esrajay

What is the average salary?
Salaries from large I-banks are obviously larger, so what is the average salary for a investment banker employed by Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan?
Thanks.

uc_benz

There's plenty of salary surveys out on the web so just search, i.e. GOOGLE.

jpps1

I think the average first-year associate salary is around $165K. Depends on many factors though. You could even go as high as $250K your first year...one thing's for sure: money is never an issue. You'll be pulling $1M+ if you can last 10 years.

adjlad

forget about the salary

How hard is it to actually get the job?

patientlywaiting

i wonder, besides work experience, exceptional grades/test scores, what else makes a candidate stand out enough to land the job? does JP Morgan ever hire kids straight out of college? do you guys think it would help to start a portfolio of your own and showing it to them?

jpps1

Great interviews. Type-A personalities who can work in a team.

I'm not sure about the personal portfolio thing, but I'd lean to say they wouldn't be impressed. It's the real world--they won't think you're so amazing when you show off you $5000 portfolio; they don't care for kid stuff like that.

esrajay

UCBenz I have done that without any success. I have found one site stating the average starting salary is $100,000, but that does not answer my question. Maybe you should read it and try to answer it yourself since you are such a smartass.

AceRockolla

30-50k starting out as an analyst
80-90k starting with an mba
-not including bonuses

after the first couple years, the salary goes up. burnout rate is high, but not because the work is actually strenuous(you're basically standing around half the time), but because people realize that they want to do something actually meaningful in life.

jpps1

Where are those numbers from?

For bulge bracket firms, they're double (from what I've seen).

AceRockolla

I've done some reading on investment banking, plus my uncles been working at bear stearns for like 15 years. from what i've gathered, those numbers are pretty accurate.

and be realistic here. the average mba from a top 5 b-school makes around 90k a year(not including bonus) after graduation. and have you ever heard of an analyst straight out of college making 60-100k a year?

thinkingoutloud

If you are interested in a miserable quick burnout life, but full of money, money, money, then investment banking with a big firm is for you. Think about 16 hour workdays, rarely seeing your spouse and kids, and enjoying early divorce where your spouse takes half. You can't take it with you.

jpps1

I found these two sites about recent compensation rates...granted, it was during the late 1990s, but I know for a fact that salaries have not fallen by 50%...it's closer to 30% according to Businessweek.

http://www.careers-in-finance.com/1999survey.htm
http://www.careers-in-finance.com/co...ion-study1.htm

As for what thinkingoutloud said...some people enjoy the work and there are many understanding wives/girlfriends.

Not to mention once you're about 10 years into the business, you begin to have a bit more control over your schedule.

AceRockolla

^^^
those sites confirm the figures i posted, so.... what's your point.



also, bonuses are pretty much subjective to whatever company you work for. and they are nowhere near that high now.

jpps1

Oh crap. I feel like an idiot.

I missed the fact that you left out bonuses. And IBs give BIG bonuses.

Whatever, the point is that almost no job will pay you as well coming out of grad school (or even undergrad).

California1600

Guys, I used to be an investment banking analyst at a bulge bracket firm. This was in 2000-2002.

First year salary - 55k
Signing bonus - 6k
Year end bonus- 25-30K (in 1999, some analysts had 40-50K bonus, it was a good IPO year)

So total about 85-90K total for a first year analyst coming out of college. Some smaller shops like Lazard give even bigger bonuses because of their emphasis on small teams and bulge bracket clients. I've heard of first years pulling off over 100K at some firms. 2nd year salary goes up 5-10K depending on the firm and deal pipeline. Not including bonus of course.

It is extremely difficult to land a IB job. The work is extremely strenuous, I've pulled several all nighters per month. You definitely earn your money. Doing something like managing a personal portfolio doesn't anything at all. Doing an summer internship at a buy side firm is much much more impressive.