For first-year junior bankers, summer is anything but endless. Instead, these young employees, most fresh out of college, are now trading sunglasses for suits as they begin training programs in New York geared to prepare them for work on Wall Street.
JPMorgan Chase’s incoming class of full-time bankers started its program at the end of June. After a two-day orientation program, employees at Morgan Stanley also recently began training. And while the majority of young bankers at Goldman Sachs, including those in the investment banking division, start their programs next week, training in a few smaller divisions began on Monday.
The programs vary in length depending on division. Banks use them to introduce junior bankers, known as analysts, to the basics of finance. And at a time when Wall Street banks are trying harder than ever to attract and retain young talent, the programs also provide an opportunity to establish a firmwide sense of identity.
For many new analysts, training involves a mix of technical education — like learning how to use Excel to create financial models or calculate a payment on a bond — and networking activities. Senior leaders often take time to speak to incoming bankers, regaling them with advice on how to succeed at the firm and in the industry. There are also days devoted to community service aimed at team-building. New employees at Morgan Stanley, for example, have already participated in an event at a food bank in New Jersey.
Even so, new analysts often see the training programs as a bit of a break before the real work begins.
“Training is like a vacation,” said one former JPMorgan investment banking analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his relationship with the bank. “You’re only working about eight or nine hours a day, so it really is your last chance to drink and party and meet people.”
On one morning of the program, he said, he overslept, skipping an important test on mergers and acquisitions. The consequences, he added, were minimal. “We knew this was as good as it was going to get,” he said. “There was no surprise that after training, things got rough.”
JPMorgan declined to comment.
Working through financial equations and navigating firmwide introductions are not the only challenges young bankers face. Many have already spent days, if not weeks, searching for apartments and roommates in New York. Some sublet rooms for the summer months, sleeping on air mattresses and bouncing around from place to place until their training programs end or their friends arrive to start their own jobs in the fall.
To help with the expense of moving to New York, young bankers often receive generous relocation bonuses. Goldman, for example, gives a $10,000 relocation payment to incoming full-time analysts. But some new employees at big banks have grumbled that they don’t receive these payments until after their first paycheck, which often comes two weeks after they begin working.
While it might be hard to sympathize with junior bankers, who can make upward of $150,000 in their first year, some new analysts said the delay made it difficult to move to New York and pay their first rent checks without asking their parents for help or putting a big dent in their savings account.
Still, most new analysts have not yet lost the bounce in their step that comes with starting a new high-paying job. And, at least during their training programs, they might be lucky enough to get their weekends off.