Anxiety over starting IB role. How to cope?
Post MBA associate here. Starting a role in IB shortly and quite honestly quite concerned about the hours / abuse after seeing what has been posted on this forum.
Any advice to cope with that sinking feeling I feel as my start date approaches?
Note: Had other options but chose banking as it allows me to pay off my MBA loans the quickest. Other roles like VC are probably more chill but will take forever to pay off.
Get a different job before you start. You still have until October before it sucks. Will be chill until then for you with bs trainings and series exams. But it doesn’t get better for a few years
You mean to renege on the job offer?
I went through a similar period of self doubt before I started my analyst job out of college. This is what I recommend.
1. Adopt a mindfulness practice so you can stay present and not worry about work after work and in the months leading up to the job when you should try to have fun and relax as much as possible.
1a. Begin building a relationship with a therapist now. Find one you can see on your protected Saturday. Very possible to squeeze in hour long appointments on WFH days by blocking off a time on your calendar though you may need to cancel every now and then for work
2. Reduce the amount of decisions you have to make on the weekly by planning things out ahead of time (food you are going to eat if you cook, work clothes, when you want to go the gym, what workouts you want to do, etc). This is different if you are living with a partner who works less hours.
3. Lower your expectations to be okay with being bottom bucket and focus on learning as much as you can from the job. By not stressing so much about ranking to a point of paralyzing yourself on the job, you can focus more on quality work product and learning, which will probably lead to a work product with improved rankings anyways. Remember that you can quit after a year or whatever your clawback is. Remember that after a shitty six months to a year the job will feel easy.
4. Try to identify one or two hobbies you can realistically maintain so you have something to look forward to after work.
There is a lot of buildup to doing IB given the pay and intensity of recruiting but at the end of the day it is all a job.
Thank you so much for the pointers. I will certainly try to implement these especially the part around the therapist.
The post above is excellent and I echo it.
Three additional points:
1) As an MBA AS, spend time getting your hands absolutely filthy doing a bit of modelling and spreading comps, etc., until you know those building blocks. This will help you thoroughly review work and have confidence doing it, and knowing what you're doing will win you respect from Analysts - never ask them to do something you couldn't do yourself. This will hopefully ease a lot of anxiety and concern too as you build technical confidence.
2) On a live deal, call the due diligence and legal advisors and ask them your basic questions about deal documentation, proces, due diligence red flags, etc. They're external to your firm so there's no risk of "stigma" from being seen to ask something basic interally. Again, all about building confidence and being able to explain deal updates to your team (senior and junior) and the client. Obivously don't do this excessively - those advisors have jobs they need to focus on.
3) Not all teams are bad culturally or abusive. In fact, most aren't. But no one writes about a normal, friendly team; you hear the horror stories precisely because they're exceptional / interesting. But don't let that tilt your view or scare you.
Our recruits used to want to get into the office to “bite the ass off a bear” (att: John Gutfreund)
Now we are reduced to this
Ut enim sint ea. Debitis est totam cupiditate nostrum. Totam et ut optio ut est eos beatae.
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