Essential Facts You Should Know About Investment Banking Career

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Being a lucrative career option, investment banking has become an area of interest for many. If it has grabbed your attention too, this article is going to enhance your knowledge on the subject and will help you decide if you should or shouldn’t enter this field.

Investment banking analysts are involved in assisting organizations in establishing their capital by carrying out financial analysis and by making a good use of well-structured financial models. Though a person working in the field of investment banking is responsible for implementing some really heavy stuff, to make up for this fact, they are compensated quite well too.

According to the data provided by salary.com, an investment analyst receives a median annual salary of $81,218. Which makes it completely worth for people working as investment analysts to perform under a lot of pressure.

After doing some hardcore research, we have created a list of a few facts about one of the most scandalous industries in wall street.

Give it a read and decide for yourself if this is something that you have been looking for in order to succeed in your career or not.

1. Investment banking is not only for finance majors anymore

Though there was a time when investment banks preferred hiring people from the finance background which made sense as the main purpose of the industry is to deal in finance, recently, they have begun to hunt for engineering as well as computer science majors who possess an expertise in coding.

But this doesn’t mean that they don’t value people from other educational backgrounds. As a matter of fact, investment banks such as Goldman Sachs provides job opportunities for professionals of different majors. However, such openings are scarce.

2. The hours are long and taxing

The hours are relatively more grueling as compared to other segments of investment banking. As per the reported data of Transparent Career users, for investment banking, the average workweek is almost seventy-seven hours. So, if we even that out, it comes down to eleven hours per day.

3. Passing the quant interview is mandatory

In order to get a job at an investment bank, passing the quant (quantitative) interview is necessary. Having technical skills (such as valuation or accounting) is crucial for surviving in investment banking and that is what is tested I this interview.

By pursuing relevant financial certifications, anyone can easily develop as well as demonstrate such technical knowledge with confidence.

4. The interest of professionals in Investment banking is going down

The excitement amongst people for entering investment has lowered down. The positions in IB are not as sought after as they were a few years back. The Harvard Business School has been reporting this for the last couple of years that most their students are losing interest in joining investment banking.

However, there are other segments of finance that pay well and demand fewer hours. After gaining a couple of years of experience of working in investment banking, many analysts prefer moving to hedge funds or private equity.