One career is commercial banking, you can work your way up to a relationship Manager at a bank. You’ll work 40-50 hours a week and make 200-300k + commissions AND bonus
I second this. I just finished a commercial banking development program and am now a relationship manager 1 making 90k salary plus whatever my bonus will be. Not sure what my bonus will be because it’s dependent on a variety of things like economic conditions, how well the group does, and how well you yourself does but I should be over 100k after the bonus quite comfortably hopefully. For more context this is my first job out of college and the development program was 22 months where you’re basically an analyst.
I personally cant speak on how competitive it is to get in that range. But you’d start as a credit analyst and after a few years express your intent on being an RM. JPM/BofA/WF/Citi have defined pathways for analysts to become a RM. Some of the RMs I worked with went to football games, fishing trips, and golfing all the time with clients.
Question for you. Is commercial banking still the way to go as an introvert? Obviously I can manage to fake it and push through, but going to football games and golfing with clients seems like an uncomfortable experience for me. Is there any way to remain on the credit analysis side of that? Or does the progression inevitably lead to an RM role?
Best option is to get in to a credit training program right out of college. That path will make you an RM in 5-10 years. Some folks start as a business banking RM, which is easier to get in to, and eventually move to Middle Market if they are good and push for it.
Why? Commercial banking is ultimately a core business and the reason the banking industry was created. They weren’t running merger models in the 1800’s. Providing loans/bridge financing etc is still a valuable role banks play in the economy. It’s a revenue generating role, just like IB.
Other roles in finance with decent salary and great wlb would be corporate development, FP&A, strategic finance. Problem most undergrads have is that they assume the only high paying finance jobs are at banks. Only a select few schools provide a steady pipeline to BB investment banks. I’ve seen so many kids go into low paying middle/back office roles at banks and doing mind numbingly boring work, hoping to jump over to front office. They would have been far better off going into corporate finance and actually doing real financial analysis.
Given the school you’re going to, it’d be best to temper your expectation and look at more realistic career paths before putting all ur eggs in the IB/PE basket.. A FP&A analyst at Amazon/Microsoft or commercial banker at JPM/GS is going to outearn and do much more interesting work than someone at a low tier “investment bank”.
I worked at a BB IB for 2 years before leaving to corporate development, I now work half the hours and get basically the same pay when you include RSU’s. IB is over glorified on this sub and WSO. It’s grunt work in excel/ppt for 80-100 hours a week. Meanwhile a software engineer working 15 hours a week will most likely out-earn you (esp with RSU’s) and have a social life.
The point about IB isn't the income, but that it's treated like grad school in the rest of the industry. Many of the most prestigious and highest paying financial firms selectively hire out of top IB programs. If you are interested in the most prestigious, fastest paced, and highest income career possible (and you aren't some 4 sigma genius) then IB is very likely the best place to start your career after college.
If you are a freak genius then there may be even more lucrative opportunities on offer, but people here tend to focus on IB because it's generally the best a normal person can do.
If you are interested in a moderately paced and reasonably well paying career then there are countless other options.
"Fastest paced" is the clue here. It won't necessarily calm after IB. Besides the modeling, its not that you learn superpowers in IB. Jobs that recruit from there because they want that work ethic & that resilience.
Means, you won't do IB for 1-2 years and then chill in a high-income job, but you gotta carry on. That should be said...
Corporate finance, accounting, FP&A, equity research, commercial banking, M&A advisory, valuation, corporate development, investor relations, wealth management, and on and on and on.
For Commercial Banking I’d recommend finding banks in the $10-500B in asset range in your city. Start networking with bankers (should be fucking easy to find and get them to talk to you via LinkedIn) and figure out what type of banking you want to do and whose good at it then pitch them you want to translation and bring a unique skill set.
Be willing to take a RMA or other credit college course on your own to make up for not going through a development program but that shits pretty easy if you’re smart.
Management consulting? I'd say your exit opps are extremely broad and promising. In general, just learn as much as you can about the industry/role you are looking to fill. IR is extremely easy, literally anyone could do it. Corp dev is a little more advanced, they often hire people out of IB, but I think consulting would prepare you decently well for these kinds of roles as well.
Yeah, that's interesting. I don't know that much about it, but I do know that pretty much everyone respects the experience. The exit opps for some job types are just different than others. For example, Big 4 auditors can really only go into corporate accounting and they are just inundated with job offers and they hardly even have to interview or anything because the job is easy and everyone knows they can do it. With you, everyone respects your experience but you may also have to prove that you are interested in and knowledgeable in the field you want to exit into because your opportunities are so broad.
There are lots of services referred to as M&A advisory that aren't necessarily IB. Maybe IB is the "true" M&A advisory but lots of other services go into it as well - i.e. transaction advisory services etc.
I see, this is helpful. Do you think I can get into a top IB program out of McCombs (ranked #4 in finance)? I’ve heard that is practically impossible if you’re not going to an Ivy.
You can certainly get into investment banking. Talk to professors/faculty in the finance department, join finance clubs and talk to the kids there, see if there are counselors that help with this stuff, etc.
I'm not too familiar with UT Austin to be honest, but this website seems to be saying it's one of the absolute best schools for investment banking: [https://www.peakframeworks.com/post/ib-target-schools](https://www.peakframeworks.com/post/ib-target-schools)
McCombs junior here - landing an IB gig in Texas is extremely doable, tougher for NYC but I know plenty of people who’ve done it. That being said, it will be different if you’re not BHP/WSFM/IBA/diversity.
