Analysts in IB, from my experience and knowledge of the industry, are not doing any interesting work. It’s strictly tweaking power points and models. I agree with the above comments regarding consulting. The level of responsibility and ownership my D was given just as an intern in consulting was very surprising, as we never trust interns in my field with anything important. lol Young consultants are getting much better experience and exposure to all aspects of business. The hours are tough, but not soul crushing like IB, which is well worth the slightly lower income at that level.
@gardenstatelegal I meant diversity in the sense of diverse experiences not race. Sorry, I know the meaning is normally used in the racial sense these days. I meant teams with DIVERSE experience some being very mathy, others being finance folks and some with other backgrounds.
I guess it likely depends on the bank and experience of individuals. One thing that’s important is, the models are likely not created by people as much anymore given the advanced computing models that already exist. When I was in the field, that was not the case. People on teams actually built many of the models.
Had no idea it had gotten that boring. That’s too bad.
@itsgettingreal17 Yes, agreed. Many consultants can advance very far in their 20s and 30’s and then take that experience elsewhere. Consulting firms know this and pay accordingly. I agree consulting is preferential to IB. You can be a consultant for year and never be bored.
@EmptyNestSoon2 Well, it really depends on the person. Different jobs require different skills. There are lots of industries that offer an exciting career and which pay very well. I think most students don’t spend enough time figuring out what kind of person they are and what motivates them. Also, what skills do they have that are less widely shared. So, for one kid I might say go into robotic development and for another go into working for a think tank. Kids seem to look at the $ (understandably due to student loans). The best jobs often require a combination of unrelated skills. Technical folks ( of many types) who understand business and can work in teams will always be in demand.
In my experience the degree to which early career jobs are interesting is inversely proportional to the size of the pyramid. Firms with a low ratio of junior to senior people usually give more responsibility and push more interesting work down to junior people.
So the junior lawyers I’ve known in top tier boutique litigation firms have lots of responsibility, similarly to PE and at specialist consulting firms. The level of competition was very high, one was top in her class at Stanford Law School, another was heading to clerk at the Supreme Court the following year.
However, a less broad pyramid gives less leverage for the people at the top to make a lot of money, unless they own the firm. That makes some smaller firms unstable because the rainmakers see that it’s better to work for themselves, which is a particular issue in consulting.
Nevertheless I picked a specialist firm and was very happy with the amount of responsibility and level of interesting work from day one (and did later go and work for myself).
@Twoin18 Absolutely agree. Often, recent graduates aren’t considering the value of the work experience they are getting. One can learn a lot at a small /boutique firm. And then cash in twice ( high income while learning and again if you go into business for yourself). I’d advise my own kids to learn as much as possible on someone else’s dime.
@Happytimes2001 , it seemed that while the younger bankers had majored in different subjects although they were all pretty much doing the same thing. With that said, I would imagine that the staffing for clients might have been determined in part by their knowledge base. Someone with an engineering degree might be more likely to end up working with companies where some understanding of the tech was critical. They prefer to hire kids who have demonstrable quantitative skills and a record of high achievement but it doesn’t seem to me that they are that interested in what knowledge/expertise they bring. There may be engagements where it matters but I think that in general, the client is assumed to be better at that part and the banker is translating that story into numbers. In that sense, it’s a good synergy.
I was in the business a long time ago, but the experience of most of the hires out of undergrad to my department does not much match what most here have described.
It was more like #18.
Even cranking out proposals and “boilerplate” is not devoid of intellectual interest and requirement. Reading those is part of the process of learning the business. After a while the young professionals are often charged with writing, or at least drafting, some of the material themselves. Some were given more responsibility if they proved they could handle it. Some of them did important, actually crucial, analytics work on projects.
It’s true that interpersonal skills are very important, but the idea that you don’t have to be smart is laughable to me. They were the smartest group of people I ever worked with.
Worked up from first year lawyer to partner at Big Law and started at a senior level at a big IB. Most of the comments above are accurate but only represent a particular slice of the IB business or one side (good or bad) of an experience.
