25+ Pros and Cons of Being an Investment Banker (Explained)

Investment Bankers is a person who provides a range of financial services to companies, institutions, and governments. Their work includes mergers, acquisitions, bonds and shares, lending, privatizations, and Initial public offerings (IPO).

The service also includes providing advice on management buyouts, raising capital, providing strategic advice to clients, as well as identifying and or securing new deals.

Advantages of being an Investment Banker	Disadvantages of being an Investment Banker
Good salary ranges	Working quite long hours
Training sessions are extremely effective	Even has to work on weekends
Wide range of opportunities	Poor work-life balance
Good perks	Suffer from mental issues like burnout
Flamboyant lifestyle	May get fired during economic crisis
Work with the best people	No enough time to spend with families
Work indoors	Enormous pressure
Benefits in private life	Hard to join
An exciting career option	Jobs will be replaced by machines

Advantages of being an Investment Banker

Good salary ranges

The salary earned by investment bankers is seen to be quite high and the compensation amount is also seen to the range to a greater amount at the same time.

If one is working for a well-reputed banking organization, the salary is generally exceeding one’s expectations.

Training sessions are extremely effective

The training sessions for grooming proficient investment bankers are quite extensive and informative.

It eventually enables them to learn all the skills to become successful in the field of investment banking. These training sessions also focus on refining one’s skills and can definitely help one to become better at their job roles.

Wide range of opportunities

An investment banking career allows an individual the opportunity to create connections and communicate with a wide range of wealthy individuals from all over the world.

These networks of connections can definitely serve an important purpose of allowing such investment bankers to reach out in a way like before.

Good perks

An investment banker gets good perks and benefits. It includes providing opportunities of staying at premium hotels along with eating at top-notch restaurants with the provision of business class flights.

They are also provided a wide number of opportunities as far as medical treatments are concerned.

Flamboyant lifestyle

An investment banker lives a flamboyant lifestyle. They can brag in front of their friends about their jobs and the nice things that come along with them. Many people crave their profession. They are quite popular among young people.

Work with the best people

This is pretty competitive and only the best people of a generation are able to get into this field. As per available online data, 95% of people who aspire to a career in investment banking will fail and will have to work in other industries instead.

It means that only the best people will be left and if one has the opportunity to work for one of the major investment banks.

Work indoors

An investment banker works indoors, one also does not have to worry about working outdoors in the cold or during extreme heat.

They work in their office or from home where they can control temperatures and their overall working environment will be pretty cozy compared to the conditions of many people who work outdoors and are therefore not protected from extreme climatic conditions at all.

Benefits in private life

While working as an investment banker one will be able to make quite a lot of money through their professional life as an investment banker.

But they will also be able to build a decent financial understanding and this knowledge can greatly help one when it comes to financial decisions in personal life.

Moreover, chances are that one will invest their money wisely and that will be able to build up significant wealth pretty early on in life.

An exciting career option

As one will work with the best people and will also be able to work on many interesting projects, their life as an investment banker will be pretty exciting in general.

One will also have to adapt to new circumstances almost every day and will also be forced out of their comfort zone.

Disadvantages of being an Investment Banker

Working quite long hours

An investment banker has to work quite long hours. The investment banking industry is known for extreme working hours and many investment bankers will work 70 hours per week or even more.

The normal day starts pretty soon in the morning and ends late in the evening.

Even has to work on weekends

Most investment bankers have to work on Saturdays or Sundays pretty often. One may have important meetings on Monday and there is still plenty of work to do on Friday,

Chances are that one will have no other choice but to work on weekends to get their work done.

Poor work-life balance

Most people working in the investment banking industry will often have a pretty poor work-life balance. Due to the long working hours and the lack of leisure, one will just not have enough time to follow their hobbies.

Suffer from mental issues like burnout

An investment banker is at great risk to suffer from burnout or other mental problems sooner or later.

A human has a certain mental limit and if the workload is too high, we will simply no longer be able to process all this information and our brain will no longer work properly. Working excessive hours for an extended period of time can really make one sick.

May get fired during economic crisis

The job of an investment banker is not safe. In recent financial crisis times, many investment bankers just lost their jobs and became unemployed from one day to the other.

Not enough time to spend with families

The investment banking industry is problematic to work as one does not have time for family. Children will want to play with one on a regular basis, yet one will often just not be there since they will have to do important things at work.

Enormous pressure

An investment banker has enormous pressure. One will have to do plenty of work in a rather short period of time and if they are not able to get their work done, one may simply get fired and will have no future in this industry anymore.

Hard to join

Big investment banks only accept the best of the best. This is well known that those investment banks are pretty selective regarding whom they want to employ and one has to be excellent on many different levels.

Hence, it also implies that our chances to get one of those jobs will be pretty low and one should just have a backup plan in case they will be rejected.

Jobs will be replaced by machines

Also, future job prospects will be rather poor as an investment banker. Most jobs in this industry will just be replaced by machines sooner or later and many investment bankers will lose their jobs due to this technological revolution.