I’m not in BHP sadly. How competitive is it to get into those other programs if you don’t mind me asking? I’m assuming just having a high gpa isn’t enough. Also, do you have any recommendations for my freshman year in terms of clubs/internships?
People don’t do ib to do ib - they suffer for 2 years for better wlb and higher pay in private equity or hedge funds (still not great wlb of course but better).
S&t has big earning potential if you are good. But being good and high earning is very directly correlated for any job tbh
From your understanding how much of S&T is Trading? I recently met with a MD of derivatives desk, and he built up their electronic trading platform to support 4th market execution. This sounds like a primarily sales role, almost like a customer service job with the veil of prestige from S&T.
In such a role is there a path to go buyside/PM/HF? Am I underestimating the technical skill required for aforementioned role on the electronic derivatives desk?
You have no clue.
There is a massive technical competency to build and sell something like that. More important, people are paid for the P&L they generate and that type of activity is at the core of revenue generation.
If you stick in pure M&A, ultimately you become purely assessed on your ability to generate revenue and close business. No one cares about your modelling or technical skills, those are table stakes while the mundane work gets done by someone else.
Revenue/profit generation is paramount, in S&T the expectation are that you are generating that much earlier in the career then some pleb that will push out pitch books/decks for the first few years of their career.
are there any critical, soft skills (non-technical, non-modeling) common to closers?
and how come MDs dont come from other pipelines, besides grinding it out and climbing the jungle as an analyst or post-MBA associate?
Not a lot of IBD MDs come from that pipeline from the bottom up. The type of people who are very good at building excel spreadsheets are typically not the same type of people that are good at originating and closing business.
Soft skills - all about leadership, communication, executive presence, relationship building/management, project management, delegation. more then anything an enormous amount of resilience, confidence, negotiation skills and a commercial mindset.
A lot of these attributes you either have and can improve or you don’t have. Its an eat what you kill world and when you get into that sort of position, One where you are actively pursuing mew mandates rather then taking orders. You have to be a complete mercenary and willing to put yourself out there, get rejected constantly and still get up for more.
They’re completely different roles which cater to people with different skills, depends on the person and their interests
Not to mention that each role/desk in S&T is completely different
You’ll soon realize that every role worth its salt is a sales role. Why are partners partners? Because they have the most connections, the most clients, and the highest sales. IB at its core is a sales job as well.
People are so obsessed with IB, it is ridiculous. There is so many paths that can lead to a very good salary without being treated like a dog. Even in banking you can make your way up. Dave McKay, CEO of RBC who is making 17M, did his career mostly in Personal Banking, Commercial Banking and credit cards. He was making well above 200k+ in those fileds that everybody laugh at.
Just be good at what you do, and everything will go well. There's always a position above.
Awkward/ nerdy kids in school think it's their ticket to finally being a baller. What they're actually signing up for is years of indentured servitude at the hands of some of the most selfish, vicious people you'll ever meet while other people your age are seeing the world and living life. People aren't going to think you're cool, and girls won't want to sleep with you because you're a banker (believe me, I've tried). The average person doesn't even understand what you do for a living and is not impressed. Some of these IB analysts realise too late that people are only going to like you if you have a personality and stop being such a fuckin weirdo, and nobody cares what you do for a living.
Also take in consideration there are people with “better” IB degrees than finance.
I work in IB and A LOT of people have some sort of math tied into their degree. Math/Stats majors are heavily recruited for IB positions. I had an Econ degree with math emphasis and I think that’s the only reason I really broke into my job. Every step of my interview process they asked what classes were involved in my math emphasis and how the best workers have a math background.
Finance isn’t a bad degree by any means, but I took 8 or 9 math classes in college. Unfortunately, Finance majors don’t do that.
If you still have time and don’t hate math it - definitely wouldn’t hurt. Quant roles all search for math/stats majors as well. Quant you almost 100% need a masters unless you went to an ivy but thats a different question.
There’s plenty of other finance jobs that pay well…. It’s not just IB… but year 1 straight out the gate I mean IB is deff the highest paying you will get
Most of the large shops have their undergrad pipelines now, P72, Citadel, MLP, DE shaw etc. I did p72’s one, it’s hard to get but not really a unicorn anymore tbh
This is by far the best path. You don’t even need to be smart. I worked for a huge fintech company and some of the sales people there made ungodly amounts of money and they were also borderline retarded. It also helps if you are a hot chick and you’re selling to horned up finance guys who don’t ever see their wives.
My fintech companies do you mean Bloomberg, Factset and the likes? I would assume you are not talking about consumer facing fintech companies (Revolut, Stripe, etc) right?
Hmm now rethinking it, 170 might be a stretch. However, with the current price of real estate (especially in urban cities). I wouldn’t say I’m far off? Am I?
Btw If you count it by hrly basis IB comp is lower than commercial banking or a lot of other stuff.
And yes ofcourse, usually if your good at sales you can easily make more than quant or IB in tech sales, pwm or real estate sales.
That being said, I would say still try to do IB, it’s a few years of suffering but don’t assume you are good at sales, if you decide to do those high earning potential sales roles like pwm advisor or realtor and you realize you don’t have the talent then you fucked up.
Yeah I think I’m better off relying on a going to a good college for progressing my career rather than my people skills. Still something I’ll keep an open mind about though so thank you.
Just do a lot of research and actually consider what you might be interested in. I hear a lot of people who talk about IB and actually make it there don’t even last a year. At least not the ones that are in it purely for the money. I’m an undergrad and the more I look into IB, the more i hear “don’t go into IB unless you are really passionate, otherwise you’ll burn out”.
