What is so bad about Back Office Roles?
I know this forum seems to crap on BO/MO roles but I do think that there is a little bit of a misnomer on the actual field. From people I've talked to in ops and risk it seems as though it is a fairly laid-back environment (although I'd avoid HR like the plague). I also think that it is still a decent route to MBA programs and can give someone a decent story to "why ibd/MBB?'' questions for post-mba jobs. It also appears that people underestimate the size of BO/MO teams at banks. It is pretty interesting that technology is the biggest dept at GS.
I'm going to need you to speak a little louder
!!!!!! lol
I interned at a BO role at a BB and here are some parts of what I disliked: --Do shit and clean up shit no one wants to deal with or touch --Lame ass co-workers that mostly came from Big 4 audit backgrounds and carried with them all the negative stereotypes about accountants --Managers and bosses that have been around for 25+ years and are stuck at the VP or ED level. Lots of old people and few young people --Didn't see myself being able to transfer my skill-sets much at all elsewhere --Doing BO/MO for a large BB, you're likely going to cover just a tiny portion of an I/S, B/S, or CFS - if you're at a smaller or mid-sized company you might actually have more responsibilities and be taken seriously --Awful turnover; less of a culture/camaraderie in BO/MO roles --Don't contribute to the top or bottom line; just overhead
Some BO/MO roles can and tend to lead to good exit opps or more interesting roles - think FP&A, market risk, credit teams etc.
Interesting post. I just see the shitting on non-ib roles getting a little bit excessive. I think Corp finance or treasury would be a very interesting career but many on here would say "it's not IBD!!!!!"
mind you I was in controllers which is considered one of if not the worst. Also I should emphasize that it was a BB with 250,000+ people just recovering from the crisis so the internal systems and controls tended to be extremely hectic and disorganized and messy.
didnt mean to 'shit' on these non-ib roles but it's truly how I felt when working there. also it's how a lot of the full-time analysts felt - they truly hated their job and there were very few things that were positive. just a paycheck, nothing else.... watch till the clock hits 6
I'd hire a former Big 4 auditor over you in a heartbeat if this is your general attitude
People are allowed to hate their job and not like what they do. I was just giving my own personal honest opinion and perspective - I'm a straight shooter when it comes to these. I only met analysts that hated what they did but I'm sure that's not necessarily always the case.
BO/MO wasn't for me and the team I worked with was not great. Some of my friends that work in BO/MO hate it and some like it. Some have more interesting work while others do mind-numbing boring grunt work. Some work with great people while others don't.
Anything wrong with that?
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....
Big data is the future and will eliminate back office in 10 years time. I would not go int back office, unless you have the intention of going there and then getting an MBA - not even sure this is possible BTW. I would do back office only to get money to invest yourself and do your own shit. Working for someone else is seriously over rated.
I know someone who did back office and worked up to manager in Visa - he is on 100k and works 9-5. Fuckin kills it. He loves it as well.
A lot of back office work is project based nowadays...That's not going away.
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The majority of back office roles aren't the ones they pay data scientists $120k to do. They're menial jobs that pay $50k.
how is 100k salary be considered "kills it"....?
I worked in a back office role for a year and It's painfully mind numbing and repetitive. I sent the exact same emails at the same time to the same people everyday, ran the same reports/macros everyday etc..It was so unbearable that I put in my two weeks without having another job lined up. The (low) pay wasn't worth how miserable I was becoming and I could feel myself actually becoming depressed/mildly insane.
Prior to my current role, it was all BO. The issue is you rarely learn new things. Jobs are very station-to-station (trying to avoid using the word 'operational') and you can hit a ceiling very quickly. You're dealing with the internally outsourced tasks, which are repetitive. I honestly don't get people who enjoy it. Managers in the BO are generally people who have just been around long enough to promote and brag about their understanding of "everything that goes on at the company" which is hilarious.
I did a BO internship. While most people shit on it, if you're looking for a steady 9-5 job that pays well (relative to 9-5 jobs) it is a good option. The work was boring and unfulfilling but it was a nice work environment.
The long and the short of it is this forum isn't the right audience for BO/MO discussions. While, yes, I agree, back office is in all likelihood way more "boring" work with less "upside", the fact remains is there are very limited IB roles. If you remove the prestige mentality of this site, its probably a pretty good career track with decent pay, benefits, etc. Is IB better, duh, but the people on this site that put down BO/MO are just immature.
they don't CLOSE THE DEALS. that's the problem with BO/MO.
I occasionally have to deal with the back and middle office. What makes these roles less interesting generally speaking is a combination of: lower compensation, highly regimented work, less of an ability to move up and a lack of transferable skills. We quite literally have people who do nothing all day except deal with wires, while wiring funds is important, I do want to get paid on comanaged deals, it doesn't seem too interesting. The other thing it is increasingly these roles are becoming automated and there is a real threat of layoffs. The thing is there are some jobs which are not front-office but are interesting, namely strategy and treasury functions. If you're working for the CIO of a bank and managing a portfolio even if it's not FO that would seem to be interesting.
