If you’ve ever Googled “what do investment bankers do,” you’ve probably landed on a polished description involving mergers, acquisitions, and capital markets — and then immediately felt like you still didn’t have a real answer. That’s because most explainers are written for recruiting brochures, not for people who genuinely want to understand the job. This post gives you the honest version: what bankers actually do all day, what the work feels like at different levels, and why the role attracts so many competitive candidates every year.
The 30-Second Version: What Investment Banking Actually Is
Investment banks are intermediaries. They sit between companies (and governments) that need capital or strategic advice, and the investors or counterparties who can provide it. When a company wants to go public, sell itself, acquire a competitor, or raise debt, it hires an investment bank to run the process.
Bankers advise on strategy, run the deal process, build the financial models, write the marketing materials, and manage the relationships on both sides. That’s the core function. Everything else — the late nights, the Excel models, the PowerPoint decks — is in service of making those transactions happen.
If you want a deeper look at whether banking is the right path for you, check out our free course which walks through the full landscape of finance careers and how to think about fit.
The Two Main Divisions: Coverage vs. Product
Most bulge bracket and elite boutique banks are organized around two types of groups: coverage groups and product groups. Understanding this distinction is essential to understanding what bankers actually do day to day.
Coverage Groups
Coverage bankers focus on a specific industry — healthcare, technology, energy, financial institutions, consumer, and so on. Their job is to maintain relationships with companies in that sector, understand their strategic needs, and pitch relevant ideas. Coverage bankers are the client-facing face of the bank. They generate the mandates (i.e., win the business), and then call in product specialists to execute.
Product Groups
Product groups are organized around transaction types rather than industries. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A), leveraged finance, equity capital markets (ECM), and debt capital markets (DCM) are the main product groups. These bankers are execution specialists. When a coverage banker wins a mandate, the product group comes in to run the deal.
At the junior level, you’ll often work across both — sitting in a coverage group but regularly collaborating with M&A or ECM on live deals.
What Analysts and Associates Actually Do All Day
Here’s where most guides fail to get specific. Let’s break down the actual day-to-day work at the junior level.
Financial Modeling
This is the work that gets the most attention, and for good reason — it’s a significant chunk of the job. Analysts and associates build financial models to support deal recommendations. This includes three-statement models (income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement), discounted cash flow (DCF) analyses, leveraged buyout (LBO) models, and merger/accretion-dilution models.
The modeling isn’t just mechanical — it requires judgment about which assumptions are reasonable, how to present outputs, and how to stress-test for different scenarios. If you’re preparing for technical interviews, our Technical Cheatsheet covers all the key concepts you need to know cold.
Pitch Books and Marketing Materials
A massive portion of banking time goes into PowerPoint — specifically, pitch books and Confidential Information Memorandums (CIMs). Pitch books are used to pitch new business to potential clients. CIMs are marketing documents created when a company is being sold, designed to attract potential buyers.
These documents combine financial analysis with market context, strategic narrative, and visual design. Junior bankers spend enormous amounts of time formatting slides, updating data, and making sure every number ties back to the model.
Diligence and Process Management
On live deals, bankers coordinate the due diligence process — managing data rooms, responding to buyer questions, coordinating with lawyers and accountants, and keeping the timeline on track. This is less glamorous than the modeling work but critically important to getting deals closed.
Internal Updates and Check-ins
Bankers spend significant time on internal communication — updating senior bankers on deal status, preparing for client calls, and getting feedback on materials. Much of the iteration on pitch books and models happens through this feedback loop, which is why the work hours can be so unpredictable.
What VPs and Directors Do
As bankers get more senior, the mix of work shifts from execution toward relationship management and business development.
Vice Presidents (VPs) sit at the bridge between junior and senior bankers. They manage the day-to-day execution of deals, review the models and decks that analysts and associates produce, and start building their own client relationships. They’re deeply involved in the work but also spending more time on calls and in client meetings.
Directors (also called Senior VPs at some banks) are primarily focused on managing existing client relationships and generating new business. They’re on the phone constantly, traveling to client meetings, and working to position the bank for the next mandate.
What Managing Directors Do
Managing Directors (MDs) are the rainmakers — their job is to win business. A good MD has a roster of CEO and CFO relationships that they’ve cultivated over years or decades. When a company is thinking about a transaction, the MD they trust most is usually the one they call first.
MDs spend most of their time in client meetings, at industry conferences, and on the phone. They do very little direct execution work — that’s what the junior team is for. But they set the strategic direction for pitches, make the final call on deal recommendations, and are ultimately responsible for the bank’s relationship with each client.
This is why investment banking is sometimes described as a long apprenticeship — you spend years developing technical skills, then layer on relationship skills, and eventually the job becomes almost entirely about trust and judgment rather than models and decks.
The Hours: An Honest Assessment
It would be dishonest to write a post about what investment bankers do without addressing the hours. Banking is famously demanding, and the reputation is earned.
At the analyst level, 80-100 hour weeks during live deal periods are common at bulge bracket and elite boutique banks. Even during slower periods, 60-70 hours is typical. The unpredictability is often cited as the hardest part — you might have a quiet Monday that turns into an all-nighter by Tuesday when a deal heats up.
Hours vary significantly by bank and group. Some banks have implemented analyst protection programs (no weekend work before a certain hour, etc.), but enforcement is inconsistent. Deal flow also varies — a slow coverage group might have much better lifestyle than a hot M&A group at the same bank.
The tradeoff is compensation. First-year analysts at top banks now earn $200,000 or more in total compensation. For many candidates, the hours are the price of admission to skills, relationships, and exit opportunities that can define a career.
You can read more about long-term IB career earnings on our IB Career Earnings page.
The Exit Opportunities: Why People Do It
One of the most compelling reasons to pursue investment banking is the exit opportunity landscape. After 2-3 years as an analyst, you can transition into:
- Private equity — the most common path, with on-cycle recruiting now happening extremely early (often before you’ve even started the job)
- Hedge funds — particularly for analysts with strong modeling skills and market interest
- Venture capital — increasingly common, especially for analysts in tech or healthcare groups
- Corporate development — doing M&A in-house at a company
- MBA programs — top programs recruit heavily from banking
The skills you develop in banking — financial modeling, analytical rigor, deal process experience, and communication under pressure — are genuinely transferable and highly valued across finance and beyond.
If you’re researching investment banking because you’re in the early stages of recruiting, our Free Resources page has guides, templates, and cheat sheets to help you get started. And if you want to see what personalized coaching looks like, you can read through our student interviews and testimonials from candidates who landed offers at top banks.
Is Investment Banking Right for You?
Banking is an exceptional career for people who are intellectually curious about business strategy and deal-making, motivated by the challenge of high-stakes work, comfortable with long hours in a team environment, and eager to build a foundation for a long career in finance or business.
It’s a poor fit if you need predictable hours, prefer deep technical specialization over broad generalist work, or are primarily motivated by the prestige rather than the substance. The people who thrive in banking are usually genuinely interested in the deals themselves — not just using banking as a resume line.
Our coaching methodology is built around helping candidates figure out not just how to get the offer, but whether banking is actually the right move — and how to position themselves for the specific groups and banks where they’ll thrive.
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If you’re targeting investment banking and want expert guidance on every stage of the process — from resume to networking to technical prep to offer negotiation — apply to work with Wall Street Mastermind. Our head coach has placed hundreds of students at top banks including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Evercore, Lazard, and more. Check out our track record and see what’s possible.
