<p>Right now I'm a high school senior and have always been interested in finance. IB is something I would definitely love to get into after college, but the 80-100 hour workweek does not sound so attractive.</p>
<p>My question is: what other jobs are there in finance that have "normal" hours? (maybe 60 or less per week). Also, what is the pay for these jobs? I like how IB offers great money fast for people recently out of college, but I just can't see myself working all the time and sacrificing a social/family life.</p>
<p>subed to this thread. I’m interested in the same things as you AH, the IB life sounds filled with $$, which is what I’m definitely interested in, but does sacrifice a lot of other things. I’m keeping that door open as I look to take the classes and see how manageable the work is, as I’m also a senior, but it’d be nice to hear of other options.</p>
<p>what colleges are you looking at?</p>
<p>^doing IB for like 5-8 years or so should bring enough money to pretty much live off for a while, maybe retire on if invested correctly, so that’s something to think about. work hard til 30, live luxuriously from 30-?</p>
<p>@ickglue I wouldn’t expect the pay to be exactly the amount that IB jobs pay, but I was looking for careers that still allowed you to be well-off while working much less hours.</p>
<p>@SoCalStudent3 I’m looking at PSU, UVA, UNC, Villanova, U of R, and a few others. I feel like doing IB for 5-8 years would be pointless because you would be working up the ladder and then leaving once you’re nearing the top. I’m not sure if that makes complete sense, but thats my take on it. Also, I wouldn’t mind working throughout the majority of my life, but I want to know jobs that allow you to be well-off while still being able to have friends while you’re still young and then coming home to a family when you get older.</p>
<p>First of all none of those schools easily get you into banking. You need a 3.75+ and some extensive networking to even have a chance of landing a banking gig. </p>
<p>Second, no one does banking for 5-8 years…it’s a 2 year analyst program and some people go to business school and then become associates or can just become associates without bschool if they are rockstars. </p>
<p>Third, neither of you have any idea as to what banking is and what it entails so you need to do alot of research into the profession. If you are in it just for the money then you have no chance of getting the job or lasting in it. </p>
<p>Last, banking pays top dollar because you work those hours. There are no other entry level jobs that will offer you that type of money with less hours. Even accountants at big 4 firms who make 55-60k a year work 60 hours a week and 90 during tax season. </p>
<p>And if you think banking will let you live luxuriously after 5 years you are delusional.</p>
<p>Im not trying to say that I know anything about IB at all. I understand that I’m clueless about the profession. All I wanted to know was what other jobs are out there in finance that pay fairly well and consist of significantly less hours?</p>
<p>None.
No job is gonna make you well of without a lot of work, unless you are remarkably talented. Unless you have something amazing going for you, you’re going to need to put in a lot of work to make money.</p>
<p>Less NOMINAL/official hours–maybe trading?, etc. but those are taxing in other ways. Work/life balance comes out similar for most jobs that make you a lot of money.</p>
<p>Investment banking is just corporate finance. A lot of investment bankers leave banking for corporate finance at Fortune 500 firms when they want a job with less hours.</p>
<p>It’s actually more like corporate development but corporate finance is a pretty well paying job with pretty good upside. Not like ib or s&t, but it’s definitely enough.</p>
<p>Dude, just give up 2 of your years and then you can switch over to a lifestyle PE shop and make more than banking and work half the hours. You gain experience that you cant get anywhere else and you’ll gain tremendous contacts.</p>
<p>@SoCAl, PE is private equity. Usually after two years in banking, analyst try to switch over to PE because of the better hours and potential pay. Most PE firms/shops have 75-90 hour work weeks(banking has 85-120), and some have more hours(sweatshops), these firms work you like an investment bank(85-120)… A “lifestyle” PE shop is a shop that has better hours(better lifestyle/you have more of a life), these shops have 55-70 hour work weeks but the pay is less than a sweatshop but more than banking.
Sweatshops= most mega funds (the large elite PE funds)
lifestyle shops= Middle market PE shops
[WallStreetOasis.com</a> | Your Finance Community. Advice on Finance Interviews and Careers in Finance.](<a href=“http://wallstreetoasis.com%5DWallStreetOasis.com”>http://wallstreetoasis.com) <—go there</p>
<p>There are 7*24=148 hours in a week, if someone were to work 120 hours per week, it would leave 28 hours in a week to do stuff, 28/7=4 hours, you couldn’t even commute to work 7 days a week during that time. This is like how big was the fish you caught.</p>
<p>Yea I sort of realized that now lol thanks. I was talking with my friend who is going to be PreMed and thinking about the 12 or so years of undergrad, med school, and residency he has to complete before starting a career made 2 years of IB hours seem like nothing. Plus, finance is something I’m really interested in, so I’m sure it won’t be painful (granted I can even land a job in banking because it’s so tough to do so).</p>
<p>@oldfort you bring up a very good point. 80 hours a week is a lot yet possible, but 120 hours isn’t even realistic. Has anyone ever worked that much before in a week?</p>
<p>When I was very young…I managed to work 8-8, m-f. One MD said to my boss that I wasn’t working on enough deals. My boss (SVP) said I was on more deals than most associates, I was just more efficient than most people. I was married and wanted to go home to have dinner with my husband. A lot of my colleagues went to gym at 5pm, came back at 7, worked for an hour, had dinner, than worked until 10-12, and took a car service home. I didn’t take lunch, worked straight to 8 and went home. Any deal I was working on, I always started asking account officers if they needed anything over the weekend on Thu, so they could have it by Fri afternoon. Of course, it didn’t always work out as planned, but I did manage not to have to work that many weekends. I only pulled all nighters when we had to get a prospectus out next day. I stopped working long hours at a certain point. My kid just started out in the business this year. It will be interesting to see what kind of hours she will have.</p>
<p>@oldfort thanks that really puts things into perspective. 8-8 m-f seems grueling, yet that’s only 60hrs a week. Everyone else says it’s at least 80hrs of work per week which scares me a little. I can manage that for a couple years, but there’s no way I want to or even can manage those hours my whole career.</p>
<p>120 hours a week does occur, where you are basically pulling all nighters or getting 3-4 hours of sleep. On the plus side, I’ve never heard of people doing that consistently. </p>
<p>80 hours for a top BB IBD group is a very good week.</p>
<p>There’s always a tradeoff–the stronger the reputation of the group, the harder you will probably be working. There will always be groups at any bank that work fewer hours, especially groups outside of IBD like ECM, but the exit opps/pay is not going to be as good.</p>
<p>Please read mergersandinquisitions or wallstreetoasis.com. The questions you’ve asked are pretty basic and can be easily answered with some searching. Collegeconfidential is not the best resource for this</p>