You've misused "misnomer".
Worked in settlements and risk control for a total of 3 years. Boring, repetitive, no transferable skills, low pay, not a lot of bright people to learn from. Any new "project" is just typing numbers in to a an excel file. I do not understand how somebody can enjoy this.
How did you escape
I had a prolonged business trip to Sweden when I started in Risk Control, they payed well so I was able to save around 6k$, I opened an IB account and started trading and learning the basics of investing. I took a lot of online courses on coursera.org in Finance, Stats, Computational Investing etc. + 5 month C++ programming bootcamp. If you want to invest/trade you need to analyze data and you need to know how to code, simple Excel does not cut, at least VBA is a must. My thesis was simple it's not the university you went to, it's not your grades, it's what you actually know and how you can contribute. After that I was able to get an Analyst position at a local IB boutique, did almost 2 years, then 1 year at a mutual fund, now going to be a broker at a local private bank. Programming skills were a big plus at almost every interview. The last position might be surprising, but in the country where I live banking industry is very different from US or Western Europe. Finished my MSc in Econometrics this year and now study Machine Learning via online specialization want to do some freelancing in that field.
A man's life has an objective, an end goal. My objective is to CLOSE FUCKING DEALS AND MAKE BANK.
BO does not allow you to CLOSE FUCKING DEALS or MAKE BANK. That is the problem.
I think I just spotted the MAN who SBed my comment on this topic. SB back to you.
Most of this post is pretty accurate. I strongly contend with the person that said 'BO can be enjoyable as long as you're not a prestige whore'. That's just not true at all. When I worked in a restaurant, I thought the manager there was at least 2x as smart as my manager from my time in BO. I could actually learn from that person, they at least had an ounce of passion about their work.
The BO/FO argument is kinda stupid, because it should really be BO/any other career opportunity. If you're a person looking to simply have something fairly stable while you stack cash for post-retirement or your actual passion, I think it could work. The BO/FO argument only exists on this site because of college kids having absolutely no clue what a career in 'finance' looks like, so it becomes a struggle between making an everlasting good or bad decision within what is perceived to be the only two main options. Realistically, every FO role is different from investor types, to managers, to advisors, and then even more distinction exists among different products or industries.
As long as I'm interested in closing deals and potentially being a professional rainmaker, I'm going into the FO versus med school, as an example, because I just don't care about repairing knees or handing out shots or researching the effects of smoking one extra cig on the brain. Personally, I'm more interested in deals and building relationships, from a deal/investor standpoint. Finance is still pretty broad and once you select the avenue that works best, there's something for most personality types.
Also, I don't think that a person should choose to go into BO if they are looking for a career, because as mentioned there are no relevant skills that can be developed and I'm pretty confident that tech will eliminate most those jobs as they're extremely repetitive and monotonous. As I said, going into the BO looking to generate a steady stream of income can be helpful if your eyes are set on using the cash for something beyond your years of dedicated toil.
While I was interested in getting into an Asset Management role, I am finding "MO" is not a horrible place to be.
Currently- 80K/yr base + bonus and work 38-40 hrs/wk. Should be promoted at year end based on everything I have heard which increases the base to ~95-100. Being able to make 110-120K before 27 working less than 40 hours a week and unlimited PTO is actually pretty nice. Alternatively you could say I make 1.5X what an IB associate makes hourly.
I would still really like to get an asset management job but we will see because I get offers for other "MO" roles that make 120K base + bonus also working 40 hours or less a week. AM positions offer 80K + 30K bonus which is less money to work more..
What at kind of firm do you work for an BB? You seem to be on a nice wicket. I wouldn't leave. Can you do a trading portfolio on the side using your stack of cash?
The reasons people claim on this thread about "why BO/MO is so bad" is utterly ridiculous. I've been in ops for all of my adult life and frankly it is nowhere near as bad as you all make it seem. BO/FO/MO are all very volatile and suffer cuts quite often and it isn't just the BO people who get laidoff. I will go through the pros and "cons"
Pros Easy to move up the ranks in my experience Can still make 100K within 3-6 years in a cheap COL area, 200-500K in your early 30s-40s if you get to the ED/MD levels Don't really have to go to B-school at all but you have a good profile if want to go that route Is completely possible to become MD vs FO roles where pedigree and politics are more extreme No weekend work PTO is great and you will never have a vp scowl at you like you might in IB Hours are extremely manageable
Cons Not as high pay as FO (Albeit on an hourly basis that isn't always the case) Not all BO roles are created equal so be sure to avoid a group that is not what you want (for me it's internal audit)
100k in 3 years in a cheap COL area? I work in Philly (not BO), which is generally considered cheaper, and no one I know who went BO/MO out of college is making anywhere close to that.
keen to understand the difference between BO/MO repetitive tasks vs. IBD/Trading repetitive tasks. From my perspective junior IBD/Trading/BO/MO have the same level of monotony.