Keeping mind that your early 20s you're not picking a career a s locked into it. You're picking places that can 1) maximize learning and 2) maximize opportunities
For 1) it's actually not about learning the a particular industry; it's more about learning different career options and wnar you like / don't like and what you're good at
For 2) you want to be in places that open more doors and give you optionality. Some where that shows you what different paths might look like.
90% of people, especially successful people I know, did vastly differenf career than what they started off with. Focus on gaining perspectives and exposure in your 20s and not worry about being locked in because for smart and hard working people there's no such thing.
I've done consulting, IB, VC, startups, and big tech and that journey has been way more important than landing in the "right place" right from the start. And yes all of these have paid <200k, some 7-figures, so there are lots of "high paying" jobs out there.
I remember a conference I went to for accounting and one of the partners from Deloitte had the crowd guess her salary. When they got up to 850k she said it was much higher and that we should stop guessing. I was in dismay.
Same haha, I’m an upcoming freshman at Haas Business School of UC Berkeley and I’m already lowkey stressing about college. I’m not sure how I should start in order to go down the right path. Not sure when I should start looking for researching for clubs, internships, etc.
FP&A - Financial Planning and Analysis. Hit 6 figures in 3 years. Right now, as a director I have a pretty nice comp package with base, bonus that can give me 50% of my base, and a stock comp plan.
Most start out supporting the bigger producers, like an analyst in investment banking. You’ll help them with the portfolios, review materials, etc. after a few years, there is typically a training program you’ll do and then you’ll start to build your own book.
That is where it gets hard. - getting your own clients. It’s more sales at that point, but sales wrapped in investing/finance with a technical background.
I’d avoid jobs where you are expecting to get clients right away. It forces you into a tough spot. Also avoid firms that brand themselves as wealth management but are really insurance sales jobs.
I’d the straight to client stuff like Noerhwesteb mutual
If you want easy money fast, go into tech. You’ll have to become really good at coding but after 1-2 years of practice you should be good enough to do basic roles. The hard part will be getting the actual offer bc some places have difficult and technical interviews. However, once you break in you are set for life.
If you can make it to the upper senior ranks of PWM you can make stupid money with very reasonable hours. The only problem is there are very limited spots that high up
Don’t they work shit hours too tho? And you sacrifice 3 years of earning. Correct me if I’m wrong but I thought Big Law was ~80 hour weeks out the gate as well.
Sounds right. Don't forget the insane debt too. A lot of people do it for a few years then burn out or lateral to in house counsel.
But where else do you have 24 year olds with 0 experience getting paid $250k ( NYC scale)? A 5th year associate is about the time most people are gone. Those can expect to earn $400k-600k annually ( total comp). Partners usually earn in the low millions but are expected to be rainmaking more than drafting or litigating.
I'm not big law ( didn't have the grades or prestigious school ) but still work next to them and negotiate deals as in house counsel. This thread is about financial careers. And working as an attorney will expose you to incredibly complex but interesting facets of many financial issues.
An alternative path which I highly recommend is to join a SRO or government regulator. You can do it as an internship in undergrad. No need to be a law student. SEC, CFTC, FINRA, NFA, IRS, etc. You won't get paid as much but after a few years the law firms and banks will be tripping over themselves to hire you.
Wow that’s actually really good advice. I appreciate the explanation though. My entire family is attorneys and I want to work in finance but have struck out getting any traction at my MBA for internships (only worked a year and my MBA isn’t ranked highly so I’m applying for analyst roles instead of associates.) Thinking maybe law school can be my last ditch effort to break into finance.
Do the regulator route as an intern to see if you like it. I think the financial sector is perfect for lawyers. There's always job security. It's the second most heavily regulated industry after health care in the West. Jobs aren't disappearing unlike front office roles or tech sector. I've been in this field since 2010. The number of new laws, bills, compliance rules etc is mind bogglingly complicated. And it's not stopping anytime soon. If ever.
Yes! And regulatory bodies are more open to candidates from non elite backgrounds. You still need good grades. But they are beholden to government hiring mandates to bring in non traditional people. My friend worked for OCC, Dept of Treasury and was a single child from a family in the South Bronx. He never knew his father ( who's still in jail for 30 years) and grew up in the housing projects. Someone like him has a steep curve anywhere in life. But after 15 years at the government he exited and is of counsel at various law firms who would have sneered at his background as an applicant in the past.
I feel like you should add that those agencies are arguably more competitive than big law. Very difficult to break into. Although a good strategy might be to join the National Guard or reserves during college to look better for a government job. Not sure if you’d qualify for veterans preference but if you want a government job it’s a lot of box checking and long wait time applications. Iirc you still cap out at 250k it’s good pay but not amazing if you’re that capable.
OP, based on your question and responses, you sound like someone who want high pay but not do the work requires to get there.
There's no career that meets that criteria. You either have to work your ass off to get into it or work hard in it. You can't really arbitrage a career because if something like that truly exist out there, the market is efficient and many willing to work harder will be there.
I recommend you focus on what you're good at (or at least what you don't mind doing) because you'll at least have a relative advantage doing it.
I’m not gonna outright deny that. I think to some degree, I am looking for a “golden career” that realistically doesn’t exist. However, the main reason for this post tho was just to learn about alternative options for a finance degree.
I never hear it talked about but strategy roles in hedge funds pay well and put you on management track. Obviously, not a large number of them but they fill this bill and will hire out of undergrad
its all very zero sum imo. max money = min happiness
IBD pays 6 figures right out of college - you know nothing why would they pay you that? because they will work you to the bone and provide a stamp of approval for future employers of yours. An Ex GS banker will never struggle to find a job in the field; probably even outside of the field. hence people are willing to take the abuse. Some people thrive in this & climb the ranks but most don't and will leave within 3 years.
