WSO 2022 Investment Banking Work-Conditions Survey (Part 2/3)

Table of Contents

Part 1 (Released Thur April 7th)

• Overall 2022 results     
• Quotes from a range of employees at various firms

Part 2 (Thursday April 14th) – CURRENT VERSION

• Comparison of 10 different banks (Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Citigroup and more)
• A closer look at which banks performed best/worst across various categories
• Quotes from employees at these banks

Part 3 (Thursday April 21st)

• Comparisons between 2021 and 2022
• Deep dive on what has improved, what has worsened, and what has stayed the same since 2021
• Have conditions actually improved at Goldman since the GS 13 survey was released?

Banks Included

• Bank of America (14 responses), Barclays (13 responses), Citi (20 responses), Deutsche Bank (19 responses), Goldman Sachs (23 responses), Jefferies (13 responses), JPM (29 responses), Macquarie (8 responses), RBC (9 responses), SunTrust (8 responses)

Hours, Sleep and WFH

"Some weeks are light, some are absolutely hell. I have gotten to travel to pitches which is cool." – Analyst, Evercore

Health and Worker Retention

"Most of my close friends have told me to quit for mental and physical health reasons." – Analyst, JPMorgan

Workplace Culture

"Head of IB really tries to provide a good work environment, what f*cks it up is the people below him." – Analyst, Citigroup

Satisfaction and Recommending the Firm

"I left Goldman after 7 months because the filter and the people suck. Throwing more money at us is not the answer. Mental health is." – Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Bank specific quotes

Bank of America

"F*ck the dickhead directors." – Analyst, Bank of America Merrill Lynch

"Banking is not rocket science, most first years come from pedigree and do not know work ethic. The biggest hurdles are dealing with seniors egos and unpredictability largely due to poor time management and delegation rolling down. If you can’t handle stress in exchange for making over 180k because you don’t want to give up social aspects of life etc, find a new job." – Analyst, Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Barclays

"Tech across all banks get crushed. My mental health was much lower 6 months into the job (first 3 m&a deals all at same time) than it is now (1+ years in)." – Analyst, Barclays Capital

"Too much Saturday work." – Analyst, Barclays Capital

Citigroup

"This is all bullshit." – Associate, Citigroup

Deutsche Bank

"Long hours, teams half the size of pre-pandemic, pay below street." – Associate, Deutsche Bank

"DB REGLL is overall a great place to start your career. Many of us have got placed at top real estate PEs (including myself)." – Analyst, Deutsche Bank

"It is what it is." – Associate, Deutsche Bank

"DB is honestly one of the better if not the best in terms of culture IMO. Very understanding people, want you to grow / learn, only one or two seniors aren’t great the rest are in my personal opinion. With all that being said when push comes to shove the job is a grind, you will work long hours, and you will sacrifice a social life. I’m not sure how other banks are tbh but that’s my view so far." – Analyst, Deutsche Bank

"Dying office." – Analyst, Deutsche Bank

"Toxic environment, toxic people, good execution. Sucks. Experience not worth the emotional / health damage. Pay sucks." – Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Goldman Sachs

"We need more analysts." – Analyst, Goldman Sachs

"I moved over from Goldman and it's been night and day. Goldman was a death ship and life has gotten much better since leaving. Still banking, hours are still like 80 a week, but that's way better than 110 hours a week, every week at Goldman." – Associate, TMT, Boutique

"Not bad, but have grown into a senior associate. My analysts have a better work life than any generation of analysts before them (and a misplaced sense of entitlement)." – Associate, Goldman Sachs

Tons of hours, kind and smart people, terrible workload." – Analyst, Goldman Sachs

J.P. Morgan

"Toxic Managers." – Admin, JPMorgan

"Just the name matters for me." – Analyst, JPMorgan

"Healthcare group is a sweatshop and 11 people have left in the past 2 months including 6 people to competitor banks." – Analyst, JPMorgan

"People will try to steal your ideas and thoughts, make sure you are getting visibility from MDs." – Associate, JPMorgan

"I made it into a decent group. Would recommend." – Analyst, JPMorgan

Macquarie

"We have a long lunch every other week at cool restaurants. Good physical health culture with people leaving for the gym in late afternoon." – Analyst, Macquarie Group Limited ABN

RBC

"RBC nice. Not a bad place to do your IB gig for two years WLB wise, still sucks tho." – Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Part Three

Part 3 will be released next Thursday (April 21st)

P.S. A big thank you to @AndyLouis, Jacob Nave-Newell and Josh Bañuelos for helping prepare this report.