non-Investment Banking Finance Job with HIGH PAY & GREAT WORK LIFE BALANCE? 

completely agree, companies are not stupid, obviously they won't pay you 6 figures a year just for you to work minimal hours a week, and that pretty much applies to every field, which is why doctors and bankers get pay so much because they are literally always working

Answer is Corporate Banking - surprised how less people know about this front office role. Work is between 35-60hr per week. The pay is not as much as IB, but still high (same base at some places). The work involves dealing with clients anywhere from mid-market to the largest corporates and deals with day to day financing. This is not only debt financing, but also includes trade financing, streamlining the company's liquidity and also FX forwards, swaps etc. Deals can vary from being fairly vanilla to some highly structured deals. But overall the aim is to manage client relationships across the bank and so the role includes also cross selling IB, PB, Markets etc. solutions too.

Learn this please…..you are paid not for what you do now but for what you’ve done that enables to do now better. I spent 5 years condensing 12 hours of work into 2 and I get paid on that. Contribute to your teams, make your bosses lives easier and be your best. Stay great everyone!

There are no perfect jobs available, and I appreciate your honest description of this. If your job is something you are enthusiastic about, it will suit you; otherwise, you will perform a standard 9-5 job like everyone else. If you understand what I mean, I believe that the business sector gives many of its majors a financial advantage because you learn a lot about the idea of money and how to increase wealth.

Hits me with the answer the first second of the video damn. The bluntness is absolutely hilarious

Working on the investment team at a wealth management company, I can say that the work life balance is great, and the work is still fairly interesting. We talk to PMs of private equity, hedge funds and mutual funds that want our money all the time and have to decide which strategies we think are best. Starting pay in mid 60s to 70s, but once you pass level 2 of the CFA you can get paid a lot more. From what I gather after 5 or so years you can be in the mid 100ks.

Love that “Become a software engineer”

The market trend can turn around very quickly. In fact, the indexes often switch from a bear market to a bull market when the news is at its worst and the mood of investors is at its lowest point. I read an article of people that grossed profits up to $150k during this crash, what are the best stocks to buy now or put on a watchlist?

Nobody can become financially successful over night. They put in background work but we tend to see the finished part. Fear is a dangerous component, hindering us from taking bold steps we need in other to reach our goals.

Really helpful video man. I work at a call center at a big BD and am looking at getting out. I am looking for a role where I can use excel skills and work on projects, without being micromanaged. Im looking into middle office roles currently. Searching for guidance and this video really helped. Thanks!

In Corporate finance you make money based on what you bring! You can get 6 figure if you are bringing in that value to company without having to work 1000 hrs. It’s not hard to go from 70k to over six figures if you bring a unique skill set that others don’t have. Like in banking they get paid a lot because they bring a unique skill. I do agree Investment banking is more fun.

just saw the banner in the back, washington and lee is a target school for finance, specially IB. i have a good friend who graduated from W&L and he went straight into IB and is doing well and getting paid well too. so you should all listen to this dude, what he is saying is very true and he probably has some good personal experience in what he is speaking to.

Commercial/Corporate Banking is an answer. Not super competitive, less interesting than IB and less pay but still can be quite above average for the finance industry. Basically selling and approving loans and other bank products for large companies

Great video Bryan, Keep it up!

So far the best video I've watched as a person new to business industry. I'll take your advise stated in your one sentence summary of the day lol

Personally, sweet spot from my experience has been commercial banker. You are dealing with clients below middle market, but higher than small business. Total comp 170-200k while working under 40 hours.

At entry level, private banking and investment management are/were a partial answer - pay isn't quite as high as IB but hours can be significantly shorter (this is in London)...

I admire the financial independence of people, But you can live better if you work a little more. After watching this I think there are people out there, on the extreme, who plan to die early just to be able to retire early. To each their own but to me, retirement isn't just about not having to work, it's about having the freedom to do whatever you might reasonably want, such as travel, buying things, enjoying life, etc. I don't think I could retire with less than $3m in income-generating investments, maybe $2m at the very minimum. I plan to work until I'm at least 45

omg i guessed the opening! i knew you were gonna say that no such thing exists, i was right! HAHAHAHA

Pretty happy with LMM PE tbh. I managed to negotiate a pretty sweet deal. I'm going to move into megafund in a year for half a decade or so and then probably move back to MM/LMM

Hi Bryan, soon I'll be graduating from college with a finance degree and am struggling with knowing exactly which entry level job to start off in. It was interesting to hear someone from experience say what most people do to be able to progress in their career. Thank you!

