Analyst here: Gone Through 2 Senior Pms 1 year. What to do now?
Hi all,
First off, I do NOT work in equities.
Last year, my old PM took another job and I was laid off. Shortly after I joined a pod at another firm and 6 months later, my new boss resigns. However this time, I was shifted to another pod. The issue is this new guy isn't a good risk manager and is down money (in a different asset class that I analyze for his subPM) and fired me 3 months later (I guess to save his own bottom line). SubPm is pissed but can't do anything.
Old PM already hired for his team and is completely full.
I'm very frustrated by this dependence on one person's mood and attitude. Here are my questions I have for this community:
- What do I tell interviewers?
- How can I avoid this key man risk? can I ask for compensation if my boss leaves in my contract?
This is the unfortunate side of the buy side most people don’t want to talk about: many analysts, including top ones, just end up being collateral damage. There are many potential superstars who get caught bouncing from wrong seat to wrong seat with no real protections (guarantees, etc.).
I would leverage your network and your original PMs’ / sub PM’s networks to find opportunities, and ask them all to serve as references. If you’re good and are known, you will find a seat. Some people (usually less experienced PMs) will think there’s something wrong with you so the reality is some opportunities will be closed off but there’s always demand for good analysts.
Just tell recruiters / your network the truth - your first PM left and you were in a niche strategy so there were no internal opportunities, your second pm resigned and there were no internal opportunities in your strategy so you joined a pm in an unrelated strategy who was in a massive drawdown and the team was restructured for reasons outside your control.
Unfortunately there’s nothing you can really do to protect yourself other than receive a guarantee. This business is extremely cutthroat and outcomes are often disconnected from performance / sharpe. Top PMs are constantly getting poached and most other PMs are mid / late career without enough money to walk away and families to provide for so they’ll do whatever they can to preserve their seat, including throwing analysts under the bus for their own mistakes. Management doesn’t care because they can always find another person to build models and the vast majority of analysts will not be needle movers ever so they think there’s no point trying to figure out who is good and who is not (Citadel / Millennium are the exceptions here and pay attention to analyst performance).
I'm now going to rest up before anything. I didn't mention this in the original post. I was actually in a situation last year where I accepted an offer and the PM left before I started. It was humiliating to go begging to other firms I turned down. This is actually in addition to a large multi strat stealing another PM I was in deep talks with.
Since it's the end of the year and people are no doubt cutting their next deals. I do not want to take a risk and end up holding the bag if people are going to leave once bonuses get paid out in March.
Did you have any guaranteed compensation? Did they pull your offer and tell you to buzz off? That’s pretty messed up
Timing the calendar like this doesn't really work. Some moving PMs get made whole so they can leave any time of the year. Others have lengthy deferred comp that make March less relevant. And others leave because they're in a draw, so they have no bonus to wait for.
Bottom line, you're being too cute. Just recruit when YOU are ready to move, but it's pointless trying to guess any PM's timing.
im guessing ur in macro then
i feel like this is the downside of 'pure pod' shops vs 'quasi-pod' shops (eg MLP vs Cit) as you have a much better chance of re-podding at the latter and there is a lot more transparency as senior management is more involved and can tell ur PM is the issue (only for macro idk about other divisions)
Will MLP/Cit repod you indefinitely? I know someone similar to me and is in limbo after also being in 2 pods within 18 months.
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