I joined one of the top local IB as one of their management trainee & I got the opportunity to rotate around different departments (Asset management, sell side research, ECM & etc). I was the only local grad in the program & the rest were all from foreign uni. My pay was decent & a bit higher than most of my Petronas peers.

However, I fucking hated my job due to the working hours & lack of work life balance. I told this to my mentor  ( head of equities at that time) he said that it will get better as I progress. Honestly, I saw the lack of work life balance even among my senior colleagues with 20+ experience lol. I investigated how much are my senior colleagues getting paid  to find out if this job is even worth it. Most depressing of all is that, I found out a colleague of mine with 5+ years of experience was only getting paid RM6k at that time & another colleague of mine with 8+ experience  was only getting paid RM10k !!

This was the exact moment when I knew, this crusade of mine in search of success in IB  was nothing but a big fucking lie & waste of time!!  I stayed there just for 1.5 year & GTFO. The pay is totally not worth effort & mental distress I had to face ! Only foreign IB (Nomura, JP, & Barclays) can pay good money for their analyst, all the local IB is shit in comparison.

I enrolled for master's program & graduate at the top of my class & I got offered by a reputable Global MNC. Now I getting paid RM10k & planning to move to SG in 2 years to double my income. Meanwhile my friend who just graduated from the management trainee program got offered a place as an analyst in sell side research & getting paid RM6K.

As far as working hours goes, probably he is working 1.5-2x more than me at his current role lol. If anything, IB glory is all gone & the 90's bonus are just not there anymore .... So, is IB even worth it ? You tell me

I'm so glad that I left the industry !! At my current company,  I'm enjoying the work, my friendly colleagues & peaceful atmosphere much much more than my short stint in IB.

it depends on which team you join i feel.

you join those team only doing bonus issue those ez deal, of course cheap la, and the bonus also. you try complete 1b market cap ipo and see or those big deals   

the money actually comes in when you completed a huge transaction.