You must not be working in the bank to comment this.

Its not the best time to enter Investment Bank now, unless if you are fresh grad, as IB starting pay for fresh grad is slightly better than those of local banks. FYI, majority of the Big IB are handing out minimial Increment and Bonus to back and Middle office operations. When i say minimial <5% Increment and <1month bonus. Unless if you are the top 1% performer, thats different story. Dont be surprise if you get 0 increment and 0 bonus as an average performer (>70% are average performer).

Its much better to be in a local Bank or other MNC at this juncture. Being in IB now, is like a sweat shop worker. Long hours, crazy ops processes due to deployment to India, Eastern Europe. Every single colleague or friends I know dread to get out of offshore IB, but majority are just stuck, due to minimial transferable skill set or unable to land a job with matching pay.

Think twice before you hop.

Speaking from experience when i hop from a US MNC as financial analyst (who is niaive enough to think IB are where the money are) to IB just before the subprime. Been through 2 Bulge bracket IB for my last 5years. Ever since subprime, I had be slogging my life in IB. No joke. Looks nice outside but no one know the mess in it..