5/12/2018
Investment Banking Hours - What to Expect? | Wall Street Oa...
The 100-Hour Work Week Fallacy A typical investment investment banking analyst can expect an 80-hour week. week. Yes, there will absolutely be weeks where you will work a hundred hours, but those weeks are outnumbered by 80-hour weeks. A user shared a wise comment below: Marcus_Halberstram - Industry CEO:
The amount of misinformaon about the banking
lifestyle is fairly absurd. And it stems largely from these nerdy kids who think it's a badge of honor to somehow work ridiculous hours. Despite this, don't expect a work-life balance during your first two years.
What are the Hours of an Investment Banking Analyst? Analyst ? Our users shared that the hours that are usually stated s tated are inflated. mtnmmnn - Private Equity Vice President:
People in Investment Banking tend to inflate
their hours a bit, and no one is working 100+ hours a week consistently. A good poron of my analyst class (including me) would keep track of their hours in a spreadsheet, and we would oen compare. And over the first two years, average was about 75 hours a week for people in coverage groups and Lev Fin and about 85 for people in M&A M& A (mergers and acquisions
). Hours vary by group. M&A (mergers and acquisions
) groups have the most hours, hours , and as you can see, 100 hour weeks, even for M&A (mergers and acquisions
) groups, are the excepon.
Investment Banking Associate Long Work Week Generally, Generally, associates work less than analysts because they've already learned the ropes.
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5/12/2018
Investment Banking Hours - What to Expect? | Wall Street Oa...
danske:
That being said, my life as an associate has been a lot easier than my life as an
analyst - 65-75 hrs, depending on the week. You become much beer at managing your me, less concerned about face me, and get more slack from your MDs/VPs who you've worked with for years. (I'm a direct promote.) Not great by any means but certainly more manageable." This is only a general rule and definitely varies depending on group culture, bosses, and sector.
Vice President (VP) Investment Banking Long Hours VP hours vary a ton based on a few factors, the overarching theme being how much you care about your work and how efficient you are. danske:
VP hours vary depending on how acve you are in bringing in deals, covering
clients, and supporng MDs. The typical VP puts in 60-80 hours.
Work Week for Investment Banking Senior Vice President (SVP)/Director Hours here vary because of everything previously menoned and how effecve you are at your job. PowerMonkey - Investment Banking Vice President:
SVP/Director tends to be a hybrid
between VP and MD. Basically, if you are good, then you are just running deals and making it rain. If you aren't, then you are more in the weeds.
Managing Director Investment Bank Hours MDs are the first to leave the office. Sexy_Like_Enrique: At MD level, you are mostly dealing with clients and relaonship
building. So I guess the nature of your work is far more enjoyable than doing a bunch of grunt Excel (hps://gv142.isrefer.com/go/wso15/wsoasis/) modeling work as an analyst. Expect lots of travel, lots of golf, and lots of dining out with clients.
What Do Investment Banking Analysts Do? https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/investment-banking-hours-what-to-expect
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5/12/2018
Investment Banking Hours - What to Expect? | Wall Street Oa...
WheyOfLife:
There are a million ways to answer this queson. The simple truth is this: a
lot of grunt work. A lot of financial modeling (hps://gv142.isrefer.com/go/wso15/wsoasis/) (with Excel (hps://gv142.isrefer.com/go/wso15/wsoasis/), of course), developing pitchbooks on PowerPoint (the earlier you become familiar with PowerPoint and Excel (hps://gv142.isrefer.com/go/wso15/wsoasis/) the beer), and just random things that come up throughout the day.
Investment Banking Career Tips - What does an Invest…
How to Handle the Long Hours? Some will have it far worse than others in terms of hours/week. 100+ hour weeks are an unappealing but unavoidable reality of life as an Investment Banking analyst. While these weeks aren't the norm for most, some analysts will deal with 100+ hour weeks (hps://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/suck-it-up-8-steps-to-geng-through-100-hourweeks-as-an-ib-analyst) on a consistent basis. @square_miles (/user/32728), an investment banking associate, explains in eight steps how he survived the grueling hours of an Investment Banking analyst, summarized below. 1. Adopt a survivor mentality: Maintain fortude, avoid self-pity, and, most importantly, accept the hand that you've been dealt. 2. Put it in perspecve : Understand that there are a thousand people who would kill for your job and many, many people whose lives are infinitely worse than yours. 3. Raonalize two years : Break down the me you are spending as an analyst into milestones: Thanksgiving, bonus seasons, etc. If you are really struggling with the hours, then reaching the milestones you set will make things more bearable. https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/investment-banking-hours-what-to-expect
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5/12/2018
Investment Banking Hours - What to Expect? | Wall Street Oa...