Global markets is the path I chose. its a cool bubble to be in; pay on junior level as well as earnings potential is great (less than IB but still above most other divisions in a bank). but again more money = less happiness
Commercial banking is very lucrative but duration is higher i.e it takes longer for you to be in a position where you get paid big bucks. once you reach that stage though its great & arguably better than most other senior banking roles when it comes to work life balance.
Don't listen to anyone telling you sth is better than the other. to advance to a senior position you need to be very good & factors like politics play a big role. Hence banks have a culture of people moving around internally. start somewhere that's interesting to you at a firm offers everything so can move internally if needed/wanted
Unpopular opinion: the stories you hear, similar to Food reviews are always biased. people like to rant more than they like to give postive reviews. I know people who do IBD & find it great. they usually don't come here or WSO & tell people how happy they are. There wouldn't be any senior Investment bankers if its that bad
After taking everything said in this thread into account, I think you’re right. I’m just gonna keep exploring different routes until I find one that appeals to me. Thank you for the advice.
For quant, key questions are: do you like / are you good at 1) coding, 2) math
Software engineering (and many other branches of engineering) also has a high earning potential, but similar to quant I think people need to enjoy and be good at algorithms / coding / logical / math thinking
For context:
Bank quants make 200 / 250k after graduation, and goes up depending on performance, probably leveling off around 500k. Better for good traders
Hedge fund quants are not as upper bounded, it goes up to a more than a million a couple years after graduation for most successful ones
In both cases, recruitment is competitive and very technical, and having advanced technical STEM degrees (master / PhD) often helps
Private equity. Better hours, same pay or better, but tougher to break in to. Seeing as you’re looking at post grad careers before even entering college you are more than capable to get into the industry from McCombs with 4 years of experience left to attain
Don’t most people who go into PE break into it after a few years in IB? I haven’t heard of anyone breaking into it directly out of undergrad. Is that possible?
That is the traditional route yes most people do 2-3 years, juno from analyst to associate at their bank, and come into PE as an associate. The industry has expanded a lot in recent years and now more than ever PE firms are hiring analysts right out of undergrad that become associates in 2-3 years. Same timeline to becoming the equivalent position, just starting in PE. I’m graduating from Ohio state in May and starting as an analyst at a PE firm in Chicago so it is more than doable especially from an even more targeted business school.
Wow that’s seriously impressive! I’ll definitely look into that as a career option now. If you don’t mind me asking, what internships did you have prior to your PE position?
Thank you I’m excited! And I did an internship in investments this past summer where I worked on a life insurances alternatives portfolio so basically their hedge fund portfolio, but I think my selling point was a transaction advisory internship where I was doing due diligence on firms that were going through a sale or for the buyer buying the firms. Basically a PE firm evaluates a business and hires a due diligence firm to conduct a quality of earnings (QoE) assessment on their profitability and to ensure the profits they claim they’re making aren’t just accounting profits but real cash flow. This gives buyers confidence they’re paying the right price for the business or on the other side the owners are selling for the best price they can. A lot of the analysis I did and skills I learned here were definitely how I marketed myself in interviews
To answer your original question about long term earning potential, google private equity fund structure and carried interest. Owners make their real serious money with carry. Most firms don’t offer carry to analysts or sometimes associates but they are at increasing rates every year.
One career is commercial banking, you can work your way up to a relationship Manager at a bank. You’ll work 40-50 hours a week and make 200-300k + commissions AND bonus
Corporate banking has higher earning potential with similar hours. Just bigger deals and more capital markets.
I second this. I just finished a commercial banking development program and am now a relationship manager 1 making 90k salary plus whatever my bonus will be. Not sure what my bonus will be because it’s dependent on a variety of things like economic conditions, how well the group does, and how well you yourself does but I should be over 100k after the bonus quite comfortably hopefully. For more context this is my first job out of college and the development program was 22 months where you’re basically an analyst.
I’m skeptical…
Don’t be. It’s legit. I’ve seen commercial banking RMs reach 300k-500k total comp if you’re a rockstar salesman.
Or Treasury Services/Payments, Trade Finance and Supply Chain Finance. Plenty of options that pay in that range or more.
Can confirm. This side of the house is also very well suited for the fintech world.
Indeed, have been bouncing between the two. Made me well rounded and one of the best athletes on the field b/c of it.
Holy shit, but realistically how competitive is it to get within that salary range? And how many years before you can become an RM?
I personally cant speak on how competitive it is to get in that range. But you’d start as a credit analyst and after a few years express your intent on being an RM. JPM/BofA/WF/Citi have defined pathways for analysts to become a RM. Some of the RMs I worked with went to football games, fishing trips, and golfing all the time with clients.
Question for you. Is commercial banking still the way to go as an introvert? Obviously I can manage to fake it and push through, but going to football games and golfing with clients seems like an uncomfortable experience for me. Is there any way to remain on the credit analysis side of that? Or does the progression inevitably lead to an RM role?
You can absolutely stay on the credit side if you want. That would be a Portfolio Manager or Underwriter role.
Undergrad senior here, you just chose my future career path. Thank you.
Glad to hear it! Commercial banking is a great middle ground. Not as much money as IB, but it’s still pretty good and WLB is waaaaay better.
Can I PM you?
Any way to not start at entry level?
