An analyst's lot is a hard-working one

Why not? Jobs were plentiful and banks were vying with e-commerce companies for talented college leavers. Young analysts were in a strong position to express their grievances.

To some extent, banks listened. As well as increasing pay, they increased perks; Salomon Smith Barney in New York opened its gym at weekends, for example.

Three years later, the situation is very different. Young bankers are lucky to have a job at all.

As the pendulum swings back in favour of employer power, young bankers are earning less and there are indications that analysts, who always put in long hours, are working harder than ever. Ninety-hour weeks and weekend working are common.

The head of graduate recruitment at a bulge bracket bank says: 'In the dot com boom you could come to work with a parrot and a pair of shorts. Now that's all over. Talk of work/life balance has fizzled out.'

Overwork is perpetuated by a kind of initiation culture. Vice presidents and managing directors often take it for granted that new recruits will be at their beck and call at all times, if only because that was how it was at the start of their own careers.

As a result, graduate trainees' personal commitments are often sidelined. In 2000, the chief complainant at Salomon Smith Barney in the US wrote an email to senior executives complaining that the bank had little consideration for analysts' personal lives.

One final year student who interned in a US bank last summer told eFinancialCareers: 'The vice-president I worked for routinely asked for twice as much information as was needed. It was a question of working late into the night merely so that someone above me could dismiss half my efforts as irrelevant.'

Another said: 'I was prepared for long hours, but they were much longer than even I'd anticipated. There were times when I didn't get away until 3am. The average day lasted from 9 in the morning to 11 or 12 at night.'

'Monkey Business', a book about investment banking written by two former trainees in New York and published in 2000, is a warning to would-be bankers who hope to sustain a healthy number of outside interests.

'Any young investment banker, regardless of the bank he works at, can tell the same stories about working for three days straight with no sleep, getting screamed at for messing up the page numbers in a pitch book, or ageing before one's time like a block of cheese out of the refrigerator,' warn the authors, who worked for Donaldson Lufkin Jenrette.

Some senior City of London figures admit to the problem. David Charters, a former managing director in equity capital markets at Deutsche Bank and now a partner at the corporate finance boutique the Barchester Group, said: 'The City takes the brightest, smartest people from the best universities and does terrible things to them.'

Senior level redundancies may well have made matters worse. 'The ratio of analysts to vice presidents and senior staff has got to the stage where analysts will be worked particularly hard,' said one graduate trainee.

In spite of this there is no shortage of students wanting to join investment banks. For many, the sacrifice of time and personal life is worthwhile.

A summer intern said: 'Despite the hours I really enjoyed what I was doing. It was intriguing and exciting and after three years the options that will be open to me are amazing.'

Nor do banks make any attempt to disguise the long hours worked by analysts. US banks are widely considered to work trainees the hardest, but even BNP Paribas' website contains a health warning cautioning graduates that, 'You'll work hard here. Very hard. Often you'll work long hours, and even occasionally weekends.'

The head of graduate recruitment at one US bank says graduates are better off knowing about the working conditions before they arrive.

'Believe everything you read about the lifestyle. It's true. Come into it with your eyes open. If you're unsure about lifestyle before you start, you won't last. You have to want to do this with a passion. Some people simply thrive on the pressure.'

Meanwhile Salomon Smith Barney has withdrawn some of the perks it offered when analysts complained. Sunday access to the gym has been rescinded.

A company spokesman said it wasn't getting enough use. Perhaps analysts didn't have the time.