jcole21 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > purealpha Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > I think teller chicks are hot. > > > The trend in my area is hot Bosnian chicks that > count my money. That’s a trend I could get behind > (get it?). I endorse this 110%. Have them count your money, then buy their sister as a bride. Win-Win.
Interesting to see this discussion. I am holding a back office job - in a controller area. It is interesting to see, in this forum, there are a lot of people who never actually work in an investment bank and are making imaginary comments… An MD in my area can easily take $1m in a good year and $500K in an average year (like 2010). Given the current regulatory environment changes, back office jobs may offer better career path than front office - depending on whether you want to manage more people or make more money or both. In the front office, which I worked before as well, people may not manage a big team or have exposure to a wide variety of product lines but may get paid well due to the specialty. In a back office post, your career growth tends to rely on the number of people you manage or the coverage you take (e.g. whether you cover a wide spectrum of product lines or business). In short, front office tends to pay you well as a “specialist” but back office tend to pay you well as a “generalist” (although this is changing too given the current regulatory environment movement) I personally think, risk management (back office area in my firm), controller and certain operation area (dealing with transactional data) may have good career path in the next few years and may get paid well. Other back office areas, such as human resources, may not change too much. I have seen a lot of people obsessed about the term “front office” job w/o really understand what it is. I personally only consider trading, portfolio manager, investment banker, sales (some firms refer them as middle office, actually) as “front office”. Quant and research are not really front office as they don’t generate revenue but supporting or improving those activities.
^ Yes you are right that a BO managing director can make 500k. But it takes a long time slowly climbing the ranks and the right connections to get there. In FO, you can make 500k much faster at a much younger age. Sure BO is more stable, but that’s why the pay is way less. I worked for a BB also, FO junior analyst jobs got 70 base, 70 bonus. BO junior analysts got similar base, but 20 bonus. And in addition, the FO analysts get promoted much faster and their salary increases also jump much faster. The FO analysts on the desk 1 year of experience, made more than BO associates that took 5+ years to get there.
But the thing is, not everyone gets to be a MD in the back office, hence the point of my previous post. You *can* make a lot of money, but there is limited room at the top.
I think it’s more about connections in the BO than the FO as you move up the hierarchy. Alot of incompetent back office mds floating around.
wake2000 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Alot of incompetent back office mds floating around. i don’t know if i completely agree with that. people at the md level have many reposnsibilities going to many different directions and its obviously a competitive spot so there must be some ‘genius’ there to both get and maintain the position. i’d say there are a bunch of socially incompetent md’s than business incompetent md’s. a lot of bo people get labeled as lazy or stupid, though they’re the ones who work 10-4 and still get most of the perks.
I agree with pennyless and pure alpha on this one. I used to be obsessed with the front-back office labels. In hindsight it is really stupid. I am currently in the mid office (doing a lot of front office sort of analysis I guess, keeps me happy). My work life balance is awesome. Everytime I go to NYC and hear my class mates whining about being at work at 7 am and working 12+ hour days and weekends I just laugh. I used to want that so bad, now it just looks so stupid. And I love the people who dish on 120k max, for starters, 120 is a phenomenal paycheck no matter who you are and I guarantee you probably only 5-10 or regular posters here are pulling that. Secondly, granted I’m mid office but I work in a group of 6 employees based in Pittsburgh, I’m one of two young analysts there and we’re the only ones in that group making less than $120k. Median week is probably 40 hours and it’s unusual to break 50. Because of that, I kayak class 5 whitewater out here, run ultra marathons, play ice hockey, ski every weekend and my work is paying for my evening math classes (trying to eventually get an MA). Compare that to how most of my friends spend their 20’s in NYC working until 8 or 10 every night and maybe every 2nd to 3rd weekend as well. I’m not saying back office is better or worse, just that its got merits regardless of how insecure FO analysts choose to rip on it. I highly recommend you read Monkey Business, its very entertaining and one of the more influential finance books I’ve ever read. Really makes you question the whole bull crap pipe dream business students get rammed down their throats.
wake2000 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Alot of incompetent back office mds floating around. Yes, very true, this phenomenon is solely true of the back office. I’m not honest, but I’ve NEVER encountered semi-retarded FO managers that leave you standing their speechless at the fact that people would give them money to manage.
Black Swan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > wake2000 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Alot of incompetent back office mds floating > around. > > > Yes, very true, this phenomenon is solely true of > the back office. I’m not honest, but I’ve NEVER > encountered semi-retarded FO managers that leave > you standing their speechless at the fact that > people would give them money to manage. I have.
I was being sarcastic, hence “I’m not honest, but”
Yeah I’ve ran into some dousies in my day. I guess people only care about returns and no matter how quirky some of these folks are the fact is if they produce people will invest with them.
like tom hudson from pirate capital? i’ve uncovered this hidden treasure fer ya, mate (its best if you go backward from pg3 to 1, bottom of page to top) -> http://dealbreaker.com/pirate-capital/page/3/
Or that guy from long island who wanted to take out all of the regulators and believed in 911 conspiracies. Who in the world would invest with people like that?
Jesus, I went to that dealbreaker link like you said, and started to read from the bottom up (haven’t finished yet). It’s insane. I tried to read the NYMag article linked in the last post and couldn’t finish the first of the 6 pages because I kept nearly vomiting in my mouth. Pretty funny when you see that from that story to the last dealbreaker post was only a period of roughly 18 months.
i can’t get the image out of my head of the guy sitting at a bar somewhere sharing a pint with a friend and going, “F’n Michael Bolton, man… Michael f’n Bolton.”
How many years does it take to get to be a managing director? it’s analyst, associate, vp, senior vp, MD?
I think it’s analyst -> associate -> assistant VP -> VP -> director -> MD. Probably slightly different in some companies though.
pacmandefense Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- depends on what your company’s structure is. at some places only fo has md’s and the bo only has evp’s. i don’t think there’s an exact timeline anywhere, really, but the fastest person we had get to svp was early 40s.
i used to work in MO product control. It think the avp (forgot they had that position because to me it’s merely another associate position) was making 85k in NYC and the VPs were making 120k. i was making about 61 as 3rd year analyst. it’s outrageous that a BO MD makes 500k. I thought they were capped at 300k or something
also, BO is where they stashed most of the minorities