4. Be strong: Don't complain and don't make yourself a vicm. These becomes a legacy and reputaon that you don't want to be aached to. 5. Create opons: Set yourself up for future job opportunies by networking proacvely. 6. Think creavely about your career : Carefully consider what you value in life and what you enjoy so you can find a career for you. 7. Exoc jobs: Consider spending a year or two doing Peace Corps, MSF (Masters in Finance
), Red Cross, War Child, LeapFrog Investments, etc. You can live a healthy lifestyle in that me, get irreplaceable experience in a foreign country, and your MBA (Masters in Business Administraon
) applicaons become much more complete. 8. Heroes and mentors: Look at individuals a bit further ahead in the same career as you, and ask yourself if that's the life you want. As for mentors, find someone who you have commonalies with, build a genuine relaonship with them, and they will hopefully help you get ahead in your career.
How Does Lifestyle Differ between Investment Banking Groups? While hour variaon within groups is dependent on banks, there are general trends. @Ukon (/user/18774), a private equity associate, and @macro (/user/25894), a hedge fund analyst, did a nice job summarizing how the hours vary by groups. Ukon - Private Equity Associate:
M&A and leveraged finance will usually have the
longest hours.
Macro - Hedge Fund Associate:
Restructuring groups and consolidated TMT
(technology, media, and telecommunicaons) groups also have long hours."
Ukon - Private Equity Associate:
Healthcare is a long hour group at every single shop.
They have way too many companies to cover, and those companies like to acquire each other as well. Similarly, FIG (financial instuons group
) (/finance-diconary/what-isfinancial-instuons-group-FIG) (Financial Instuon Groups) are long hour groups across the board."
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5/12/2018
Investment Banking Hours - What to Expect? | Wall Street Oa...
How Do Investment Banking Analysts Deal with Long Work Weeks? WSO062014:
Here is a summary of the sleep schedule as an analyst. 9am - 12am
Monday - Friday gives you 7+ hours of sleep each night, a 75 hour work week and a free weekend. Sure, there will be a parcularly bad week here and there, but that's a sustainable lifestyle for a couple of years without going crazy.
Kevin-Gnappor - Investment Banking Analyst:
To the queson of whether it gets beer
or if the hours go by: when you are driven by a deal, the last thing on your mind is sleep. Adrenaline keeps you awake, and you manage to blow through whatever you need to get through.
In The Flesh:
My #1 suggeson would be to do something non-electronic for at least 30
minutes before you hit the sack. Blue light emied from smartphones and laptops have been shown to mess up our circadian rhythm. Reading a light ficon book (in paper form, not on a tablet) is a great way to unwind and relax the brain. I have a few collecons of classic short stories (usually 20-30 pages) that are great for bedme reading.
thebrofessor - Porolio Manager:
Read up on sleep cycles, find out what yours is, likely
75-90 minutes. If you're sleeping an even mulple of that (e.g. 6 hrs or 7.5 hrs if a 90 minute cycle), you're beer rested than 8 hours or 7 hours. Again, the hours are more than your average Joe will be geng out of undergrad, but i t isn't as excessive as the world would have you believe. The hours are blown out of proporon for reasons previously menoned. Even then, if you don't think you could handle the hours and sleep, put yourself in the shoes of Investment Banking analyst. Understand that, in the moment, there are things that drive you to overcome sleeping less, the s ame way kids are able to crank out an essay in the wee hours of the morning without falling asleep. One issue many Investment Banking analysts face is falling asleep aer a long, adrenalinefilled day at work. Turning off electronics before bed is key as studies have shown that the blue light messes with your circadian rhythm, which is also a crucial when it comes to waking up on me.
80 Hour Weeks in Investment Banking https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/investment-banking-hours-what-to-expect
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5/12/2018
Investment Banking Hours - What to Expect? | Wall Street Oa...
