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"84% of my analyst class have left banking"

I was an analyst in an investment bank. There were 12 people in my analyst class. Eight years later, all but two of us are out of it again.

I quit after six years. I went into the investment banking division (IBD) of one of the biggest and best U.S. banks, and I'd planned to build my career there. I knew it was going to be hard. I wasn't ready for it to be mad.

I always worked 80-hour weeks; I often worked 100-hour weeks. I was living at my parents' and a lot of the time I'd get home at 4am or 5am, have two hours' sleep and go back again. There were times I'd return home just as my father was showering to go to work. Often I'd  sleep on the sofa as it didn't seem worth going to bed.

My parents are creatives. When I was growing up, I saw the tough side of income instability, and I grew up much more corporate-minded than my parents. This is why I chose to go into an investment bank. 

My parents were initially supportive of my career choice. Once they saw what was happening, they pestered me a lot - especially my mom. I tried to explain that I was in a really competitive industry and that we had to deliver for clients, but they could never really understand why.

Several of my friends went into banking as well. Looking back, it's like we were in the grips of a kind of collective madness. When you work in banking, you're aware that rival banks are working just as hard as you are to stand out. It's all about iterating and iterating on presentations beyond the point where it really makes a difference. If I were a corporate on the receiving end, I don't think I'd be that bothered by all the detail. Sure, it's nice if it's well formatted and looks professional, but we'd go way behind that.  We'd work all night on a piece of work to keep the client happy, and wouldn't even hear anything back after they received it. 

Eventually I decided I couldn't do it anymore. My team was already very understaffed and people kept leaving because of the overwork. It was too much, and with my parents' support I left.

I look at my two friends who are still in banking, and they're both getting paid well and enjoying life. It may be that I had a bad experience - my team was certainly busier than the rest. But most of my other friends are in agreement that banking is ok as a training ground for a few years, and no more. There's so much more to life than working 100 hours a week and the work in IBD just isn't fulfilling enough to compensate.

I think banks have got a real problem. Young people now have got options: you don't have to choose finance, you can go into a start-up or a tech firm, where you work hard, but sensible-hard. At Google or Facebook you can still have a life. Who wants to be in the office all night and all weekend?

Yes, banks are trying to cut their hours - and I could see initiatives coming through before I left, but 80+ hour weeks are very ingrained in the industry. The senior people went through it themselves, and they're used to having juniors on call whenever. Somehow, though, it needs to change. If it doesn't, I predict that banks are going to have some serious staffing issues. 

Jason Bird is a pseudonym

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Photo by Jordan Steranka on Unsplash

 

 

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AUTHORJason Bird Insider Comment
  • Bs
    Bsj
    11 September 2021

    It's up to each individual ultimately. Those who end up going to IBD teams know it's a terrible work-life balance they are embracing, but they still chose it anyway because of money, the competitive rush, the belief that it will work out in the end, that it won't be as bad for them as they hear others say etc. It doesn't matter sometimes that some of what the writer said above is obvious to others e.g. the formatting of presentations to the point of diminishing returns etc. I did an internship in IBD in 2002 at a top bank in the City. I knew even back then that you didn't have to run a desk or office in this inefficient manner to justify your existence (maybe it's because Engineering training made me ask questions about the efficiency of the setup). There must be a better and more efficient way. So, after my internship, I joined a different team in another bank. Not IBD. I have too much of a life outside banking that involves other people (mentoring, marriage counselling, church band, music) that I accept that to throw my body at all these things, including a 100+hr week and not expect something to break is foolishness. I still worked 70+ hours a week in the bank but it was manageable. It's the same way the book publishing industry is. It is such an inefficient industry that is staffed by an older generation of people. I just published a book and couldn't believe how inefficient the industry was. I refused to add to the inefficiency by finding smarter ways to get things done. So, banks will always find people to commit to these kind of hours because they are usually young and without attachment when they hire them. If banks were hiring people who had families into these roles it would be 1000 more difficult.

  • @x
    @x
    4 October 2019

    Yeah those 80 hour weeks behind a desk being brought lattes are a killer.
    In reality you spent maybe 40 minutes working and the rest of the time on phones. Your never going to get compassion from anyone who does actual labor and gets paid a fraction of your compensation for attending meetings and going out to lunch.

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