The answer is a quant researcher or trader in hedge funds. It's difficult to break into but absolutely worth it !

I think the private sector; venture capital, brokerage firms, private equity and hedge funds etc......is a lot more money than being an investment banking analyst with much less hours, however a lot of stress and you don’t necessarily need to have a finance background.

could u make a video about what you’d take in to the office when you were in IB would be interesting to see

Yeah!!. Many hedge-fund, or pension funds. Many of them have pretty much "ok" working times. Especially funds that use the "classic value-investing" philosophies, where they hand-pick stocks, and actually trade

Going by your standards, sales and trading (specifically trading) does actually pay the same or better with an obviously better work life balance. If you put in the work in trading you’ll be rewarded hefty bonuses.

Bank Examiner fits this well. It's regular hours and balanced but just doesn't pay crazy. Absolute minimum starts at $60,000 a year though, which is still solid.

REPE, LMM PE, FoF/family offices/endowments and foundations, early stage VC

I work in FP&A and it has good pay ~$175K/yr and if you’re good at managing the data work life balance can be awesome. I work from home full-time and can go weeks on end where I can log off at 4pm and hit the gym, cook a healthy dinner, etc. And I still have 20+ years in my career to get that salary up. I’d recommend a MBA or masters to climb faster in FP&A

Love your straightforward honesty. You got a new follower!

Foud through experience that REPE and IM has good pay with better work life balance. Not as high as banking, but its nothing to scoff at.

hey bryan, love the content. can you share any insight on what it would be like breaking into private equity out of college, perhaps without an IB background??

If you were offered a job at a hedge fund and could “skip” the big bank analyst role, would you do it? Worried a smaller fund might not carry the same weight for exit opportunities.

| CAME HERE TO LEARN HOW TO INVEST AFTER LISTENING TO A GUY ON RADIO TALK ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF INVESTING AND HOW HE MADE $460,000 IN 4 MONTHS FROM $160k, SOMEHOW THIS VIDEO HAS HELPED SHED LIGHT ON SOME THINGS, BUT I'M STILL CONFUSED, I'M A NEWBIE AND I'M OPEN TO IDEAS.

Nice video!

at the senior levels of certain investment management roles (rather than hardcore IB), you can actually earn q a lot while having decent WLB. but ofc at entry level theres no finance job that pays super well while having good wlb

You forgot quantitative analysis. You make way more than in IB and the hours are much better. It's also much harder.

Financial consultants, wealth management, honestly anything within financial services, financial analyst, sales, trading, consulting, compliance and anything ops.

Outside Sales as a Loan Officer is as close as you can get to having balance but you have to be financially stable before making the jump. You might take off and make money out of the gate or you might not make any money for 6-8 months.

FP&A pays extremely well after you get a couple years experience. Also great work life balance. Highly recommend for anyone that isn’t going into IB

best finance career video I've ever seen.

Thank you for being so brutally honest about it in the very start of your video

What do you currently do for work? Just RU-vid? Still in banking?

Hey would be great if you answer my questions: How many Hours does an Investment Analyst work on avarage? I would like to go in this direction, and Hope it is not that workloading like IB and is it realistic to get such a Job without IB background?

Agreed - though management consulting and YC pay about the same as IB.

The fact that banking and similar jobs make so much is BECAUSE of the long work hours. Think about it, more hours, more money being earned. Some other finance jobs get paid similar money, but they aren't working 70+ hours

I work for myself. 3 stocks. Never trade in and out. Track their quarterly results. Focus on the long ball and let compound growth work for me. I get decent dividend payout plus I borrow 5% against AUM in collateralized loan. Usually at the gym during market hours. Don’s ever worry about market volatility. Just free rolling and chilling the f out. Yes, the greatest job in finance does exist. Just gotta be patient and pay attention to all the small details.

