PM is a nightmare
Joined a new firm earlier this year and my PM is a nightmare. He is a straight up douchebag, which is a complete 180 to how he presented himself as during my several month long interview.
How early is too early to start recruiting again? Every day is a chore to get through. He takes all his stress out by bashing me for the most trivial things.
Six months minimum, ideally 12-18 months unless it's truly toxic. Unless you have exceptional performance metrics to point to, most shops will question your judgment for not vetting the PM properly.
The industry tolerates difficult personalities if they put up numbers. If your PM is profitable, other shops will assume you're the problem. If he's bleeding money, that's your exit narrative.
This can happen to the best of us. That said the current hiring environment is selective. Shops are prioritizing proven performers with clean tracks. If you're pre-track, I'd suck it up and use this time to extract maximum learning value while building external relationships. Network quietly, but don't actively recruit until you hit the one-year mark.
In the same spot, feel like the year mark is reasonable?
Honestly, I disagree with the other poster. I’ve dealt with exactly what you describe and no amount of money would have ever made me want to stay. If the culture truly sucks, leave. Life is too short to deal with people who suck, especially when they demand a lot of you and are unreasonable in that process.
If you already have spent a few months there, start looking now. It will take a bit to find the new seat anyways. I’ve seen plenty of people make a move within a year (sometimes less than 6 months).. just don’t do it twice soon.
And if you are truly miserable, it’s only a matter of time before you start getting disengaged from work which affects your reputation. You just need to be genuine in your reason to leave. I made a move within a short tenure and although I was grilled on the reason, ultimately they were convinced.
There are nice people in the industry.. they are rare though. Don’t work for a dbag and help him get rich at your expense. Your physical and mental health is worth more than to appease some psycho who decides to yell at you and bash you just because he woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
we need more of this advice on here. well said
While it sounds nice philosophically ("life is too short"), the practicality doesn't do the OP any favors if he's YOLO'ing into a rage quit.
The narrative needs to resonate with the next PM willing to offer a seat. Other teams won't hire someone for the sake of being "nice" - they're evaluating a potential hire who on paper couldn't last say 6 months [not sure what OPs tenure is tho]. Regardless, that's a red flag regardless of how justified it feels.
Put yourself in a PM/BD persons pov. If he rage quits, the is for the next PM to take a chance on him. All else equal, you'd pick someone (regardless of rationale) with less hair. And as we all know, finding good seats in this market has never been more difficult - we're in a selective hiring environment.
Also, no one's being made rich at someone else's expense here. That's a crap take. It's a free market and a job you entered voluntarily. This is a tough job in an even tougher market - probability-wise, one improves ones odds by staying and recruiting strategically rather than hoping the next opportunity materializes quickly.
It'll take months to land the next seat anyway - better to be recruiting from stability and being plugged in to the market than explaining why you couldn't hold it out.
Mental health matters, but career suicide doesn't solve stress problems. Sometimes you eat sh#t to position yourself better long-term.
I never told him to rage quit and commit career suicide. Your whole reply is based on the underlying assumption that I told him to do so. Read my comment again. I told him to look for a new seat now while he is still in his current seat.
OP needs to build a professional but honest narrative on why he wants to leave. He needs to start looking now instead of 12 months down the line, because 9 out of 10 employers won't believe it, so he might just end up finding a gig when the 12 month mark passes at his current job. And not related, but I guarantee you once OP leaves, his PM won't think twice about spinning out a bad narrative on OP to his LPs/network.
Is it more believable to use culture as a reason to leave 6 months in or 12-18 months in? If I was hiring, the former makes more sense to me. If it's the latter, then performance is the leading indicator i.e. is OP being pushed out for performance reasons because he couldn't ramp up. OP will likely have a higher bar on interviews/cases, but as long as he can clear them he is good. It's not a red flag to switch as long as 1) OP has a genuine reason and 2) he doesn't do it multiple times.
I had switched a job in 6mo because I realized it wasn't for me.. so I just left. I left to go to a great seat at a extremely well respected fund that aligned more with my long term goals. I was grilled on the authenticity of my reason, but ultimately they took a chance on me and I was hired. We sign an at will contract, it's much easier for someone to fire you than for you to leave.. why should OP stay working for a psycho because of some arbitrary expected timeline to stay on the job.
