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Job description
The work centers on preparing valuation models, financial projections, and pitch books for clients raising debt or equity or weighing a merger, then executing the transaction from start to close while coordinating with legal, accounting, and regulatory teams along the way. Early-career bankers spend long hours, often 60 to 90 a week, almost entirely desk-based in a corporate office, with real financial consequences riding on the accuracy of every model. As bankers advance, they take on more direct client relationships and deal leadership, and the demanding early years are commonly used as a springboard into private equity, hedge funds, or corporate strategy.
Pros
- Pay tops out around $400k, with strong compensation from the entry level onward
- Widely used as a springboard into private equity, hedge funds, or corporate strategy
- Early exposure to major corporate transactions and senior executives most peers don't get
Cons
- Hours regularly run 60-90 a week, including nights that stretch late
- Relentless, deadline-driven pace with little room for error in models and documents
- Juggling multiple deal timelines at once under compressed schedules is a constant grind
A typical day
The analyst's day starts mid-morning — because it ended at 1am — with comments back from the vice president on a pitch deck: the client meeting moved up, and the valuation pages need refreshing with last night's market close. The core hours are the model: a merger analysis where every assumption (growth rate, margin, synergies) gets stress-tested, because a senior banker will find the weak cell in seconds. A conference call with the client's CFO fills the early afternoon, followed by due diligence coordination — data rooms, lawyer calls, a checklist a hundred lines long. Dinner arrives at the desk. The evening turns the day's inputs into tomorrow's materials, formatted to the bank's exacting standard. The apprenticeship is brutal and explicit: years of hundred-hour weeks buying a financial education no classroom sells, and the exits — private equity, corporate strategy, staying to managing director — are the reason people endure it.
Tasks at the job
- Build financial models and valuations to support client transactions.
- Prepare pitch books and presentation materials for prospective clients.
- Execute mergers, acquisitions, and capital-raising transactions from start to close.
- Coordinate with legal, accounting, and regulatory teams throughout a deal.
- Present analysis and recommendations directly to clients and senior bankers.
- Manage multiple deal timelines simultaneously under compressed schedules.
Workplace & working conditions
Work happens indoors in a corporate office setting, almost entirely desk-based, with occasional travel for client meetings and long hours that regularly extend late into the night.
The pace is relentless and deadline-driven, with real financial consequences riding on accuracy in every model and document produced. The work is highly structured around deal process, but also demands quick independent problem-solving under client-facing pressure.
Education necessary or common
Bachelor's degree, typically in finance, economics, or a related quantitative field; an MBA is common for mid-career advancement
Common college majors
Licenses & certifications
- Series 79 and SIE (sponsored by employer after hiring)
- CFA charter — valued especially for research and buy-side moves
- Financial modeling certificates (optional, signal preparation)
Career path
Related fields
Courses to take
- AP Calculus BC — the quantitative bar is high and rising
- AP Statistics — financial analysis is applied statistics
- AP Economics (Macro and Micro) — the market's operating manual
- Accounting if offered — the language of the deals
- AP English Language — pitch books and emails to clients demand polish
- AP Computer Science — modeling increasingly rewards technical skill
Clubs, activities & competitions
- Investment club — run real or paper portfolios with written theses
- DECA or FBLA — finance events and competition polish
- Stock Market Game or Wharton Global Investment Competition
- Math team — quantitative speed and accuracy
- Student government or entrepreneurship — evidence of drive matters in recruiting
First steps you can take now
- Learn Excel seriously this year — keyboard shortcuts, formulas, and clean layout; it's the trade's instrument
- Follow one announced merger in the news from rumor to close and track how the price moves
- Read a beginner's guide to how companies get valued (discounted cash flow first)
- Talk to a college student who's been through banking recruiting — the process starts freshman year of college, so knowing early helps