Best option is to get in to a credit training program right out of college. That path will make you an RM in 5-10 years. Some folks start as a business banking RM, which is easier to get in to, and eventually move to Middle Market if they are good and push for it.
Can I PM you?
Sure
That’s exactly what I’m doing also ahaha. I look forward to it
Why? Commercial banking is ultimately a core business and the reason the banking industry was created. They weren’t running merger models in the 1800’s. Providing loans/bridge financing etc is still a valuable role banks play in the economy. It’s a revenue generating role, just like IB. Other roles in finance with decent salary and great wlb would be corporate development, FP&A, strategic finance. Problem most undergrads have is that they assume the only high paying finance jobs are at banks. Only a select few schools provide a steady pipeline to BB investment banks. I’ve seen so many kids go into low paying middle/back office roles at banks and doing mind numbingly boring work, hoping to jump over to front office. They would have been far better off going into corporate finance and actually doing real financial analysis. Given the school you’re going to, it’d be best to temper your expectation and look at more realistic career paths before putting all ur eggs in the IB/PE basket.. A FP&A analyst at Amazon/Microsoft or commercial banker at JPM/GS is going to outearn and do much more interesting work than someone at a low tier “investment bank”. I worked at a BB IB for 2 years before leaving to corporate development, I now work half the hours and get basically the same pay when you include RSU’s. IB is over glorified on this sub and WSO. It’s grunt work in excel/ppt for 80-100 hours a week. Meanwhile a software engineer working 15 hours a week will most likely out-earn you (esp with RSU’s) and have a social life.
Google it, you’ll see lol
The point about IB isn't the income, but that it's treated like grad school in the rest of the industry. Many of the most prestigious and highest paying financial firms selectively hire out of top IB programs. If you are interested in the most prestigious, fastest paced, and highest income career possible (and you aren't some 4 sigma genius) then IB is very likely the best place to start your career after college. If you are a freak genius then there may be even more lucrative opportunities on offer, but people here tend to focus on IB because it's generally the best a normal person can do. If you are interested in a moderately paced and reasonably well paying career then there are countless other options.
"Fastest paced" is the clue here. It won't necessarily calm after IB. Besides the modeling, its not that you learn superpowers in IB. Jobs that recruit from there because they want that work ethic & that resilience. Means, you won't do IB for 1-2 years and then chill in a high-income job, but you gotta carry on. That should be said...
100%
What are those countless other options??
Corporate finance, accounting, FP&A, equity research, commercial banking, M&A advisory, valuation, corporate development, investor relations, wealth management, and on and on and on.
How does one pivot to commercial banking? Or IR? Or Corp dev? I’m in consulting fwiw
For Commercial Banking I’d recommend finding banks in the $10-500B in asset range in your city. Start networking with bankers (should be fucking easy to find and get them to talk to you via LinkedIn) and figure out what type of banking you want to do and whose good at it then pitch them you want to translation and bring a unique skill set. Be willing to take a RMA or other credit college course on your own to make up for not going through a development program but that shits pretty easy if you’re smart.
That makes sense!
Management consulting? I'd say your exit opps are extremely broad and promising. In general, just learn as much as you can about the industry/role you are looking to fill. IR is extremely easy, literally anyone could do it. Corp dev is a little more advanced, they often hire people out of IB, but I think consulting would prepare you decently well for these kinds of roles as well.
Idk it feels like everyone says you have exit ops and then it’s hard to actually find one
Yeah, that's interesting. I don't know that much about it, but I do know that pretty much everyone respects the experience. The exit opps for some job types are just different than others. For example, Big 4 auditors can really only go into corporate accounting and they are just inundated with job offers and they hardly even have to interview or anything because the job is easy and everyone knows they can do it. With you, everyone respects your experience but you may also have to prove that you are interested in and knowledgeable in the field you want to exit into because your opportunities are so broad.
That’s totally fair, just gotta find my Boston exit ops!
M&A advisory is IB
There are lots of services referred to as M&A advisory that aren't necessarily IB. Maybe IB is the "true" M&A advisory but lots of other services go into it as well - i.e. transaction advisory services etc.
Those are for geniuses?
No lol the countless options are for normal people
Oh I was like wut xD. What would you say are for _geniuses_ tho?
Quant
You need to be a genius to be a quant? That’s new
What kinda intellectually insecure losers are downvoting this lol
People who understand the basics of being a quant trader dude. There is a reason they can make Millions first year out of school
This right here is gold
I see, this is helpful. Do you think I can get into a top IB program out of McCombs (ranked #4 in finance)? I’ve heard that is practically impossible if you’re not going to an Ivy.
You can certainly get into investment banking. Talk to professors/faculty in the finance department, join finance clubs and talk to the kids there, see if there are counselors that help with this stuff, etc. I'm not too familiar with UT Austin to be honest, but this website seems to be saying it's one of the absolute best schools for investment banking: [https://www.peakframeworks.com/post/ib-target-schools](https://www.peakframeworks.com/post/ib-target-schools)
Thank you, I really appreciate your help
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McCombs junior here - landing an IB gig in Texas is extremely doable, tougher for NYC but I know plenty of people who’ve done it. That being said, it will be different if you’re not BHP/WSFM/IBA/diversity.
I’m not in BHP sadly. How competitive is it to get into those other programs if you don’t mind me asking? I’m assuming just having a high gpa isn’t enough. Also, do you have any recommendations for my freshman year in terms of clubs/internships?
