Front-office salary - What should I expect? Newbie? (2 Viewers)

[velox]

I personally wouldn't whinge about any of these salaries! Though given that you are selling your life away to the company in return, I suppose you'd want some sort of good compensation. I personally prefer a good work-life balance though, with an emphasis on the life. I mean, what's the point of a high salary when you can't even enjoy it properly? Unless you just do it for a few years, save up, and then go into a more relaxing job knowing you have a fair bit saved up already. Hmm that's a pretty good plan actually...!

It really depends. If you call 50-60 hours a week, selling your soul, then....

Markets is generally 10-12 hour days.

La Divinia: Its a market maker. Now google that.

Seraphim: How so? Is that why they are advertising all the time? Or is it that they are very selective with who they employ?

 

[§eraphim]

Seraphim: How so? Is that why they are advertising all the time? Or is it that they are very selective with who they employ?

I think it depends on the market, as for example, in FX work different hours or stay longer to manage your book. But it's still reasonable compared to IB hrs.

These reasons are all somewhat related...

 

[Omnidragon]

It's funny ppl talk about how pay is little per hr in ib. I just did a rough calculation and I'll tell you what's little per hr (pre-tax and post-tax): auditing.

 

[velox]

Auditors work 40 hours a week adding up ledgers, 50 if they are hardcore.

IB: $100k - 100 hours/week monkeying around with excel and making picture books. 20/hour.

In the end, each to their own. If you are solely motivated by money, you won't last long.

 

[§eraphim]

What is the percentage breakdown for those who move on from Analyst to Associate level, stay on as an Analyst for an extra yr or get kicked out after the 2-yr graduate analyst program?

 

[Omnidragon]

Auditors work 40 hours a week adding up ledgers, 50 if they are hardcore.

IB: $100k - 100 hours/week monkeying around with excel and making picture books. 20/hour.

In the end, each to their own. If you are solely motivated by money, you won't last long.

3 points to make.

First auditors working average of 40 is probably an understatement
Second IBankers averaging 100 hrs per week is an overstatement. IBankers in first year have 2 months holidays in London/New York.
Third bonus is obviously not factored into your calc.

If you are solely motivated by money, you won't last long. But if you are not motivated by money at all, maybe you should become a criminal barrister.

 

[velox]

3 points to make.

First auditors working average of 40 is probably an understatement
Second IBankers averaging 100 hrs per week is an overstatement. IBankers in first year have 2 months holidays in London/New York.
Third bonus is obviously not factored into your calc.

If you are solely motivated by money, you won't last long. But if you are not motivated by money at all, maybe you should become a criminal barrister.

2months holiday - training you mean.

And I have heard from people who actually work in ECM/M&A that they did work 100 hours a week.

And bonus is not that huge for grads.

Im sure grad auditors are around 8-5ish.

 

[Vagabond]

First auditors working average of 40 is probably an understatement

Only really in busy seasons, i.e. july, august and january ... I rarely see people working consistently late outside of these months.

And to be fair you need to take into account all the time auditors can take off, e.g. when they don't have client bookings/finishing early on client bookings. Downtime spent in the office doing very little, and so on and so forth.

 

[lizbon]

100 hrs is definitely overstating it, 80 hrs is a reasonable estimate. As for audit, the work you do is srsly morbid and the pay (and payrise every yr) is just not good enuf.

i think within IB, leveraged finance/sponsors and ECM has slowed down pretty badly but M&A hasnt really been hard hit, theres always small deals that keeps everyone occupied.

thought a trader's base salary was quite abit lower?like 70-80k? ye i've also heard optiver been pretty cutthroat.

 

[Omnidragon]

The busy seasons and the occassional busy nights will push accountants beyond 40 hrs avg. I guess they do get time off. But I did bring up training/holiday for everyone who works in a bank.

The hours in corp finance would depend on your bank and product team. Something like Macquarie Funds probably averages 8:30pm and very rare weekends. Base pay is obviously the same. It is rare to pull 100 hrs in a lot of product teams such as ECM too and I'd say it doesn't happen to many people in these teams.

You're more likely to see 100 hrs in m&a, but you'd be talking 2, 3 or 4 weeks like that. Again depends on the firm. If you're in Macquarie, again you probably wouldn't see any 100 hr week. Unless you're talking about overseas branches.

Downtime happens all the time. I probably 'worked' 30 hrs less than my auditor fds last week.

 

[Rorix]

Bankers aren't working 100 hour averages, and they're not getting $100k pa either.

 

[nukewell]

what about other front office positions - asset management/ trading/ equity research, how do they compare to IB in terms of hrs and compensation?

 

[jase_]

Only really in busy seasons, i.e. july, august and january ... I rarely see people working consistently late outside of these months.

And to be fair you need to take into account all the time auditors can take off, e.g. when they don't have client bookings/finishing early on client bookings. Downtime spent in the office doing very little, and so on and so forth.

Internal audit is so much better than external from my experiences now. I actually don't mind audit now! Not just work hours wise, but yeh everything.

 

[velox]

Bankers aren't working 100 hour averages, and they're not getting $100k pa either.

You seem to have missed the part where I was talking about grads. And I think omnidragons post makes sense. Although the people I talked to alluded to the fact that that is normal for a grad. Maybe they caught a bear cold.

 

[Rorix]

You seem to have missed the part where I was talking about grads.

I understood you're talking about grads. They're getting significantly more than 100k. PM me if you want to discuss further, not appropriate to put numbers here I don't think.

And I think omnidragons post makes sense. Although the people I talked to alluded to the fact that that is normal for a grad. Maybe they caught a bear cold.

I agree with omnidragon. Note that there's a tendency by bankers to exaggerate the number of hours they are working..

what about other front office positions - asset management/ trading/ equity research, how do they compare to IB in terms of hrs and compensation?

At entry level nothing gets better pay or works more hours than IB. Trading has scope for significantly more money once you start generating P/L..but is more risky, as its much easier to get fired.

 

[ShortBear]

At entry level nothing gets better pay or works more hours than IB.

The latter is true, former is not. 1st yr derivatives salespeople (on a good desk) make as much 1st yr IBD analysts (and a 1st yr structurer on my desk made more than 200 all-up last year, dont think any 1st yrs in ibd made that).

To original poster: 80-100k is standard base for 1st yr in derivatives sales/structuring/trading.

 

[Vagabond]

how much would a graduate broker get? say on a currency forwards desk?

 

[Newbie]

its been a shit week haha
im glad lehman did ok last night

how bad would be feel if you were a bear stearns summer intern or fulltime hire =/

 

[§eraphim]

its been a shit week haha
im glad lehman did ok last night

how bad would be feel if you were a bear stearns summer intern or fulltime hire =/

I'm happy Lehman survives this quarter.

 

[redruM]

40 hrs/week is never the case for auditors..maybe in june/dec...especially as you move into a senior role.

i'd say on average 55 hrs/week