Ex-banking private equity associate says the hours are down, intensity is up, work is fake

efinancialcareers.com:

If you're wondering what it's like to leave a banking job and work in private equity in 2024 — presuming this is possible in the current environment — an anonymous Twitter account has some interesting insights. 

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Run by a former restructuring banker who moved into private equity in the past year, it offers a different take on the perennial issue of working hours in PE compared to banking. 

Yes, you will work less in private equity, says the banker. But the work will be qualitatively different. It will also be partly pointless. 

Speaking to us directly, the banker concerned said he now averages around 70 hours a week of work in his job as an associate in large cap private equity in the US. However, he says the work is «different» to banking. «While hours are generally more predictable, the intensity is much higher. There is never really downtime, there is always more to read, more data cuts to do, more changes to make, and more portco [portfolio company] work to do after deal sprints are done.» In banking, he says you work more overall but there are pockets of fallow time. In private equity, it's relentless. 

Bankers work long hours during deal sprints, but the anonymous ex-banker says private equity professionals work even harder. Worse, their work is more demanding. «Different from banking, you need to put in some thought in what you are producing, and while this seems a strong positive at 11am fresh on a Tuesday, it is not at 2am on a Thursday night on the 3rd deal of the month that we all know is going to get killed,» he says. 

Equally, while junior bankers complain bitterly of spending hours working on pointless pitches for deals that will clearly never come to