For analysts, their jobs tend to be similar across departments but there are differences based upon the nature of their departments. They are responsible for pulling the base data (including background, industry, financial, trading data) and setting up whatever models or financial analysis is necessary for a project/presentation, pitch or report. Expect long hours and decent pay for someone with only an undergrad degree, but maybe not so lucrative when viewed from a $/hour basis. Job differentiation becomes more pronounced as you advance. The major branches for most IB’s are investment banking (advising and sourcing capital needs (equity and debt) and strategic dispositions or acquisitions), trading (equity and fixed income), asset management (manage investments for institutions) and research. Most bulge bracket banks also have a private wealth management arm. There are sub specialties within these major departments and some variations in organizational structures. For the most part, within each department, there are jobs that are more client facing sales jobs and other jobs that are more technical product driven. As a junior banker, what your work will entail will be driven by the business purpose of your department, group or deal team.
Being an IB, especially at an entry level is a grind, but it is not mindless unless you make it such (agree 100% with @monydad in #25). At the very least it is good training for other jobs that require quantitative analysis and some level of people/communication skills, whether with clients or team members. My S did a summer at a consulting firm and one at an IB. He liked IB better. Could have been the firms or specific experience, but he seems to prefer the more objective goals and measures of IB. personally, I loved my job at the IB (loved my job as a deal lawyer too, but IB paid much more). Avoided “doing my time” grunt work there, but I had fulfilled that requirement from the law firm.
Any of these jobs requires people to be smart. This is about the angels dancing on pins: where do the best of the best end up? Rhodes scholars get heavily recruited by McKinsey for example (ask Pete Buttigieg). And my experience (at a tippy top college) was that in general the smartest people I knew went into consulting, other top students went into law, and the good but not amazing students ended up in IB. There were always exceptions but that has rung true in my work with people in those professions over the last 30 years. Having said that, the fellow students who went into IB were all retired by the age of 50 so they must have done OK financially.
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It isn’t surprising that experiences can vary, depending on the firm and on one’s expectation.
The barrier to entry is lower in IB, compared to almost any other high paying entry jobs, in terms of applicants’ background. No specialized knowledge is required, practically speaking. As a result, more graduates, especially from the liberal arts majors at elite colleges on the east coast (and some from the midwest, and a few from the south), pursue this particular career path. IBs know this. They don’t worry about high turnover as any other businesses would. In fact, they expect it. They only need to retain a few standouts, and the rest can be replaced by next year’s graduates.
Secondly, size matters, when it comes to experience. On smaller teams/firms, you’re more likely to be involved in more aspects of the business but fewer deals. On larger teams/firms, you’re more likely pigeonholed, but may see more variety of deals. This isn’t limited to IBs, BTW.
Lastly, in terms of sheer miserability, I’d put junior lawyers at law firms (at least those working in security laws) at the top. After everyone else has left for home, they’re the ones still working. They may have to turn in the next draft by 5am next morning…
Is IB a good career path? For some, it is, if they can make it to the next tier, or transition to another lucrative career. For others, it may not, if they had other good choices.
@1NJParent shared that the most miserable jobs are junior attorneys in biglaw firms working in securities matters. Interesting observation.
My understanding is that the most unhappy junior attorneys in biglaw tend to be in mergers and acquisitions–which often involves capital markets work because–in addition to long hours in the office–they are often called in the middle of the night, on weekends, and while on vacation to attend to urgent matters.
I am not too sympathetic as the long hours keeps them out of trouble and these 26, 27, & 28 year old junior associate attorneys often are paid from the very low $200,000s to about $270,000 per year with substantial annual increases in total compensation. But, the average biglaw attorney stays with their firm for just 3 to 4 years–just long enough to pay off the massive student loan debt accumulated from 7 years of higher education.
Would the student loan concern mainly be for those who went to (expensive) law school? The usual recruiting target colleges for consulting and investment banking tend to draw about half of their students from families with money paying private college list price, and give good financial aid to the rest.
Of course, those from families with money may feel that they “need” a high level of pay to have the standard of living they are used to…
@monydad Funny, I wrote #18 and that was my experience. Perhaps, what someone sees from the outside working with IB folks and what is reality is different. From the commentsin this thread, I think you and I are the only ones who actually worked in IB. ( Perhaps there are others but seems most are not actual IB employees/experienced IB folks). I wouldn’t be able to comment on industries that I haven’t worked in. Just can’t see being able to see what the challenges were/are. Agree with you folks in this industry are SMART. Consulting also has a lot of smart people but wired a bit differently. Law has smart folks too. Any industry has smart people.