You also sound a bit out of touch with reality when you say it's crap take to say no one's being made rich at someone elses expense. Maybe you never had the misfortune of working with a bad, stingy PM, not your fault. I've had a PM mislead me with false expectations on comp multiple years in a row before I realized I had to leave. Even in blow out years where I meaningfully contributed to PNL with my own ideas mind you, not something my PM generated or even looked at, I got materially less than 4% of my PNL. I wasn't asking for 1mm, I was simply asking for a couple hundred more and was gypped. Read some of the other posts here and you'll find that it's a common occurrence.
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You landed at an "extremely well respected fund" - I'm happy for you. But extrapolating your personal win into universal career advice? That's textbook survivor bias. Most analysts jumping at 6 months aren't upgrading to top-tier shops - they're scrambling for lateral moves or downgrades while explaining away commitment issues to skeptical hiring managers. I say this as someone who've probably hired and managed more people than you.
Banking on feel-good advice when the base rates work against you isn't a commercially viable career strategy - it's gambling.
If you generated alpha and got shorted on comp, that's a legitimate grievance - but it's still a negotiation failure. If the risk of your exit didn't incentivize your PM to make you whole, he didn't value your contribution the way you valued it.
You're conflating career optimization with emotional validation and calling me "out of touch" while recommending strategy based on your n=1 sample size, whereas I do this for a living.
To OP, what reality is vs. what people see on paper (just like in the market) are two different things. You need to do what's best for you. Optimize your probabilities of success. Don't be like the analyst poster. Won't get you anywhere.
Do you mind being more specific on how he was different / what he's doing now? Sorry youre in this situation. I would say never too early to recruit because process takes time, always good to see whats out there, and doesnt mean you have to leave you just have options.
I came from PE and the first guy I worked for seemed like a quirky but generally good dude when I was interviewing. I talked to his former analyst, other PMs who knew him, mgmt, etc and didn’t pick up on any major red flags. I got into the seat and was building out my network and almost every time I’d say I was working for the guy people would say some form of “oh interesting” “how’s that going” “I hear he can be hard to work for”. I didn’t really see it for 3-4 months but eventually it became very clear why people had been saying that. We had a blow out year and I left shortly after year end for a handful of reasons but mostly because he was a giant asshole. Ended up in a solid seat after that and it’s worked out fine.
All that rambling to say, if your PM has a rep for being hard to work for then it should be easy enough to move on. The person saying you should’ve known better/done more DD is a bit out of touch.
Can you give examples of how he was difficult to work with?
He wanted my coverage to be legit 100+ names (was at about 50 from the jump). He had evershifting expectations that he didn’t communicate. One week he wanted analysis one way and the next he didn’t want it at all. Won’t get into specifics there because I’m paranoid. We had a process we stuck to and I’d pitch ideas consistent with the process and then find out we already had that trade on because he refused to share the P&L with any regularity. Got blamed for trades going against us when I had very clearly told him to get out prior to a catalyst.
Just a sampling, he fired the next 2 guys after me and then got blown out so seems I left at the right time or my head would’ve been on the block.
Im trying to diligence a PM rn but idk how to find people who worked under him / with him. How did you go about this if you dont mind me asking. This is for one of the pod shops so a bit opaque. Its just 1 PM and an analyst who joined like 10 months ago
The pm connected me to the analyst. If you’re late stage it’s totally fair to ask to talk to former analysts. Can also go through his current analyst and would talk to sell side sales folks tbh. They’re plugged in and de facto headhunters so usually discreet and candid.
this thread is way more entertaining than expected
I know its August but you'd think a PM would have other things to do during market hours..
Amazing way to showcase the emotional immaturity & volatility of many PMs while trying to argue otherwise.
He's not lying tho.
awww I hope I didn't hurt Mr. Big Shot PMs feelings too bad, as I see he decided to carpet bomb MS every single comment I ever made on this site immediately after the above post. Impressive allocation of time, hope your PNL turned around after.
