bleach

I'm biased but I think AM is the best place to be in finance:

- highest potential pay (in fact, it's the highest or second highest paid industry in the world)
- an unlimited number of possible investments to look at, especially if you operate on a global basis
- no laborious negotiations -- if you see something to buy, you buy it
- more autonomy in creating your own schedule than deal type work
- no as relationship-centric (you do real work, not schmoozing)
- no real admin component like pitch books

The level of harriedness depends on the firm. Where I work, we cover A LOT of ground very quickly looking for good buys, and it's extremely fast moving, while remaining labor intensive. The depth vs. time question is always central in making investment decisions for us, and it's one of the principle reasons we hold a widely diversified portfolio, because we might be wrong on any particular name (even if we were to do extensive DD, we still might be wrong).

All that said, BBD is right -- it's very demanding work, that is difficult to get into, and even more difficult to excel at.