#Finance #WorkLifeBalance #CareerOpportunities #PrivateEquity #CityLife
Hey everyone! 👋 Are you also wondering if there’s a way to make good money in finance without sacrificing all your time? 🤔 Let’s discuss! Here are a few questions to kickstart the conversation:
– Is it possible to have a successful finance career without working 50+ hours a week?
– Are there better opportunities out there for work-life balance besides Investment Banking (IB)?
– How does Private Equity compare to IB in terms of demanding work hours?
– Can you have a fulfilling finance career outside of big cities like New York?
I’m young and planning my future in finance, and I want to make sure I don’t end up in a soul-sucking job. Any tips or insights on finding a career that won’t burn me out? 🌟
Also, any advice for balancing a finance career with a good quality of life outside of work? Let’s share our thoughts and experiences to help each other out! 💡
From Brazil, obrigado! 🇧🇷 Let’s chat!
Not all of finance is IB. PWM, reinsurance, insurance, analyst departments for healthcare, oil, commercial banking, retail banking (let it slide folks) etc.
You’re talking about what might be 1% of the jobs and frankly a space that most people won’t ever hear of outside of our industry.
Private wealth advisor here. Right now it’s more of my “slow season” post tax time where I’ll spend time meeting clients/prospects out of a business setting, doing rounds, and enjoying work/life balance with some general business planning. Far less than 50 hours though.
Got our formal semi-annual review season starting up next month though and will be putting in 7-7’s often when needed.
I’m about 7 years licensed and it wasn’t always like that.
tbh 50 hours is still on the low end for the majority of finance jobs, but how exactly do you define a lot of money? there are a wide range of financial careers that would allow you to live comfortably without sacrificing your soul away
There a lot of cushy places. My colleagues work 25hr weeks – technically they have to sit for 40, but they poke in phones for 15hr.
Pay is around 95K and it gets better with tenure up to 120-150 vp and maybe around 170-200 for ed/md.
Of course the jobs i am talking about are not the fanciest in terms of prestige and pay, location, but people with 1MM homes are not complaining here.
All of this left unspoken because it is not fancy and of course you probably won’t make half a mil or millions at my job. But it almost feels like overpaid to the degree of work people put in a week.
IB is appealing because it can launch you into almost any other aspect of finance. Working on Oil and Gas? Go work for a PE firm, private company, public company, C-suite, consult, PWM, equity analyst, PM…. On the flip, you can go straight into those fields and work your way up. If your goal is to make money you will burn out, if you find your niche, you can ride the highs and lows and still love what you do.
Yes.
Yep. Location is also a big factor. Places like NYC or Chicago will have a grind culture. Places like Florida or Texas will likely be more lax in my experience and office culture/relationships will be friendlier.
Ultimately though, if you want to make the big bucks, you’re gonna have to put in the hours regardless. But if you’re okay with decently high bucks ($80k to $130k maybe) then you can likely be a manager or senior personell member and still have decent work life balance for most of the year. You’ll likely always have a certain busy season.
Government regulator. Job security, good benefits, low to moderate hours. Excellent exit opportunities.
There is a lot of survivorship bias in this subsector of finance, (a slipshod estimate is that around 4 out of 5 people don’t make it two years) but successful wealth managers with established books 100% have the best lifestyle in the financial sector, second only to board members of public companies.
Plenty of wealth managers out there who work 25-30 hours a week and pull in $500,000+ per year. It’s just very hard to get there and 98% of people don’t. Building your book of clients to that size takes two decades.
Corporate banking if a large city, commercial banking in tier 2 cities.
Yes that is me. 37.5 hrs.
Come work to france, the hours are much easier here
FP&A makes decent money and for the most part you work regular 40 hour weeks, with the exception of reporting-heavy times like month or quarter close. I guess compared to finance it’s on the low end of salaries but compared to other jobs you still make really good money.
115k/40 hours weekly
Why doesn’t anybody talk about S&T
Yes you could get away with it in Trading if you are good. Personally I’m not trying to work past 35 or start managing/owning a convenience store. On base salary alone (~200k) it would take a while, pocketing my bonuses and hoping for a crazy year for mid 7 figure payout.
Sales and trading, asset management, quant trading
Im usually at around 45-55 hours a week in financial data and make about 100k a year base now but in west coast HCOL