Prospects for Would-be Investment Bankers?

Career Opportunities & Internships Investment Banking
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<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/business/15lehman.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/business/15lehman.html&lt;/a> </p>

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<p>Does investment banking look like a career path with bright prospects in the next few years?</p>

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<p>Definitely not, haha. Now consulting will be even more difficult to crack. Also, watch MBA and maybe even Law admission rates fall some more.</p>

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<p>Not all of Merril's employees will become unemployed. They were acquired by BofA and although there may be a lot of overlapping, Merril is strong in a lot of areas that BofA is not.</p>

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<p><a href="http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080915/wall_street_workers.html?.v=6%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080915/wall_street_workers.html?.v=6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Getting a job is going to be nearly impossible in the next few years. Fortunately it will weed out those who are going into this for the $$ because the days of big paychecks are over.</p>

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<p>CNNMoney.com</a> Market Report - Sep. 15, 2008</p>

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<p>
[quote]
** Getting a job is going to be nearly impossible in the next few years.

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**
I cannot agree with you. First of all there is always room for great skill and secondly, public service jobs are available. As for weeding out those who do a job for money: count me in on the doing a job for pay. Most people do work for pay. Unless one has a vast trust fund the options of working for no pay are very limited.</p>

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<p>"I cannot agree with you. First of all there is always room for great skill and secondly, public service jobs are available. As for weeding out those who do a job for money: count me in on the doing a job for pay. Most people do work for pay. Unless one has a vast trust fund the options of working for no pay are very limited."</p>

<p>Seeing as this is an IB forum I was talking about IB jobs. Obviously you'll be able to get a job in the next few years but I wouldn't bank on any of the high profile ones on the street (including IB). </p>

<p>As for pay...yes people work for money, but people don't work 110 hours/week for pay that is equal to what an employee at mcdonalds makes. </p>

<p>I figured from your "ivy halls" you would be able to discern these two points. Apparently I was wrong.</p>

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<p>Trust me Wharthogs will have job offers from Investment Banks. I have no idea what you mean by "high profile"?</p>

<p>Are we parsing "nearly"??</p>

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<p>Please tell me where these Wharton grads will be working? I'd like to hear Investment Banks that are hiring. Please, hazmat, with your wealth of knowledge, please do tell. </p>

<p>Nobody is hiring! A few people are going to get in here and there but people are FIRING not HIRING. What do you think of all the people who were going on to become analysts at Lehman next year? Out of a job. You think GS/MS are going to be hiring? No way in hell...they no offered half their summer class. If they were going to hire they'd have given a few more offers out.</p>

<p>High Profile = BB, Greenhill, Lazard, Trading etc...</p>

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<p>EDIT: I also think demand for IB will diminish. People are going to question whether they want to do something that requires long work hours for (relatively) little pay compared to what it was a few years ago. It will take a long time for big bonuses to come back, if ever. The "baller" mantra of wall street is gone.</p>

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<p>MonkeySee, while you're correct, there's no need to repost information from WSO. If we wanted to read your last post, we would have gone to wallstreetoasis.</p>

<p>hazmat, please don't say stuff you don't know anything about.</p>

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<p>^chill. he or she is just sharing info on this forum for kids that have glazed eyes about some hyped up job. I doubt that most of the kids on this forum know about WSO.</p>

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<p>I would link to WSO but I think CC has rules against such activity in the TOS. That being said I'd take a board full of people actually in IB (or very informed about it) over CC.</p>

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<p>Sorry mate, didn't mean to come off caustic. Like I said, I 100% agree with what you said and I think people need to realize that VERY FEW firms are hiring, if any. This is coming from a target.</p>

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<p>It's quite a simply situation of oversupply. <em>Lots</em> of people are going to be competing for an extremely limited numbers of jobs. I believe financial services in the US just got dealt a huge blow.</p>

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<p>
[quote]

Trust me Wharthogs will have job offers from Investment Banks. I have no idea what you mean by "high profile"?</p>

<p>Are we parsing "nearly"??

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Maybe, maybe not. Job offers and compensation will undoubtedly decrease. The question is would you want to work 110 hours per week for about 50-60k per year total compensation.</p>

<p>....should have attended a state pharmacy school. If you worked 110 hours per week, you could easily break 200k first year after graduation at age 24 and suffer little to no effect from a bad economy. People will always pay a premium to live.</p>

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<p>I'll say IB will be off-limits until 2011, even then the large bonuses may not exist until awhile later. Perhaps the next big career maybe Consulting, hedge funds or entrepreneurship.</p>

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<p>Well, now with changes at Morgan-Stanley and G-S, all five of the top investment banks are gone. Can people still be I-bankers if there aren't any I-banks?</p>

<p>There will be a market for Princeton-educated bank tellers.</p>

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<p>Yup I was wrong. No iBanks mean no job offers from iBank. There we have it.</p>