Getting shit experience at a small bank.. what should I do?

I am a longtime lurker and poster on wso but I am using a throw away account for obvious reasons.

I am looking for some honest feedback on my situation.

My situation: I am currently an analyst at a small bank in a secondary market, think 10-30 people with 2-5 MD’s. Long story short, I don’t think I’m getting the best experience. The people above me are not that qualified and are not great mentors. I’m getting paid way below market and it is starting to wear on me. The deals I’m working on are small... companies with 3-5mm in ebitda. We are starting to become not that busy due to lack of deal flow. The reason I came to work here was to get into IB and then lateral to a bigger, better bank in NYC or Chicago.

My plan/goals: My plan is to get a year of experience and try to make the jump to a well known investment bank in NYC.

My question: What can I do to make sure I have the correct experience to do this? When making the jump, I know banks looks for 1+ years of full time experience, but beyond that, what are they looking for deal experience wise? I will have all technicals down cold so I’m not worried about that aspect. I would like to think that I have a pretty good personality so I don’t think it will be too hard to bond with people who are interviewing me. The only thing I am worried about is my experience. Is it common to stretch the truth on what exactly my experience has been? Do I really need to wait a full year or will banks consider someone with a little less than that.

When interviewing a full time analyst candidate, what is the average deal experience? 1 deal, 2 deals, 4 deals? How are buyside deals viewed?

Has anybody experienced something similar? How did you get through the first year?

Also to add, I don’t work that much. On average maybe 55-65 hours a week. Some people might think that’s great but I feel like I’m almost wasting my time. I would much rather work a lot more so I can get the experience that I was interested in getting when I decided I wanted to do investment banking. Thanks in advance for all comments!