@Twoin18 I think that might be an example of one data set through one pair of eyes. IB, Consulting and Law all require strong skills and smart people. To level them isn’t realistic. All have top students with great thinking skills from great schools and many also have related experiences. It’s more a question of what someone wants to pursue. I had zero interest in law, loved banking (the industry but not the people ) and loved Consulting (the field and the people). So it’s about finding the fit. The reason they retire early is they burn out.
@ucbalumnus Actually many go into IB before getting an advanced degree. So I was thinking more about undergraduate education. For sure, most come from high SES families ( with connections) and no loans. There are outliers, hired often for specific reasons. Someone who is hired based on their intellectual virtues is going to be different from someone with a connection. But that’s in many fields. I know nothing about law, never worked in that field. My guesstimate would be that lawyers try to have a partner track and make as much as possible. Not unlike other careers. Strategize for the long term and make lots of money. There’s a known factor that the lowest SES kids can have the most $ impact by going to college. If they can get into some of these jobs. It changes the game. Forever. They move from low income to top tier in a couple of years. Hard for some to forfeit even if they can see the downside.
@Happytimes2001 , there are at least 3 of us here who have worked in IB and 2 who have worked in consulting. 
Sorry, I can’t add to the lawyer count.
Congrats. You are one of the few lawyers at the partner level that appears to have successfully made the transition to the deal side if investment banking. Most fail as their skill set is too limited snd their client relationships don’t transfer. And once a lawyer is a second or third year ask here they have a very hard time transitioning and won’t often get hired as they can’t manage the financial aspects of the deal; it’s bad when the analyst knows more and the VP is forced to take on the supervisory role.
Bankers lifestyle much better than the lawyers.
I was pretty fortunate and went in at a senior level so I didn’t have to mess with creating the various models or data analysis pieces. I was an M&A lawyer, so I was also familiar with securities law and financing aspects of deals, and knew my way around financial statements. I went into the M&A group at the IB from a junior partner position, so I was hired for my deal experience and not so much for my client list. It did take me a few months to fully pick up on some technical financial concepts – e.g. DCF, WACC and the import and make up of various ratio’s, but it was just math and I was always a very numeric lawyer (which was a strong point at my firm and with clients). The difference in compensation was the biggest draw for me. Hours and stress were about the same.
For those that love finance, I think i can be a great career. For a college undergrad to spend two years as an analyst, it’'s a wonderful paid internship at the worst. You will learn so much. The sacrifice in hours will definitely be there, but your friends at the firm are going through the same thing so it’s actually an intense bonding experience. Then when the two year are up, many options will exist and you can decide whether to continue or not. Do not get trapped by the compensation.
Transitioning from a law firm to IB isn’t that uncommon. People with securities-law background are helpful in deal structuring and execution. The financial and analytical aspects are actually rather trivial. Again, IB is mostly about relationships. It’s also not uncommon for a law firm active in securities laws to introduce new clients for deals.
@1NJParent You may conclude that the financial and analytical aspects are “actually rather trivial” but they lack the years of mentoring to apply judgment in their creation and use. Hence, I wouldn’t trust a third year law associate to be able to handle that aspect on a valuation or pro forma merger analysis. No VP wants to have to train them either, nor does an analyst want to work for them. It’s very hard to transition. (There may be unique rolls though where their superior securities law knowledge or if they are tax experts, creates an advantage. ) After the third year there is no hope for them, because as a partner I wouldn’t want them working for me either. It would be different if there were pure structural issues, or the tactics in responding to an unsoclited offer, that didn’t rely on market judgment or extensive financial analysis, but those deals also have top external lawyers working on it anyway. Those situations are relatively rare I would think. Plus lawyers are trained in issue spotting, and few are trained to make decisive risk / reward calls (should I buy this company or not?).
Perhaps your experience differs from mine. Exceptions do exist, and a few of the very best merger lawyers, for example Marty Lipton back then, function as top investment bankers as well.
So the issue isn’t intelligence or the ability to have gone down that career path instead; it’s that after a few years there is too much training to do under real time conditions to make it worthwhile to hire a lawyer to be an investment banker.
I totally disagree with your assessment of IB. They employ finance people, not lawyers. My SIL, a lawyer, does M&A work, but only if they run into legal problems.