Bonus spread by bucket

I'm and AN1 and thinking of pivoting out of IB in 12 months max. Covid & personal events have caused me to rethink my goals to pursue some things I'm more passionate about. Nothing against the industry just have some new priorities. I don't think I'm crushing it at work but given my outlook (1 year in the industry) and the state of the market how much on a bonus would I miss out on if I try and take care of my health and don't give my all to this industry? I.e. end up mid bucket or below instead of killing myself for top

8 Comments
 

Was in similar situation during my analyst years. If you're leaving out of finance full stop, take the mid bucket. if you're staying in high finance then grind it out for not only the top bucket but also the rep. It matters, the world is small.

I left the sell side for engineering so for me it didnt' matter. top being around 75 at BB's with mid being around what 50 at the low end? that's 25 pre tax, more like 15 post tax at most. Nothign to sneeze at but it's not exaclty life changing (unless you're seriously in debt or need cash then yeah grind it out regardless)

 

Very sound advice. At the moment passion is more in ops possibly at a tech start-up (CS minor) with long term goal of being a founder. I just think that with COVID the bonuses (at my bank at least - rumors of layoffs imminent and no AN1s will be impacted) could be meager (2008 they were like 10-15k) so I don't think its worth crushing myself for even if the differential is ~20k pre-tax due quality of life concerns.

 

If you're like me then the problem was never the "money" aspect which you mentioned is not that impactful. It's waht 20k difference and in a down year may be even less? It was the pride and competitiveness. kind of sickening but if anything came down to a force rank, some part of me just wouldn't let it go and needed to come out on top lol. Not practical but it was what it was

 

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