Investment banking analysts face long hours. While those hours vary, it typically comes out to about 80 hours a week. Even then, there are ways to cope. Below is an excellent post from @Marcus_Halberstram (/user/11837), an industry CEO, painng his thoughts on the investment banking lifestyle, and why you shouldn't believe everything you hear about it.
Banking Lifestyle: What Are the Hours Really Like? @Marcus_Halberstram (/user/11837) In light of the recent death of an investment banking intern in London (who was apparently epilepc) and with all the misinformaon and romancized banking horror s tories (/forums/elite-bouque-hours-culture) being peppered all over the place, I thought I'd (try to) sele this for once and for all and clear up all the bullshit. 'With respect to the people saying that it's "NEVER" expected to work three back-to-back all-nighters or that interns aren't expected to work all-nighters, you guys might be too senior to noce it happening. 'There is a team that sits near me at my shop that regularly has to pull back-to-back allnighters, because they have a terrible staffer and awful seniors to work for. They don't even go home to shower anymore; they have a few sets of fresh clothes under the desk. Unsurprisingly, the majority quit post-bonus. HR is puzzled, but people are too afraid to tell the truth about how badly the workload for that team is managed.' This is just patently false. It's not at all like this in the industry. This sounds more like one of the college kids that so frequently troll WSO (Wall Street Oasis
) and are, for whatever reason, turned on by the idea of working ridiculous (beyond the pale of reality) hours in banking. The amount of misinformaon about the banking lifestyle on WSO (Wall Street Oasis
) is fairly absurd. And it stems largely from these nerdy kids who think its a badge of honor to somehow work ridiculous hours. It's the same kids who, when they first start working, will stay in the office for absolutely no reason. It's the same kids who try to impress people by bragging about their ridiculous work schedules. It's the same kids that build a 16-tab model with 11 different scenarios and 8 sensivity tables to run stascs on how many hours per week they are working. You see this through levels in banking, these are the VPs that are in the office unl midnight or 1 am consistently. It's the directors and MDs in the office unl 10 or 11 pm. They are legimately sad people; you feel sorry for them. To some degree, banking is constantly https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/investment-banking-hours-what-to-expect
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Investment Banking Hours - What to Expect? | Wall Street Oa...
forcing people to demonstrate their worth, and some people think that their worth is quanfied by how many hours they spend in the office. What you start to see is that the 'face me' people inially started pung in to demonstrate their worth to other people starts becoming their own sense of self-worth. Yeah, that's some deep Dr Phil shit. Pulling 100 hour weeks is fairly intense. But even sll, it's working from 9 am to 1 am during the week. And working from 10 am to 8 pm on Saturday and Sunday. It's not really that bad. It's just horrific in comparison to working a normal job and going to happy hour aer work, brunch and college football on Saturdays, and chilling at home all day on Sundays. Even in the banking 100 hour week, you're sll averaging about 5 to 6 hours of sleep during the week, and as much sleep as you want during the weekend. Will there be weeks when you work more than that? Yes. Will there be weeks when you work less? Yes. The busier groups will work those weeks more oen and have the absolutely ridiculous weeks come up a few more more mes than the less busy groups. But if you're consistently working meaningfully more than that on a regular basis, it's because you're not effecve at your job.... and oen mes because you like the idea of always being in the office. Everyone who has actually worked in banking for a year or more knows exactly what I'm talking about. The truth is the industry has its fair share of characters, but they are sll within a few standard deviaons of reasonable human beings. Aer you work a really long week and the deliverable are off the table, you can bounce early if you want. If you worked all weekend unl 2 am, worked unl 4 am Monday night, and were in the office at 8:30 am to flip books on Tuesday, you can bounce early. Or come in late the next day. No one is driving a slave ship. Meengs can get pushed if there is not enough man power. Analysts get shuffled around. Most banks have templates, canned presentaons and pages from past books, presentaon operators that turn changes, outsourced analysts abroad, and graphics departments to create shit. The real gruel of the banking lifestyle comes not from a lack of sleep... even though there may be instances where you're fairly sleep deprived when you're sprinng towards the finish line on a few projects... rather it comes from the fact that everything outside of work is always hanging on a string that may get snipped if the smallest thing requires your aenon at work.
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5/12/2018
Investment Banking Hours - What to Expect? | Wall Street Oa...
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