BO/MO - Entering numbers in to excel/creating reports. IBD - Researching company financials plugging in to models/Creating reports. Trading - Staring a screen all day (Not entirely sure what junior traders actually do)
Also genuinely interested in the transferable skills that you can only get from IBD/Trading.
Thnx T
What you get out of IB is at the junior levels, a strong command of finance and a lot of transaction experience. Other than corp dev which seldom takes folks straight out of college, there's nowhere else to get that kind of experience. I'd analogize IB to boot camp for business, you learn a lot of hard skills (financial modeling, statement analysis, presentations) and soft skills (attention to detail). You also are working 1.5-2X more than people in the corporate world, while this may be shitty it gives you the ability to jam in more experience in a short amount of time. You can get this experience elsewhere e.g. TAS, management consulting, but it won't be tied up in a neat little package.
I work on average 36-38 hours a week. Do people in IB really only work 55 hours a week (1.5x more)? This board makes it sound like they are in the office much more than that.
Also just as a side note, all of the skills you mentioned are part of my current role at an equal or higher level. We do quantitative modeling using the balance sheet and present to the senior leadership team. What we put together goes in the Ks/Qs.
I'm not saying IB isn't great by any means, but out of the 120ish people on my floor, more than 10% came from IB roles at top firms. While the pay is about 20-30% less managers in quantitative roles make ~160k and you can get there by 30 years old. I just can't see how $80/HR with a life is worse than $30/HR with no life....
Let me add: I believe there are many reasons people choose IB such as, getting into a top ranked B school and having a ton of exit opportunities. However I also think there is this idea that it leads to being a multi millionaire before you're 30. One thing I don't think a lot of people realize is that not everyone in IB reaches that goal, in fact many don't. Look around at the number of analysts at your firm and multiply that by the number of firms (adjust for size). Do you see that many PE managers or IB MDs?
i just started as a Jr sales/trader for a large Mid tier IB ($90+ bn Assets) and my job is much like a research analyst would be on the sell side -- basically doing desk analyst work by supporting trading staff with research and analysis on trades and axes done on Bloomberg and general market summaries.
Couldn't disagree more with your opinion from my perspective. My back office position was only repetitive excel tasks and i learned almost nothing about the market and how the industry works in 9 months there; I've learned more in one month using Bloomberg everyday for desk analyst-esk work. There is nearly no monotony in my FO position and keep in mind i'm not even licensed till next month.
Trying to think of any transferable skills you DON'T learn in an IBD/Trading role... This could take a while. You're using a high-level understanding of Finance/Accting/stats/econ/data science applied to actual deals and trades using Excel or Bloomberg in a client facing role. Try think of a position that wouldn't prepare you for: maybe woodworking or as a shepherd. Thats all i got.
Spent past 5 years in BO (mostly part-time during the University years).
This is a great place if you want to work 9-5, or you want to be a working mother. 8 years ago the bank I worked at used to target finance/accounting graduates, shift them out with with a decent recruitment process and pick the good ones. Now they aim at working mothers, that are happy with repetetive job and they don't treat their job as an important thing, but as a source of an extra income for the family.
Anyway as it has been mentioned previously - Big Data and computerization will tear the BO operations into the pieces (it's already happening). I've learned VBA, wrote some decent tools and it's safe to say I've saved the company a handful of full-time employees they don't need to hire now. My first team was disbanded back when I was a freshman and over 20 people were relocated to the other teams because one big VBA + SQL tool managed to make the 20 people job obsolete.
Here in Europe some of the BO/MO roles will continue to grow due to the regulations. However that's mostly risk and legal part. All of this classic accounting/wiring/custody roles are set to be extinct.
Finally there is no comparsion in the quality of work. I'm not even talking about the deals and contact you will get in the FO roles. I've moved to the deal side, and Good God, office chairs are finally comfortable.
Want a healthy back? Don't go to BO.
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Just read this now. I think the forum has some weird KKR obsession that I am really wondering where the origin came from. Did patrick say you have to be GS TMT or bust during the ibanking oasis days?
So job did you have? You sound like the life I want. I just want a stable job, eventually get paid 100k and have free time to do the things I want. I'm thinking about starting over to become a Financial Analyst or working as a Performance Analyst at an Asset Management firm - which I have some experience in performance reporting.
I don't care about big bucks. What are these 'back office' and 'middle office' jobs you guys speak of. I want to get into it.
I hate my life right now. All I do is work for some ok salary and study for the CFA. I really just want to travel, socialize, and do other things in life.
It's usually not very finance related, but many people go into it thinking it's a foot in the door. I would equate it to a factory or assembly line worker. I started in ops right out of college, and definitely regret it. Going back to school in the fall though, and I'm really excited to be leaving. I would advise against it if you're interested in actual finance or really just business for that matter.
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