subsequent weekends.
you would be an instant laughing stock if you did arrive to work in a suit on a Saturday; and I am not kidding.
There's only 6 billion people in the world. Most of them can form relationships, but only about 0.2% of folks in western countries have what it takes to write solid code. That figure has gotten to roughly the same size in India, Eastern Europe, and China, and we've hit the global capacity for algorithmic development Do the math-- if you can. ;-)
Find something to differentiate yourself from the other 99% of folks on the planet. Relationships are a great thing to have- and part of being a healthy human being, but in and of themselves, they are not a differentiator. In the business world, people skills and relationships are assumed- the differentiator is services that less than one in a hundred people in your industry/field can provide.
Regardless, the wealth transfer that we see happening towards China is eventually going to end either with most people in the US getting back to jobs that depend more on intrinsic value creation- or with all of the salespeople, travel agents, realtors, and bankers unemployed. If there is no money left to be spent, you can't sell people anything. Perhaps you can learn Mandarin and speak it without an accent; best of luck figuring out relationships in the far east.
But they can easily be replaced by automation. CC Expedia vs. travel agents, Amazon vs malls, and online banking vs. the national retail banks. What we need to do is replace Wall Street with Amazon.com. That's really the next step in all of this. People need to spend more time seeking genuine friendships and relationships rather than having everyone worried about whether folks want to be their friends for the money or just to be friends. It will be like friendships before everyone had to start working for a living.I'm not knocking people skills and relationships here. They're an important part of being a healthy and well-adjusted human being. But you should not be relying on them for your career and it's equally as unhealthy to assume that your ability to form relationships is a good way to make money. It makes your relationships with your real friends a lot less genuine. Your value is in the fact that you have something to offer people that not a whole lot of other folks can, and you consider your clients brilliant people- probably smarter than you- because they are wise enough to do business with you rather than the next guy.
If business is all about relationships, your personal life will suffer, and you and your friends will always be confused about what's real and what's fake. If you want genuine success in both your business and personal life, you have to treat your friends like friends and clients like clients. You can be friendly with your clients, but at the end of the day, you have to understand how the value you deliver affects their success- and make sure they are more successful with you than the next guy. That is the priority in the business relationship, and that's what the smart money looks for.
Unfortunately, the smart money is leaving Wall Street and the US for that matter. Even though tech jobs are paying better than the dot-com days, the unemployment rate for bankers and traders has gotten crazy as the biggest firms on the street continue to shrink their non-tech employment rolls. Wall Street needs to return the focus to creating value and making sure that its clients are doing better for doing business with Wall Street rather than Canary Wharf or Hong Kong.
Not attacking you Drexel- just making my point that both value creation and relationships are important, but value is really the long-term driver behind business relationships.
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