Common questions about the job, answered

01the work

• Is the work hard?¹

  Not in the way people fear. The tasks run from routine to genuinely analytical, but what makes the first years hard is volume - the hours - more than difficulty. It does get harder with seniority: an associate is expected to lead analysts, and a VP has to run deals while learning to win them.

• Is it mostly financial modelling?^1,2

  No. Modelling matters, but it is nowhere near 80% of the day in M&A, ECM or DCM, and it is handed down to the juniors as bankers rise. A banker is above all a process and project manager: research, analysis, pitch books and other presentations, client calls, administration and team meetings fill most of the time.

• Is it mathematically demanding?¹

  In trading and structuring, yes. In investment banking the arithmetic comes down to adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing and raising to a power. That is not the same as easy: modelling a whole company across dozens of linked sheets, so that it is stable and someone else can follow it, takes a very clear analytical mind. The complexity is in the structure, not the maths.

• Is it varied?¹

  Very. Because the work is project-driven, one day can be a research report on a South American steel plant, the next a German furniture maker's restructuring, the next a rating analysis. What tomorrow brings is rarely known today.

• Will I meet clients early on?^1,3

  Rarely, and not as the voice in the room. Juniors attend some meetings to listen and, when asked, to give a figure from their model. Associates are on the phone to the client more, about data and analysis. Real advisory contact starts around VP, six or so years in - the opposite of consulting, where juniors are with the client from day one.

• Will I travel?¹

  Hardly. Analysts and associates spend more than 90% of their time in the office. Travel arrives with client responsibility, from about VP or director, and at the top of the ladder it takes up most of the working week.

next: hours and life →

02hours and life

Current hours data and the caps banks have introduced are on the ladder page; the answers here are about how the time is actually spent.

• Do you work weekends?^4,5

  Sometimes, not every weekend, and usually not a full day: four to eight hours when a deal needs it, in the German guide's description. Several banks have since formalised protected time - JPMorgan's pencils-down from Friday evening to Saturday noon among them.

• Is the late evening real work, or face time?¹

  Face-time cultures still exist at some banks but were already fading by 2016, and some banks send people home when there is nothing left to do. The time in the office is generally working time, not waiting to be seen.

• Why don't banks just hire more people?¹

  Partly culture. But there are real reasons: much of the work does not split well, and a six-person team in the office all day coordinates far more easily than twelve people working part-time. Clients in a live deal also expect the people who know it to be reachable - private equity clients especially, who themselves work past midnight and set tasks overnight.

• Taxis, dinner and holidays¹

  Banks pay for the taxi home late at night and for dinner in the office; the German guide put the dinner allowance at about €15 to €20 in 2016. German bank contracts then carried the usual 30 days' holiday, of which juniors took perhaps half to two-thirds, with the rest often paid out. Being called back from holiday for an urgent deal happens, but rarely, and the bank covers the cost. Treat all of these as 2016 practice at German banks, not a current benchmark.

• What happens to a private life¹

  In the first three years sport and friends take a back seat. Nobody is locked in the office, and some weekends are free, but the constraint is real, and it is the main reason people who came only for the money leave quickly.

next: banking or consulting →

03banking or consulting

• Different, not better¹

  Both are competitive, well paid and good for a career, and the first year looks similar - research, a company's business model, its competitive position, Excel and slides. Asking which is better is comparing apples and pears; the useful question is which suits you, and internships in both are the best way to find out.

• Office against client site^1,3

  Junior bankers live in the office and sleep at home, if briefly; junior consultants spend much of the week at the client. Mergers & Inquisitions puts consulting at about 60 hours a week with weekends mostly free, against 80-plus in banking, and gives consultants far more client contact early on.

• Operations against transactions^1,3

  Consultants work on how a company runs - costs, processes, strategy - and much of it is qualitative. Bankers work on transactions, at the meeting point of finance and strategy, with models and capital markets at the centre. The stakes differ too: a banking transaction can decide a company's future within months, and in restructuring its survival.

• You see the result quickly¹

  Whether a consulting project worked may still be unclear after five years. In banking it is usually clear within twelve months or less whether a sale, a listing or a refinancing succeeded.

• How each firm is paid³

  Banks are paid largely when a deal closes, so everyone is pulling to get it done. Consultancies bill by team and time, with no such pressure to close.

• Pay and exits³

  Mergers & Inquisitions puts US junior banking pay at $150k to $200k against $100k to $120k in consulting, and banking ahead at most levels. Banking has the better route into private equity and hedge funds; consulting has broader exits into corporate strategy. Its advice to the undecided is to choose banking - one voice, and a banking-focused one.

next: getting in: the awkward questions →

04getting in: the awkward questions

• Do I have to start at a top bank?¹

  It helps: an analyst at a leading bank usually has more and better options, especially towards private equity. It is not the end otherwise. In hot markets many bankers move from second- and third-tier banks to larger ones, and the doors do not close for good if the first job is not a famous name.

• How much do grades matter?¹

  They decide whether you get the interview, not whether you pass it. In the German guide's rough estimate, a student at a non-target university needs to be in the top 10% of the year to be invited, where a target university student may get there from the top third. Weaker grades mean more networking; the fit page covers what to say when an interviewer raises them.

• Am I too old?¹

  Analysts usually start at 21 to 24, and in Germany - with longer degrees and, historically, military service - at 24 to 26. The German guide put it bluntly in 2016: up to 26 is fine, 27 or 28 workable, and around 30 is a line few cross. Part of that is self-selection: few 30-year-olds want to be a first-year analyst reporting to a 25-year-old associate.

• Do I need an MBA, or a doctorate?¹

  Neither. A bachelor's degree is enough to apply as an analyst. The MBA is the route for someone switching from another industry straight to associate, and only from the top programmes; it is common in London and New York and rare in Frankfurt. A doctorate is the last thing needed, though some German managing directors hold one.

• Does a German bank apprenticeship lead there?¹

  No. The Bankausbildung and the qualifications built on it, such as the Bankfachwirt, are commercial banking credentials for retail and corporate banking. Investment banking recruits graduates from strong universities with internships behind them, and the apprenticeship route does not lead to it.

• Can a headhunter place me?¹

  Not as a graduate. Serious headhunters start working with analysts in their second or third year; the rare search for a first-year analyst is almost always for a small independent adviser.

• Can I get in without a banking internship?¹

  Without any internships, no. With other internships but none in banking, only just - you would need a compelling story for why you know it suits you. Internships are the banks' main recruiting tool, and the German guide advised one and preferably two banking internships before applying for an analyst job, noting that banks filled 70% to 100% of an analyst class from their own interns in 2016.

• Does summer or off-cycle matter for the offer?¹

  No bank weighs whether you proved yourself in a summer internship or an off-cycle one. The summer class gets the extras - a dinner with the managing director, the firm presentations - but not priority. In Germany, where university calendars often make a summer internship impossible, off-cycle is the normal route.

• Do I need to have studied abroad?¹

  Not formally, but almost everyone has, ideally in an English-speaking country. Fluent English is the minimum in every case.

• Do I need contacts?¹

  No - plenty of bankers knew nobody at their bank and simply went through the process. But contacts raise the odds a great deal, especially in London and New York. A scholarship is a footnote on a CV; its alumni network is the useful part.

• Should I trust league tables?^1,6

  As a first orientation, yes; as a verdict, no. Every bank arranges the tables in its pitch books so that it comes out near the top, and third-party tables involve judgement too. The tiers page explains what each measure actually shows.

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