<p>I was just wondering what some people with more experience in, and knowledge of, the business world than I thought about this.</p>
<p>Jobs where you can earn a high salary...and...</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Maybe work something close to 40hrs/wk, eventually.</p></li>
<li><p>Maybe have weekends off.</p></li>
<li><p>Maybe get a little vacation time every now and again.</p></li>
<li><p>Maybe have something resembling job security.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>none of the fields you listed are anything close to 40 hrs/week. for example, kramer said that “one day he woke up and his kids were 15” or something like that. banking, private equity, management consulting, and hedge fund are particularly bad. investment management is slightly better; here is an example salary/company/review (180k): </p>
<p>in general, you can’t have $$$ AND work-life balance. if you want reasonable money (like low 100’s) and great work life balance, you can consider something like the aerospace/defense industry. the culture there has great work life balance but chances are you will never hit the cover of forbes and/or make 300k per year. </p>
<p>if you want to make $$$, something will have to give, although you should keep in mind that one can usually “exit” the $$$ track into the low 100k track fairly easy by joining the general management ranks of a corporation. so basically you will not want to stay in any of the industries long-term, but maybe only 4-5 years so you can make connections and find a good work-life balance opp down the line.</p>
<p>Interesting. Couple of clarification questions though, if you don’t mind. </p>
<h1>1) Are you including Venture Capital when you say that Private Equity is particularly bad?</h1>
<h1>2) When you say investment management isn’t that bad…what exactly are you saying? And what exactly is seperating hedge funds from mutual funds in the salary/lifestyle realm? Are mutual funds more like 40-50 hr/wk jobs? I know the pay still gets very high at the top there.</h1>
<p>VC is a very weird industry. most of the people working there are ex-entrepreneurs who built a track-record in the startup arena, at least at the partner level. there are low level analysts etc. but they generally cannot be promoted to partner/director/whatever.</p>
<p>my feeling is that the mutual fund industry is more conservative and predictable; chances are you will not get a phone call during vacation that your fund just lost 40% of its value in one day, unlike hedge funds. on the other hand, you won’t be getting the 20% of profits as compensation that the hedge fund managers do.</p>
<p>all is probably too strong of a quantifier, but pretty close to it. </p>
<p>mutual funds usually manage the “average joe” 's retirement account; employer retirement plans, 401k, etc etc. hedge funds usually manage the funds of more risk-tolerant entities like universities.</p>
<p>Business academia immediately comes to mind. Salary is high (at least by the standards of academia), and once you have tenure, you have a guaranteed job for life, hence, perfect job security. It also means that many tenured faculty, frankly don’t show up to the office particularly often, certainly don’t work weekends, and may not work even 20 hours a week. Vacations within academia are also notoriously lavish: you basically have the whole summer off, you have a month off around Christmas, you have a week of spring break off, and so forth. </p>
<p>To be sure, obtaining tenure is no small feat. The untenured years generally consist of 60+ hr workweeks of research & teaching. But research time is manageable, as nobody is going to tell you when to do your research. If you want to take a month off from research, nobody is going to command you otherwise. Heck, they probably won’t even notice.</p>
<p>You also may be able to obtain some of your above list by taking a management position in Europe. Granted, the salaries won’t be as high as they would be in the US. However, job security in Europe is very high as it is extremely expensive for companies to terminate you. Furthermore, the vacation schedules are lavish, the workweeks are rarely much longer than 40 hours a week, and the standard of living in Europe is obviously extremely high. </p>
<p>For example, I know one MBA grad who took a management job with Novartis in Switzerland that granted her a whopping six weeks of vacation. Furthermore, rarely does she work more than 50 hours a week, with many weeks working much less than that, and has yet to work a single weekend (she’s been there for almost a year now). She spends much of her time traveling throughout central Europe, instilling jealousy within all her friends via her lavish Facebook travel photo albums. She thinks nothing of spending any given weekend in Paris, Milan, or Frankfurt. To be clear, she doesn’t speak any of the Swiss official languages and has never lived in Switzerland before. But Novartis hired her anyway. </p>
<p>While she will never become rich, she enjoys a lifestyle that most of us could only wish we had. She enjoys it so much, she’s thinking of eventually acquiring Swiss citizenzenship.</p>