I don’t know sometimes when you have a great job but they’re not promoting you and you can barely make enough to live then the best thing to do is look for another job. I love working at DOE remotely but it is barely paying the bills and I am thinking about taking a new route and going into finances at a bank. It sounds absolutely terrifying from the reviews but I rather suffer for $22 an hour or more with 40 hours a week vs a extremely low paying job but less work 😭

Thank you so much

Im a treasurer. Corporate treasury is a good finance job right? How do you compare that to IB or PE and VC? As a treasurer, my hours are ok and salary is fine, i dont really care much for salary since i have personal private investments i manage and other sources of income other than my salary so i never seen salary as a priority or a factor, i perfer experience and knowledge and growth over salary. I am an exbanker and worked treasury dealer in a bank then left banking to corporate treasury at a company, i dont work in banking anymore but i do still work with bankers and corporate finance in banks and have ran into collegues i worked with in banking lol

Bryan could you talk about fed gov jobs? The pay is quite less but the benefits seem to be great but idk which trade off is better? Perhaps state as well? Still the hiring process intakes forget. I applied 3 months ago and finally heard gain

Great video

Bro saw you in ktown last weekend LOL thanks for saying hey 👋🏻

It actually exists, but it is not so much in the scope of the public. The reinsurance industry and also industrial insurers pay pretty well, especially in the field of underwriting and sales. Work Life Balance is much better than in investment banking.

How about middle market banking? i love it so much it’s the perfect in between

I disagree with your first notion that "you get paid if you do a lot of work or do very niche work". The truth is that your pay is typically tied to the monetary value you add to the company. Banking isn't hard, the reason why they get paid so much is because of the fees they make. Same with BigLaw

What up Brian! Surprised to find a WnL guy here!

Make a video about financial advisor and their salary 🙌🙌🙌

Proprietary trading. We used to work 7:30-3:30 and made anywhere from 200k to 2M depending on market conditions. But it’s a tough job and you have to be able to handle stretches of massive losses.

My ROT (return on time) is avging 25-50 bps daily ROE on my AUM.. $25-50k on $10M, $125-250k on $50M, quarter-half a mil on $100M

Private Equity (you don't always need IB experience, but it helps) and Gambling! (but you have to be good at it)

Is deal advisory a hot exit opportunity? Maybe deal advisory at a big 4

Does the role of Treasury Analyst have something like busy season? Is there good work life balance in Treasury?

Hi Brian, Recently watched some of your videos which are super helpful. My question are: 1.Which BBA should I take Computer engineering or Finance so that I can easily get hired without language barriers on IB? 2.Will it be helpful if I take BBA in computer engineering and Master in Finance in any way? 3.I want to be in IB but related to real estate , any advice on that? 4.Which divisions get you a lot of experiences related to finance? Which are the hardest and easiest divisions to work on? Thanks Brit

I guess Underwriting is also a good option in terms of monetary terms as well as Work life balance.

Lmao tech is of course. Changing tower light's, there's a bunch. Within finance, s&t is like 55-60 hours and pays enough to fund the same lifestyle. Same with PE

The correct answer is working for a Family Office/Foundation/Endowment.

아닠ㅋㅋㅋ인트로부터...ㅋㅋㅋㅋ끝이라고 생각한 취업이 또 다른 단계을 위한 절차중 하나라니.. 허어...끝이없네요.. 영상 잘봤습니다~

It's actually exist but it is functional small medium size companies with human oriented culture, good leadership and management

Would it be difficult to transfer from a FP&A role in a bank to other industries? As the financials for a bank are very from other companies.

Finance jobs where you make good money and have way better balance include corporate banking and valuation advisory

Jesus working 60+ hours a week is CRAZY. I’m in finance and I work 40 hours a week and sure I don’t make an INCREDIBLE salary but I make good money especially at my age (I’m 27). I graduated with a degree in finance and I would MUCH rather make less money and work 40 hours a week and have time to live my life. Work isn’t everything.

