Asking for advice on the best career choices for my future?

[bereal7]

Hello,

Basically, I've spoken to my parents and extended family and thought I'd come here and ask other 'experienced' people. I've been stalking MN for a while and realise there are people doing all sorts of careers and have a variety of family set - ups , so I was hoping for varied advice.

The field I'm hoping to go into is finance/banking. This is because I enjoy dealing with numbers, money and being around intelligent people would constantly push me to better myself. HOWEVER, the banking hours are crazy. Whilst I'm young, I think I could do this but I fear the impact it could have on future family life (if I even get the time to start one!). My extended family think I should give this a go because the money is fantastic (graduate salary is about £45k at age 21/22 !). This would be great obviously but will I regret doing this later on?
If not banking, I'm considering consulting. From research, this sounds like a good career and something I would also find interesting (not as much as banking I fear). The pay is good (nowhere near banking at the start) but the hours are allegedly much better. My problem is the travel involved. Again, I could do this whilst young but what will the impact be when I'm older?

Such a long post! I'm basically asking for advice at this stage of my life. If you are in these sectors, do you regret it? Is the salary worth it? If you are not, do you wish you were ? Please help - I feel like going back to primary school and stressing over who my best friend for the week is !

If you like numbers and have a maths a-level as a minimum have you looked into actuarial work?

Whilst you are young, Id push for the best career open to you. Make money, male a reputation for yourself and push yourself as far as you are able.

As and when the time comes for you to step back/down, Consultancy could be an ideal next step.

Take advantage of the fact you are responsible now to no-one but yourself.

I would say the same. I would do it. Make as much money as possible and then step down when you have to. You don't know when you'll settle down. Might be 10 years from now and if you choose this career you'd be able to buy a house sooner than most.

I think that both banking and consultancy rely on people going in them in their 20s, doing the crazy hours, and then leaving in their 30s. The corporate structure encourages this - it is not possible for all the graduate intake to stay on for 10 years. I don't really think it's worth considering at this stage whether you'd enjoy the job at age 30 or 40 (you don't say but I'm assuming you're a student) - I'd do something you think you'd like for your 20s, and then you can always retrain or do something different later. Going to a good consultancy firm or bank will give you lots of transferrable skills and look good on a CV if you decide to change career later.

However, it is depressing to see women 'stepping down' in their 30s while men pile on ahead. So I'm not sure if you're wanting to avoid this? Unfortunately, I can't really think of a career where this doesn't happen. Maybe the civil service, which would give you the intelligent colleagues and a better work life balance, but not the crazy hours (nor the high pay, obviously). But I think that if you want to continue your career at a high level in any sector after motherhood the best thing is to earn enough to afford a nanny.

I work in banking and finance, the first thing to highlight is that banking and finance means lots of different things. There is investment banking, which is the high salary and long hours you are talking about, but again there is can mean different things. Hours in corporate finance and investment research can be long, but will be shorter on a dealing desk where you might be limited be the hours of the market. Then there's retail banking, still lots of numbers and interesting, but more sensible hours and less money. Asset management can be a half way house, good money and interesting.

The thing to do is research them, meet firms at Uni careers days and the like, and then remember what ever you decide it's not forever. I work in retail banking, but I've worked in investment research, a central bank and an insurance company. In future, I might consider consultancy, or going bank into the City, but so long as you are smart and gather transferable skills you will be fine

Yes, I was hoping to continue climbing the career ladder (the dad can stay home if he wants haha) which is why I'm thinking so ahead.

Mumma I glanced over it but nothing really 'came out' to me.

Hmm I might go ahead and try banking then. Is there anyone with experience in this sector? Or any similar and want to share ?

tapstep Yes, I didn't want to limit the range of advice I'd get from people - im open to these sectors. Investment banking would be my first choice (mainly leading because of the money tbh).

At this stage in your life, you should shoot as high as you can and then downscale later, IF you want to. Concentrate on having the widest options later, rather than closing them down now.

PS, completely unrelated and totally unfeminist but if you are with the graduate intake pool in an investment bank, take this opportunity to seriously scope out a nice IBanker (oxymoron?) for your dh.

I'd actually agree with Mumma re actuarial - you won't get £45k as a starting salary but grads start at about £30k, fairly rapid salary growth and a much healthier work life balance than banking or consulting. Unless you go in to actuarial consulting, in which case it's often consulting work life balance.

Consulting is tough for many, it's a great way to get experience but very few actually stay with it long term. Women especially do tend to drop out once work life balance becomes an issues as in many cases it just is not family friendly at all.

Banking, as mentioned above, is very wide. Investment banking is super competitive but if you're good you can do very well. Other elements don't have the ooh I'm 25 and earning £150k element, but can make for a much more sustainable long term career.

I wouldn't recommend consulting. Actually not as good pay as it used to be, normally very long hours and often away from home. It can be very interesting though and progression is fast for those that excel. For consulting you only want to be looking at the top tirer firms.

Another thought on consulting - you need to be (in my experience) comfortable with being a bit of a salesperson and quite in to the whole "networking" thing. As you advance you start being expected to generate opportunities and this can actually happen relatively early on in some companies.

I would say that if there is a career out there that you think you would be good at and enjoy then go for it and give it a try. If it pays well, even more incentive. If you don't then you might well regret it later. You can't really second guess what you will want later down the line.

I would highly recommend the consultancy route - although from what I've heard they work you just as hard as banks do. The reason is that it gives you a lot of transferable skills that will allow you to move into a variety of roles and industries. I used to work in media and a lot of the higher ups at my company were former consultants. In fact, some jobs required a consultancy type background.

I agree though that you really need to get in to one of the top firms.

Corporate Finance as a graduate is really tough, you have no life, but you will make shed loads of money, it's up to you as whether that's what you want. TBH I never envied my friends who went down that path, i had a lot more fun in my 20s and still earned good money. And looking back at my 20s now, I've managed to create a good, very well paid career, I've never looked back and wished I'd spent my 20s working as hard as my investment banking friends did. One thing I did notice at the time, even if you were on large starting salary and 100% of salary bonus, it still never felt enough, as someone else in the next department/ bank was always earning a bit more.

Personally I think industries such as asset management are interesting, a bit less pressure and still well paid, it can be nicer being on the buy-side than the sell-side. Also women often do well their because performance can be very subjectively measured in terms of fund performance, rather than the objective nature of investment banking

I did work in a top 5 consulting firm and got out when I was late 20s, it has been excellent experience for everything I've done in the 10 years since. Yes it is long hours and lots of travel and there were very few women with kids at a senior level but there are plenty of routes out once you get there.