Someone at my current firm said that employees tend to work longer/harder as you get promoted to upper level roles, which I guess kind of bothered me.
So I wanted to get some insights from other people - is this necessarily true for your company? For all ‘high’ finance/CRE jobs?
My impression was always as you become more senior, sure you may work longer hours occasionally but generally you get to chill out and have the juniors take on the brunt of the work and you essentially just review and make leadership calls on things.
Man, maybe I’m just super naïve…..
Hard to say because the work is different. When you're an analysts, you're sitting at the computer all day so your hours are rigid. Now, I spend so much time on tours, traveling, taking calls, etc. that it's hard to quantify and I feel like a lot less of it feels like "work" than it did when I was an analyst. I might spend multiple days a week now in coffee chats, lunch's meetings, driving around town but at the same time I also end up taking random calls and emails late at night.
Adding on to say it also depends how good your analyst support is. I've had years where my analysts have been duds or are just super green. Since I have to take ownership of everything, that means that I'm still doing analyst work since I can't rely on them to turn enough things to me in quality form and quickly enough to meet deadlines. Once those analysts finally had a couple years of good training, my work load lightened up incredibly as I could really pass things off to them and only have to change a few things after. Unfortunately, this tends to be a cycle where once they get competent enough for a year or two they want to be a VP or leave for somewhere that will make them one, so you have to start fresh especially if you work for a smaller firm that can't afford to pay $200k a year for an associate out of a banking program.
Your work just changes. You’re not cranking out models, filling out forms, etc. but what you do actually produce is far more valuable.
You work less
You delegate more
You stress even more
Do you work more? Yes. Do you spend as much time sitting at a computer hating your life? Definitely not.
The work changes - you will spend more time away from your desk in meetings, thinking about strategy, sourcing, dealing with brokers/partners/investors, going on site tours, traveling, at dinners/lunches, etc. but simultaneously more and more people will be looking for your input/guidance on things, so naturally you will also be spending more of your evenings catching up on emails.
Additionally, you have more accountability so you will spend more time outside work hours reviewing, prepping for pitches/meetings, etc.
In my view, you will work more hours, but a lot of those hours don't feel like work in the same way as an analyst role does. It's more fun and engaging and a lot can be done from your phone. You also have more control over your schedule at most companies as you rise through the ranks.
EDIT TO ADD: As someone else alluded to, middle management is where it is the absolute worst. Once you're one notch up from associate, whatever that title is at your company (VP/Director). You are going to start being expected to source, but also the last person accountable for all work product so you're trying to learn a totally new role while also needing to make sure your analysts and associates don't fuck up. If you have a great team, this is manageable, if you don't, its a nightmare.
Pretty much what the guy above said. The further up you move, you mover close to operating the deal on your own while the junior people help provide you the support you need for grunt work and administration. You are going to be working more, it's not going to be significantly different but you are trying to keep the deal alive and moving, so that can mean more time or time that was used efficiently.
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