Banking

William Gates

Who are the best/worst bank to work for, pay-wise and work-load wise.

Manny7

Depends what kind of banking you want to get into; there's over 60 banks in Ireland and that's not counting pseudo-banking organisations such as hedge funds and trading companies. Do you know what area you're interested in?

BossArky

William Gates wrote:

... and work-load wise.

how long is a piece of string?

theboytaylor

Actually was going to start on something like this so, this is handy!

Well the story is I'm in final year engineering and I think a change is needed so I'm planning on heading towards banking come graduation time, leaning to one of the big banks in London or so, just join the Grad programme and so on.

Probably something like IB would suit (I think anyway, advice on this is greatly appreciated, what skills/attributes does one require). What is this work like? anybody have an idea on the kinds of salary scales for grads on these programmes?

thanks in advance lads.

Running Bing

I started a thread a while back about IB so have a look for that. As for what its like think big. Hours hovering around 90-100 hours per week with 24 hour straight(or more:eek: ) shifts not unheard of, salary starting at £40-45k(thats sterling btw so about 60 k euro:eek: :eek: ), rising to around £100,000 a year pretty quickly and after a few years rising to the millions, deals in the 100's of millions dealing with the biggest corporations in the world. As you probably gathered its not for the faint of heart. Its not something that you just decide to give a go and walk in to easily. They recruit the absolute cream of the crop. Oxford,cambridge,lse grads will be going for it and the applicant to place ratio is about 60:1(but most people apply to a fair few banks so in reality its not that high). If your college, academics, extra currics and work experience are'nt top notch or pretty good forget about it.

As for what the work is like, a description that many new grad recruits seem to give it would be hell. You start of making pitch books which are basically brochures for potential clients that are never read and nobody really gives a sh1t about but will regularly be required by a deadline meaning you will often be stuck in the office until the early hours(or the late hours) of the mourning trying to finish them. As for holidays and sick days forget about them as well. Of course you will get a certain amount of holidays a year but if you take them it will be frowned upon, you'll be treated with less respect and it will cost you a couple of tens of thousnads of pounds when bonus time rolls around. The work eventually does get better(slowly) and when you get high up its actually a very rewarding career and the work is interesting I understand.

Im still a student myslef btw so I have no first hand experiecne but Ive been interested in it for many years and have done a lot of research and have heard a lot of testimonials and I believe all this to be true. Basically what it boils down to is you will be fvcking loaded but you will work bloody hard for it(apparently when some new recruits add up the hours they work the salary is only the equivalent of a manager in mcdonalds. That doesnt last for long though). My advice is if you are really interested in this do as much research as you possibly can and know what your getting into. Hope this helps and good luck.

Blackjack

Babybing wrote:

As for holidays and sick days forget about them as well. Of course you will get a certain amount of holidays a year but if you take them it will be frowned upon, you'll be treated with less respect and it will cost you a couple of tens of thousnads of pounds when bonus time rolls around.

Most banks insist all holidays are taken, and specify that 2 weeks must be taken consecutively, a lesson learnt from Nick Leeson collapsing barings. A man who did not take a day off work for 6 years, which is why he was able to hide his losses so well.

damnyanks

The banks insist on you taking 2 weeks holidays minimum a year within their HR policy.

However tell that to your manager and he'll more then likely laugh at you. While the market place is good they will hire lots of grad's. When the market goes down (And it will at some point in your career) you'll be out on your ass.

We were shown a presentation from around 2001 showing various people in mergers and aquasitions. They then showed us who got fired, was more then 50%.

The work is indeed very dull (While junior). You are surrounded by frustrated smart people who all want to progress to the level where they get something interesting to do. My friend has wokred in M&A for 5 year's and now he is allowed to talk to the client he's reasonably senior.

If someone is dead set on going into investment banking my advice would be go work in the business side of a company in some industry. Do an MBA after a few years then apply, you'll skip all the brain and body killing tasks.

You will work over 100 hours a week. You will work weekends. You may very likely get called into hte office on the likes of Christmass day (especially if you are in Ireland as its so close).

The area is highly competitive, the oxford, cambridge, harvard, princton people do apply. They do take people from "lesser" colleges. If you study at one of the NUI's in Dublin you are in luck as they are target college's within ROI.

Bear in mind they get thousands of applicants and thousands of those want the postion, not for the work but for the salary. This is only normal of course but you really have to assess why you want the job. Is it the work or is it the pay.

You also have to work with lots of french peoplel. An observation I have made is that French people who earn a lot seem ever so arrogant.

Running Bing

damnyanks wrote:

You may very likely get called into hte office on the likes of Christmass day (especially if you are in Ireland as its so close).

Just a quick query regarding investment banking in ireland danmyanks. Would you know who the big players are and how similiar the work is to the big London ib's. I dont know why but I always imagined in Ireland the lifestyle would be a lot more manageable and easygoing, with less hours and obviously less money. Am I wrong?

damnyanks wrote:

You also have to work with lots of french peoplel. An observation I have made is that French people who earn a lot seem ever so arrogant.

I can only imagine:D

damnyanks

No idea what Ireland is like. I met someone who worked in abn amro or however its spelt in Dublin who didn't think anything in Dublin was worth while. I'd imagine going to the big 4 accounting firms would be a better move but thats just a guess on my own part. The abn lad was for market.

If by banking you mean M&A accountancy firms would be the best bet. If you want to get into capital markets I'm guessing the likes of AIB, BOI and the scotish lads.

Blackjack

damnyanks wrote:

The banks insist on you taking 2 weeks holidays minimum a year within their HR policy.

However tell that to your manager and he'll more then likely laugh at you.

I disagree. None of my managers have ever laughed at me when I mentioned it (nor have the managers of anyone I know who works in the Industry), and in actual fact, all have insisted on all members of staff taking the 2 weeks mandatory.

Running Bing

Blackjack wrote:

I disagree. None of my managers have ever laughed at me when I mentioned it (nor have the managers of anyone I know who works in the Industry), and in actual fact, all have insisted on all members of staff taking the 2 weeks mandatory.

What area are you working in BlackJack? I should say I was reffering to IBD(M&A) within london IB's. Thats what I assumed theboytaylor was interested in when he asked. Trading is a different kettle of fish though, completely different job. Hours tend to be more manageable with weekend work a relative rarity. The job tends to be less stable than M&A also, and the future looks very hazy.

Blackjack

Babybing wrote:

What area are you working in BlackJack? I should say I was reffering to IBD(M&A) within london IB's. Thats what I assumed theboytaylor was interested in when he asked. Trading is a different kettle of fish though, completely different job. Hours tend to be more manageable with weekend work a relative rarity. The job tends to be less stable than M&A also, and the future looks very hazy.

Not M&A, but I know a number of People who do, policy for them is the same. The people I do know are limited to 3 organisations only, so it may be the case outside of those 3 that

damnyanks

Well from my experience in working at one in 2 different areas, they really don't like you taking 2 weeks holidays. One weeks hloidays someone else can cover for you. 2 weeks holidays and they have to really take it into consideration which can **** any form of project or deal up.

Markets you can take your holidays no rpblem (assuming you arent really important). But you wont't take 2 weeks holidays. You'll take lots of 1 week holidyas.

If you are in something like buisness banking (ala AIB in london) , Treasury, operations or brokerage you can probably get away with 2 weeks holidays no problems