I suck at my job - now what?

I lateraled about 3 months ago from a very relaxed coverage role to a much larger bank's M&A group which is known to be a sweatshop. For context, I am a first year analyst (lateraled mid-way into my first stint)

It's been a rough transition but might be for the best. At my old role, small mistakes were looked over and fixed by the associates who were much more junior and took a lot more ownership of my work. Nobody batted an eye or cared if there were 2-3 mistakes in a document or if I missed something in an email. I received top reviews at my old firm and the hours were also very manageable which allowed me to have time to actually think about my work and make less mistakes.

However this role is much more different. My associates are much more senior and have way higher expectations of me. If there is one small little detail missed in a large document, I get reamed out for it with the tone "I should not have to catch any mistakes" (this is one associate in particular). Every mistake I make seems like the world is about to end. My confidence has dropped a ton, and I genuinely feel like the worst analyst in the world. I recognize this is crappy leadership, but I have to adapt. Overall, I honestly think I have improved. I think I actually spend time reviewing documents now, I personally feel that I make less mistakes, and I actually feel like I "think" about everything rather than just commenting on stuff. But again, I can go from 10 mistakes to 2 mistakes, and still will get reamed out for it, then my confidence goes back to 0 again. I may have improved a lot, but I feel like it's never good enough especially compared to my peers. Additionally the intensity of the job and hours make it a lot harder. Everyone seems to need everything yesterday, even if the client doesn't think so. There's always a mad rush to get everything done and that makes me feel very pressured to get stuff out but then I end up lacking the quality as I believe I work best at a slower pace - which I recognize isn't really well suited for IB especially at a top sweatshop. That being said, I must adapt.

Any advice on how I can improve more/faster? Or even any success stories for people who started out like crap and worked their way out of the bottom. I absolutely hate the feeling bad at my job. As I mentioned above, I've noticed improvements and one day I went without any harsh criticism and suddenly I loved my job. I want to increase that feeling by actually being a quality analyst and build up my attention to detail. Any advice/motivation would be huge.

 

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