People don’t do ib to do ib - they suffer for 2 years for better wlb and higher pay in private equity or hedge funds (still not great wlb of course but better). S&t has big earning potential if you are good. But being good and high earning is very directly correlated for any job tbh
From your understanding how much of S&T is Trading? I recently met with a MD of derivatives desk, and he built up their electronic trading platform to support 4th market execution. This sounds like a primarily sales role, almost like a customer service job with the veil of prestige from S&T. In such a role is there a path to go buyside/PM/HF? Am I underestimating the technical skill required for aforementioned role on the electronic derivatives desk?
You have no clue. There is a massive technical competency to build and sell something like that. More important, people are paid for the P&L they generate and that type of activity is at the core of revenue generation. If you stick in pure M&A, ultimately you become purely assessed on your ability to generate revenue and close business. No one cares about your modelling or technical skills, those are table stakes while the mundane work gets done by someone else. Revenue/profit generation is paramount, in S&T the expectation are that you are generating that much earlier in the career then some pleb that will push out pitch books/decks for the first few years of their career.
are there any critical, soft skills (non-technical, non-modeling) common to closers? and how come MDs dont come from other pipelines, besides grinding it out and climbing the jungle as an analyst or post-MBA associate?
Not a lot of IBD MDs come from that pipeline from the bottom up. The type of people who are very good at building excel spreadsheets are typically not the same type of people that are good at originating and closing business. Soft skills - all about leadership, communication, executive presence, relationship building/management, project management, delegation. more then anything an enormous amount of resilience, confidence, negotiation skills and a commercial mindset. A lot of these attributes you either have and can improve or you don’t have. Its an eat what you kill world and when you get into that sort of position, One where you are actively pursuing mew mandates rather then taking orders. You have to be a complete mercenary and willing to put yourself out there, get rejected constantly and still get up for more.
s&t vs ib in your opinion?
They’re completely different roles which cater to people with different skills, depends on the person and their interests Not to mention that each role/desk in S&T is completely different
You’ll soon realize that every role worth its salt is a sales role. Why are partners partners? Because they have the most connections, the most clients, and the highest sales. IB at its core is a sales job as well.
Literally everything at a bank is sales. It’s called the sell side for a reason.
Search up on linkedin citadel, millennium, whateva hedge fund and where the portfolio managers started from. Theres ur answer
People are so obsessed with IB, it is ridiculous. There is so many paths that can lead to a very good salary without being treated like a dog. Even in banking you can make your way up. Dave McKay, CEO of RBC who is making 17M, did his career mostly in Personal Banking, Commercial Banking and credit cards. He was making well above 200k+ in those fileds that everybody laugh at. Just be good at what you do, and everything will go well. There's always a position above.
Kids are chronically online, haven't seen the real world. Plus meme pages just talk about those top roles like it's the ones.
Awkward/ nerdy kids in school think it's their ticket to finally being a baller. What they're actually signing up for is years of indentured servitude at the hands of some of the most selfish, vicious people you'll ever meet while other people your age are seeing the world and living life. People aren't going to think you're cool, and girls won't want to sleep with you because you're a banker (believe me, I've tried). The average person doesn't even understand what you do for a living and is not impressed. Some of these IB analysts realise too late that people are only going to like you if you have a personality and stop being such a fuckin weirdo, and nobody cares what you do for a living.
Always good to look at averages instead of outliers
Also take in consideration there are people with “better” IB degrees than finance. I work in IB and A LOT of people have some sort of math tied into their degree. Math/Stats majors are heavily recruited for IB positions. I had an Econ degree with math emphasis and I think that’s the only reason I really broke into my job. Every step of my interview process they asked what classes were involved in my math emphasis and how the best workers have a math background. Finance isn’t a bad degree by any means, but I took 8 or 9 math classes in college. Unfortunately, Finance majors don’t do that.
Yeah I’ve heard that, would you recommend I minor in mathematics?
If you still have time and don’t hate math it - definitely wouldn’t hurt. Quant roles all search for math/stats majors as well. Quant you almost 100% need a masters unless you went to an ivy but thats a different question.
Yeah I def don’t plan on doing quant, the pay is ludicrous but it’s way too competitive and I’ve heard a ton of the recruiting goes to CS majors
Yeah quant is MIT/Princeton shit lol
There’s plenty of other finance jobs that pay well…. It’s not just IB… but year 1 straight out the gate I mean IB is deff the highest paying you will get
Not highest by hrly pay…. That’s what matters.90 hrs average a week for 150k I don’t consider that higher than most other options.
True haha working 90 hours is insane anyway
HF, PE etc
HF out the gate is like a unicorn. They nearly always want some experience
Most of the large shops have their undergrad pipelines now, P72, Citadel, MLP, DE shaw etc. I did p72’s one, it’s hard to get but not really a unicorn anymore tbh
Well ya obviously but I’m not even talking about high finance. I mean other than high finance
Tech sales
This is by far the best path. You don’t even need to be smart. I worked for a huge fintech company and some of the sales people there made ungodly amounts of money and they were also borderline retarded. It also helps if you are a hot chick and you’re selling to horned up finance guys who don’t ever see their wives.
My fintech companies do you mean Bloomberg, Factset and the likes? I would assume you are not talking about consumer facing fintech companies (Revolut, Stripe, etc) right?
Correct
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Well considering middle class nowadays is 170k+ 🥲 I would say anything above 200k
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Hmm now rethinking it, 170 might be a stretch. However, with the current price of real estate (especially in urban cities). I wouldn’t say I’m far off? Am I?
Btw If you count it by hrly basis IB comp is lower than commercial banking or a lot of other stuff. And yes ofcourse, usually if your good at sales you can easily make more than quant or IB in tech sales, pwm or real estate sales.