<p>Thank you for your response. Academia has long been one of the reasons I’ve considered a career in the business world. I’ve always sort of figured, hey, if it’s too much, I can just take some time off, get my PhD, and teach.</p>
<p>For most professors, the one’s I’ve been around at least, it seems like it’s about a 30 week a year job, teaching maybe two or three courses at a time (that meet for a combined total of about 18-27 hrs/wk, plus office hours), and you get paid somewhere around about 150k, for THAT! Also nice that you can do it about anywhere. There are business schools in Detroit, New York, Iowa, Switzerland and the Bahammas.</p>
<p>A lot of the b-school profs, and econ profs, that I know also do consulting on the side, or run their own private funds in addition to their teaching duties.</p>
<p>Sounds pretty good to me!</p>
<p>…How did that friend of yours go about being recruited by a Swiss company?? That sounds very intriguing as well.</p>
<p>I have to say, as a European citizen, it’s funny to read that you are wondering that we ‘usually don’t work more than 50 hours a week’. </p>
<p>In the Netherlands most of the people will enter the office at 9AM and leave at 5PM. Mostly perfect 40 hour work weeks. Many people even prefer a 36-hour work week and complain if they have to work 1-2 hours a week more. Won’t get you in the top-position of the company, but has a fair work/life balance. It’s even considered strange to work > 60 hours a week. If you would tell a random European that you work more than 60 hours they will be respectful and surprised. Why?</p>
<p>Let me give you an example for what you will earn at the largest bank of the Netherlands. ING Bank. If you will be in a Managers function, have a 40-hour workweek, studied at a research university (with master’s degree) you’ll earn with 5-10 years of work experience around $95,000. 27 days of paid vacation, free public transport card (sometimes even a free car), free health insurance, discount on your mortgage (+ everyone receives tax benefits), free sportfacilities etc. </p>
<p>Stress is even present in Europe. But the quality of living is indeed one of the highest in the world. And 6 weeks of vacation? What’s strange about that? All people get around 30-40 days of, so depending on the planning you could even take more than 6 weeks of vacation. </p>
<p>The reason why I would like to work in the U.S. is due to the 70-80 hour workweeks, the hard culture of working and not the ‘soft, easy, 40 hour workweek’ culture in Europe.</p>
<p>Well, I’d like to think I have some knowledge regarding international working cultures, and so the relatively laid-back European lifestyle is no surprise to me. </p>
<p>Furthermore, one could contrast the work culture in the US (or Europe) with the notoriously long hours of Asia, especially Japan. The work hours of the Japanese and South Korean salaryman are brutal, to the point that they never practically never leave the office, often times being expected to return to the office after dinner and put in “extra” off-the-clock hours for which they are not officially being paid (but of course if they don’t work those hours, then they will be shunned and offered the most menial projects and have no chance for promotion). Even with nothing to do, Japanese and Korean office workers are often times not allowed to leave until their superiors leave. </p>
<p>Hence, to the degree that American workers may be shocked at the relaxed work culture within Europe, most Japanese and Korean workers would surely be shocked at the relaxed work culture within the United States (and doubly shocked with regards to Europe). </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, to be fair, at least at the better business schools, if you’re untenured (and technically, even when you are tenured), you are supposed to spending a substantial amount of time on research. For this reason, I would agree that junior untenured faculty do tend to work long hours, although those hours are manageable (i.e. if you don’t want to do research today, you can choose to reschedule it to some other day, as you’re in charge of your own projects). </p>
<p>The real gravy train is if and when you obtain tenure, for after that, you truly can choose to do next-to-nothing, and, frankly speaking, many do so. Once tenured, you don’t have to conduct research, you can put minimal effort into your teaching and administrative responsibilities, you can hold minimal office hours, and you can’t be terminated because you’re tenured.</p>
<p>this european talk is all very, very interesting…</p>
<h1>1) Are the top paying industries in the United States (investment banking, private equity/venture capital, hedge fund/investment management, management consulting, etc.) the top paying industries in Europe?</h1>
<h1>2) If the answer to question #1 is “yes” - Do the players in those top paying industries in Europe get paid about the same (relatively speaking) as their American counterparts?</h1>
<h1>3) What are some of the major European financial centers where a job like that could be acquired?</h1>
<h1>4) If I wanted to get a job in a European financial center, would I have to get an MBA in Europe…or would an American MBA be just as good?..And how difficult is that recruiting process??</h1>