Tough to say. Plenty of really difficult PMs out there and not everyone's good - it's also impossible to really gauge cause who likes losing $? Not that many all-star PM's out there who are perpetually good that either avoid drawdowns/underperformance or experience it and are still pleasant to be around. just important to remember that in the confines of "grass being greener" argument this is a business filled with insanely big egos and a ton of hyper-competitive people, it lends itself to lots of hard people to work for
would just also add it can entirely change on a dime, too... performance ticks up and guess who's coming over to your desk with a smile and chatting about your weekend again? hate to tie it simply to that but in reality i think it's tough to make a really near-sighted decision based on a limited amount of data points that could be career altering. if it REALLY is untolerable and taking a toll on mental/physical health then by all means prioritize those as i think everyone on this forum would agree with, but assuming you can stick it out longer while keeping your eyes & ears open for any better opportunities i think it makes sense to ride the wave
I'd recommend starting to recruit. Getting a new gig takes a while and you'll need a tight story to spin. Blaming a PM for being mean or talking badly about him isn't going to come across great to a potential new employer. I'd find another story to spin e.g. family issues and then leave
Having worked for a PM for quite a long time (ignore my title) I’ll give my input. The fact of the matter is that the average multimanager PM is mediocre. This is just simply a fact. There are going to be a handful of people that have edge and are very good and then there’s the rest which are sub 1 sharpe. If you are under a rain maker and have good visibility then stay even if it’s toxic. Extract whatever info you can out of him. I know others in this situation that have stayed and their careers accelerated meaningfully. If the guy is mediocre then you really should just bounce if you feel you aren’t being treated well or paid well and most importantly if you’re not learning (you can learn from a mediocre person, but after 2-3 years you’re typically done). At a certain point you have to assess whether the seat is good for you and that should be primarily a function of what you’re getting out of it and what you value, putting toxic aside. Usually the PMs that blame analysts just aren’t very good. If he’s blaming you and not firing you then he’s venting due to underperformance and is getting ready to screw you on comp. If you weren’t a value add you’d be canned by now.
For due diligence on your next move, usually firm adjusted book size along with tenure is a good indicator. People can stick around for a long time on small books at tier 2/3 multi-managers. I wouldn’t leave a good seat (even sell side) to work for these people. However, if they’re big and they’re sticking around then it’s a good sign. Ask around internally or on the sell side. People that jump around can be good if they’re given good deals or large books.
The best time to leave is right away.
Why did the mods remove a simple comment of mine where I simply ask the guy if he’ll be comfortable post his diatribe under his real id or not instead of hiding behind an anonymous account? Great job leaving all the other vile comments up there while simply deleting mine
This website has turned into a cesspool of racist, homophobic and out of touch comments by larpers and privileged people. Look no further than that post about networking with indians on the IB forum, the separate post about the p72 lawsuit, and any post remotely related to DEI which makes these cockroaches crawl out from the cracks.
Have been a user of the site for 7 years and it has only gone down on quality since then. It used to be a site with helpful people offering advice all the time with no nonsense. Great job patrick and the mods.
This could have been posted by me a few years ago. It was a pretty big setback, and I ended up sticking it out two years, though not all of my teammates survived it. If I could do it over again and had enough buyside experience to be convincing, I would have started recruiting right away because it won’t get better and I barely made it out.
Your primary metric should be whether you are learning anything from them - which I was not. These kinds of people rarely pay their people too - and fire people to protect themselves - so would expect to get zero’ed unless you had your bonus in writing.
How could they ever be the problem if they’re so smart and talented..? It must be their analyst! /s
If they have a bad reputation on the buyside (which if they are behaving badly to their teammates, they most certainly do), other PMs will “get it.” When I finally got to interviewing around at the 1.5 year mark, most PMs knew mine’s name and reputation and I didn’t even have to really explain why I was leaving - they said it for me and I just neither confirmed nor denied it, lol. I had a few opportunities and got looks by multiple teams at all of the platforms - it was like a feeding frenzy - this job market is just too competitive and analysts have more options than PMs would like to tell themselves… or tell themselves when it comes to cutting bonus checks.
This is an apprenticeship business, you don’t want to learn/develop your process from someone who isn’t invested in you. Worse if they are cutting you down and making you worse at the job. Anyone who sees the analyst/PM relationship as transactional is never going to be the real deal one day because they don’t understand what the most important skill of the PM’s job is - building a high performing team and process that scales! That takes constructive investment in each other both ways.
I’m on the other side in a much better seat now, and it’s night and day to be on a good team working for a decent guy who values my contributions. Turns out… I’m not so bad after all.
Everyone is a khunt, it depends on your firm but if you get pod with a dick PM you deal with it, it's the sacrifice. Nothing is permanent. You will leave the shop. It's just a question of when. Depends on the route you've gone down and what the market is like. Polish up your CV and see what's out there, spin a story, but in your next place be prepared to spread your cheeks like a good little boy when you're picking up the soap again.
oh boy this is fun
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