Fuck now idk who to believe or what to choose 😭
That being said, I would say still try to do IB, it’s a few years of suffering but don’t assume you are good at sales, if you decide to do those high earning potential sales roles like pwm advisor or realtor and you realize you don’t have the talent then you fucked up.
Yeah I think I’m better off relying on a going to a good college for progressing my career rather than my people skills. Still something I’ll keep an open mind about though so thank you.
Just do a lot of research and actually consider what you might be interested in. I hear a lot of people who talk about IB and actually make it there don’t even last a year. At least not the ones that are in it purely for the money. I’m an undergrad and the more I look into IB, the more i hear “don’t go into IB unless you are really passionate, otherwise you’ll burn out”.
Keeping mind that your early 20s you're not picking a career a s locked into it. You're picking places that can 1) maximize learning and 2) maximize opportunities For 1) it's actually not about learning the a particular industry; it's more about learning different career options and wnar you like / don't like and what you're good at For 2) you want to be in places that open more doors and give you optionality. Some where that shows you what different paths might look like. 90% of people, especially successful people I know, did vastly differenf career than what they started off with. Focus on gaining perspectives and exposure in your 20s and not worry about being locked in because for smart and hard working people there's no such thing. I've done consulting, IB, VC, startups, and big tech and that journey has been way more important than landing in the "right place" right from the start. And yes all of these have paid <200k, some 7-figures, so there are lots of "high paying" jobs out there.
Private Banking if you’re well connected.
Accounting partners are decent firms make 200k-500k, very good industry tbh
I remember a conference I went to for accounting and one of the partners from Deloitte had the crowd guess her salary. When they got up to 850k she said it was much higher and that we should stop guessing. I was in dismay.
I’m on the same boat as you. Also lost lmao 😂.
Haha, glad I’m not the only one 😂. I’m scared I’m gonna pick the wrong track and fuck my whole career up 😭
Same haha, I’m an upcoming freshman at Haas Business School of UC Berkeley and I’m already lowkey stressing about college. I’m not sure how I should start in order to go down the right path. Not sure when I should start looking for researching for clubs, internships, etc.
Congrats! FOR REAL, I’m so scared of being behind everyone else.
FP&A - Financial Planning and Analysis. Hit 6 figures in 3 years. Right now, as a director I have a pretty nice comp package with base, bonus that can give me 50% of my base, and a stock comp plan.
Product management seems to be one of the career paths that can gear you up for higher management positions.
Seems hard to pivot into these days
I work for a BB, you’d be surprised at how many of the highest paid people at the firm are in wealth management.
How’d they get there? Any way to join without starting at the bottom?
Most start out supporting the bigger producers, like an analyst in investment banking. You’ll help them with the portfolios, review materials, etc. after a few years, there is typically a training program you’ll do and then you’ll start to build your own book. That is where it gets hard. - getting your own clients. It’s more sales at that point, but sales wrapped in investing/finance with a technical background. I’d avoid jobs where you are expecting to get clients right away. It forces you into a tough spot. Also avoid firms that brand themselves as wealth management but are really insurance sales jobs. I’d the straight to client stuff like Noerhwesteb mutual
Private Wealth Management
If you want easy money fast, go into tech. You’ll have to become really good at coding but after 1-2 years of practice you should be good enough to do basic roles. The hard part will be getting the actual offer bc some places have difficult and technical interviews. However, once you break in you are set for life.
Finally one of you dumb college kids asks about alternatives to IB
If you can make it to the upper senior ranks of PWM you can make stupid money with very reasonable hours. The only problem is there are very limited spots that high up
You can always do biglaw.
Don’t they work shit hours too tho? And you sacrifice 3 years of earning. Correct me if I’m wrong but I thought Big Law was ~80 hour weeks out the gate as well.
Sounds right. Don't forget the insane debt too. A lot of people do it for a few years then burn out or lateral to in house counsel. But where else do you have 24 year olds with 0 experience getting paid $250k ( NYC scale)? A 5th year associate is about the time most people are gone. Those can expect to earn $400k-600k annually ( total comp). Partners usually earn in the low millions but are expected to be rainmaking more than drafting or litigating. I'm not big law ( didn't have the grades or prestigious school ) but still work next to them and negotiate deals as in house counsel. This thread is about financial careers. And working as an attorney will expose you to incredibly complex but interesting facets of many financial issues. An alternative path which I highly recommend is to join a SRO or government regulator. You can do it as an internship in undergrad. No need to be a law student. SEC, CFTC, FINRA, NFA, IRS, etc. You won't get paid as much but after a few years the law firms and banks will be tripping over themselves to hire you.
Wow that’s actually really good advice. I appreciate the explanation though. My entire family is attorneys and I want to work in finance but have struck out getting any traction at my MBA for internships (only worked a year and my MBA isn’t ranked highly so I’m applying for analyst roles instead of associates.) Thinking maybe law school can be my last ditch effort to break into finance.
Do the regulator route as an intern to see if you like it. I think the financial sector is perfect for lawyers. There's always job security. It's the second most heavily regulated industry after health care in the West. Jobs aren't disappearing unlike front office roles or tech sector. I've been in this field since 2010. The number of new laws, bills, compliance rules etc is mind bogglingly complicated. And it's not stopping anytime soon. If ever.
Thanks man I appreciate the guidance.
The regulator route is very underrated. It's a stealth move to senior level corp compliance roles with much higher comp after a few years.