<h1>5) What do you know about general working hour trends in areas like…The Caribbean/Central America/South America …Australia/New Zealand (I’m assuming that’s similar to Europe)…India (I’m assuming that’s similar to SE Asia)</h1>
<p>Well, unfortunately, European financial services working hours are also highly brutal (although perhaps not as brutal as US or Asian financial services hours).</p>
<p>Yes. That are the same top paid industries, but I have to make a distinction. It varies by country, for example in the Netherlands the taxes are 52% of your income (so every dollar you earn, you’ll receive 48 cents) so that’s also a big disadvantage.</p>
<p>What I see in the admission statistics (such as the FT MBA 2009 ranking) is that the earnings after 2/3 years + MBA are around $120,000. I don’t think you can get that salary so easy here in Europe. And one difference is that a lot of companies allow the employees to divide their time by themselves. One thing that counts are the results, especially in those top paying industries.</p>
<p>Major financial institutions: ING, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, Citigroup, ABN Amro, HSBC, Barclays, Fortis. Al though Fortis and ABN Amro are now owned by the Dutch government, so the high pays aren’t anymore available. We have here the ‘Prime-Minister norm’, which states that top-executives of public companies (state owned for example or charities) cannot earn more than ± $ 220,000. And indeed Sakky, 15% of the workers work more than 65 hours. 85% MUCH less than that.</p>
<p>The members of the board of ING earn approx. 4-5 Million dollar a year. They work mostly for 25 years in the company.</p>
<p>American MBA’s and American companies are quite prestigious here. If you have an MBA from an American university; I think it’s an plus. Recruiting process is not different than in US. Mostly 2-4 rounds, role-plays, assessments etc. </p>
<p>If you want to have not so much working hours, consider Jamaica or Bahamas.</p>
<p>Mutual funds, traditional asset management.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes. Even the most established hedge funds, which have less redemption risk, are going to have higher performance standards for their analysts and more turnover than the average mutual fund.</p>
<p>Regarding hedge fund vs mutual fund risk, how are you defining risk?</p>
<p>In terms of career risk, it may be fair to say that HFs are more risky. In terms risking investors capital the answer is far more complicated.</p>
<p>The first and most obvious issue is the “hedge funds” is a blanket term that is used to describe all sorts of different investment strategies. In the original sense of the word, a “hedge fund” is meant to be less risky than the standard long only mutual fund. That is, they had short positions to offset the longs, resulting in market neutrality or at least not 100% long exposure.</p>
<p>The universe of “Hedge Funds” is far too varied to be dropped into one bucket of risk. The Fixed Income arbitrage fund (IE LTCM) that is commonly levered more than 20 times over is probably far more risky that your average mutual fund, but a market neutral fund should be less risky than the average MF.</p>
<p>Of course there is also the tendency of mutual fund managers to underperform the general market (some studies point to as much as 19/20 underperforming over time, while others say about 2/3) which is another risk unto itself. Most people are best off just consistently putting their money in and ultra cheap etf or group of etfs with exposure to different asset classes, periodically adjusting their positions back to the original levels and otherwise never thinking about it.</p>
<p>my thoughts on hedge funds vs mutual funds are as follows.</p>
<p>in finance, you can’t get more reward without more risk. thus, since hedge funds usually market themselves as doing better than the average mutual fund (thus justifying outrageous manager fees like 20% of the profits) they must be taking more risk, in general.</p>
<p>second, the investors for hedge funds are usually more risk tolerant and willing to fork over money with no strings attached. for example, some hedge funds will not let you withdraw within a one-year period or something like that. also there are less rules governing hedge funds since they deal with primarily wealthy individuals (the thought being that if these people lose their investments, their lives won’t be ruined). </p>
<p>mutual funds, on the other hand, are really dealing with the “average joe’s” money and are therefore more regulated. there are more rules governing the field and poor performance could actually ruin lives (ex enron investors). so i would think (hope?) as a general rule they are safer investments for investors but probably less sexy to work at.</p>
<p>They don’t get paid big bucks for teaching.</p>
<p>Professors are first and foremost RESEARCHERS and lecturing is a secondary component of their job requirement. Research is what earns universities grant money, recognition and prestige, etc. If you want to just teach, find a faculty position at a LAC.</p>