Just graduated from university(major in economics,in Taiwan).Recently, I found myself prefer doing those finance and investment stuff. However, what I learn in college isn't enough to handle. Do you have any suggestion for me to catch up in these finance of Investment bank field. Or maybe some hint to get a presentable job experience even an intern job. Btw great video.

Well I guess high pay is relative but roles in family offices, endowments, investment consulting, and asset management would all fall under “finance” to me and generally have good work/life balance

I’d love to know what you think “good money” is?

I work as a credit risk analyst for a big investment bank from the U.S here in Argentina and the pay is huge with great work life balance EDIT: the pay is huge in terms of the average salary in pesos and with increases above argentinian inflation. If you convert those pesos to dollars it does not compare to salaries in the US but here you live like a king

hey brian, i just got an offer at a major firm (largest in its sector, growing super fast, +40 M&A deals currently in the pipeline) corporate development M&A and currently interviewing for a position at Corporate Banking Treasury (very backoffice job) in a bulge bracket here in my country. however, my end goal is PE. which one do you think is a better path to it? it’s my first internship and i still got 3 years of college to go. i come from a target school.

Hi Bryan If CORPORATE FINANCE is USELESS then how does M&A and PE sector, work? My BASIC ASSUMPTION was the people is PE need to have investment banking experience and they do it via M&A experience and M&A’s whole job is corporate finance. My question is how can you make a career in investment industry (fundamentally), be it, PE or getting in Hedge Funds

This man sounds like he hasn’t missed a blunt rotation since 7th grade. I love it.

Tech Finance isn't mentioned enough (corporate finance on big tech companies with large datasets). It's slightly more technical tho, you're predominantly a Business Analyst that knows Finance and Accounting, so you'll need heavy programming skills (think SQL and Python). Obviously you dont make as much as IB, but pretty nice, you can break 6 figures within a year if you're competent.

Im at a Treasury Departement of a listed company and i can tell from experience that it is not a boring job with a good salary

I barely started the video but I’ll say Mergers and Acquisitions 😎

After doing research, I decided to go into Tech rather than work in Finance.

Some of my friends and I are on quant side, 50-70 hrs per week. That's manageable for me. I'm still able to hit the gym and spend quality time with my folks. Although I do manage my time very well in order to have the life I want. Rarely put in more than 70 hrs.

I need this, currently in corporate finance. Curious to try the investment finance world but 80 hours 😮‍💨

When you talk of banking background. Does that only mean IB or does it also include ER/S&T

Thank fuck for that intro i was about to ask why i even clicked on this video as a double business major LOL

I work in the WM branch of a top investment bank. The Brokers are making hundreds of thousands a year and hardly lift a finger. No CFA, MBA or even CFP. Just series 7 and 66.

Do large banks and investment banks these days consider East Asians and south Asians as diversity ? I feel like there’s a LOT of them while hardly any Latino or African Americans on Wall Street. Just curious

I'm in complete awe at how I went from living an average life to making over 63k per month. It's amazing. The financial markets are full with opportunities, but I've learned a lot over the past few years to doubt that. The key is knowing where to focus. Well appreciated, MARCIA ANN BICE .

financial advisor!

Corporate Banking ✅ - Less pay than investment banking, but MUCH better work life balance. VP salary in Large Corporate Banking in London / NY is about $200,000 incl. base + bonus.

Hey Bryan , Please answer my questions 😊 Is studying investment banking easy or difficult? Does reaching the executive director only need nine years? Do I just work for nine years and get to the executive director, or are there other obstacles?

Hey Brian! youre videos are so helpful. I work in audit at a Big 4 with clients in the PE and Hedge Fund space as a Senior Auditor. Is recruiting for a PE/HF out of audit into a finance/ops/accounting associate role something you would consider a success? im looking to get out of audit and gain some other skills (potentially move into a strategy role if I dont like the PE/HF space) and with the current economy this is my strongest option. Any advice would be so helpful!

i bet software engineering is a great field. but i’m a finance major unfortunately, what big points do you say why you’d want to be a software engineer

"Great information"

What about investment management / portfolio management?

Credit pays quite well and work life balance is good

Guys I would like to do an internship in finance. I'm based in London. Anyone can help me?

Private banking/wealth management and commercial banking easy money and great money