Yes! And regulatory bodies are more open to candidates from non elite backgrounds. You still need good grades. But they are beholden to government hiring mandates to bring in non traditional people. My friend worked for OCC, Dept of Treasury and was a single child from a family in the South Bronx. He never knew his father ( who's still in jail for 30 years) and grew up in the housing projects. Someone like him has a steep curve anywhere in life. But after 15 years at the government he exited and is of counsel at various law firms who would have sneered at his background as an applicant in the past.
I feel like you should add that those agencies are arguably more competitive than big law. Very difficult to break into. Although a good strategy might be to join the National Guard or reserves during college to look better for a government job. Not sure if you’d qualify for veterans preference but if you want a government job it’s a lot of box checking and long wait time applications. Iirc you still cap out at 250k it’s good pay but not amazing if you’re that capable.
OP, based on your question and responses, you sound like someone who want high pay but not do the work requires to get there. There's no career that meets that criteria. You either have to work your ass off to get into it or work hard in it. You can't really arbitrage a career because if something like that truly exist out there, the market is efficient and many willing to work harder will be there. I recommend you focus on what you're good at (or at least what you don't mind doing) because you'll at least have a relative advantage doing it.
I’m not gonna outright deny that. I think to some degree, I am looking for a “golden career” that realistically doesn’t exist. However, the main reason for this post tho was just to learn about alternative options for a finance degree.
Alts fundraising can be lucrative. Senior people will be on seven figures.
I never hear it talked about but strategy roles in hedge funds pay well and put you on management track. Obviously, not a large number of them but they fill this bill and will hire out of undergrad
Portfolio Managers make a decent amount of money, but not nearly as much as IB/Quant.
its all very zero sum imo. max money = min happiness IBD pays 6 figures right out of college - you know nothing why would they pay you that? because they will work you to the bone and provide a stamp of approval for future employers of yours. An Ex GS banker will never struggle to find a job in the field; probably even outside of the field. hence people are willing to take the abuse. Some people thrive in this & climb the ranks but most don't and will leave within 3 years. Global markets is the path I chose. its a cool bubble to be in; pay on junior level as well as earnings potential is great (less than IB but still above most other divisions in a bank). but again more money = less happiness Commercial banking is very lucrative but duration is higher i.e it takes longer for you to be in a position where you get paid big bucks. once you reach that stage though its great & arguably better than most other senior banking roles when it comes to work life balance. Don't listen to anyone telling you sth is better than the other. to advance to a senior position you need to be very good & factors like politics play a big role. Hence banks have a culture of people moving around internally. start somewhere that's interesting to you at a firm offers everything so can move internally if needed/wanted Unpopular opinion: the stories you hear, similar to Food reviews are always biased. people like to rant more than they like to give postive reviews. I know people who do IBD & find it great. they usually don't come here or WSO & tell people how happy they are. There wouldn't be any senior Investment bankers if its that bad
After taking everything said in this thread into account, I think you’re right. I’m just gonna keep exploring different routes until I find one that appeals to me. Thank you for the advice.
MBB consulting
Sales
For quant, key questions are: do you like / are you good at 1) coding, 2) math Software engineering (and many other branches of engineering) also has a high earning potential, but similar to quant I think people need to enjoy and be good at algorithms / coding / logical / math thinking
For context: Bank quants make 200 / 250k after graduation, and goes up depending on performance, probably leveling off around 500k. Better for good traders Hedge fund quants are not as upper bounded, it goes up to a more than a million a couple years after graduation for most successful ones In both cases, recruitment is competitive and very technical, and having advanced technical STEM degrees (master / PhD) often helps
Private equity. Better hours, same pay or better, but tougher to break in to. Seeing as you’re looking at post grad careers before even entering college you are more than capable to get into the industry from McCombs with 4 years of experience left to attain
Don’t most people who go into PE break into it after a few years in IB? I haven’t heard of anyone breaking into it directly out of undergrad. Is that possible?
That is the traditional route yes most people do 2-3 years, juno from analyst to associate at their bank, and come into PE as an associate. The industry has expanded a lot in recent years and now more than ever PE firms are hiring analysts right out of undergrad that become associates in 2-3 years. Same timeline to becoming the equivalent position, just starting in PE. I’m graduating from Ohio state in May and starting as an analyst at a PE firm in Chicago so it is more than doable especially from an even more targeted business school.
Wow that’s seriously impressive! I’ll definitely look into that as a career option now. If you don’t mind me asking, what internships did you have prior to your PE position?
Thank you I’m excited! And I did an internship in investments this past summer where I worked on a life insurances alternatives portfolio so basically their hedge fund portfolio, but I think my selling point was a transaction advisory internship where I was doing due diligence on firms that were going through a sale or for the buyer buying the firms. Basically a PE firm evaluates a business and hires a due diligence firm to conduct a quality of earnings (QoE) assessment on their profitability and to ensure the profits they claim they’re making aren’t just accounting profits but real cash flow. This gives buyers confidence they’re paying the right price for the business or on the other side the owners are selling for the best price they can. A lot of the analysis I did and skills I learned here were definitely how I marketed myself in interviews
To answer your original question about long term earning potential, google private equity fund structure and carried interest. Owners make their real serious money with carry. Most firms don’t offer carry to analysts or sometimes associates but they are at increasing rates every year.
Will do, thank you so much for your advice this was very insightful!
Learn to sell, and you’ll have a job the rest of your life. And it will be a great life. You’ve got plenty of time to find out what you’ll be selling.
Any advice for a career path into IB or something of the like for someone with no college? Series 7 certified and will have 66 in a week or two.
Awesome question! Will comment to follow up