Got a bad performance review

Got an informal bad performance review saying I’m not progressing at the rate expected. Apart from working on what they said (which I will) - what should I do. How aggressively should I try and lateral?

Been thinking s&t, corp dev, or consulting might be interesting to consider mainly for better work life balance
 

Will this be a problem for when I need a reference? to be clear haven’t been fired - this was just the first chat everything so far had been generally positive and there will probably would be a few more checkpoints should anything happen. 

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What were the negative points they raised? 

Nobody can answer the below without context. 

S&T - probs not great idea. These teams are shrinking as execution trading makes limited trading vs when banks could prop trade.

Corp Dev - better WLB but significant pay cut. Low salaries at analyst equivalent levels. 

Consulting - WLB isn't great. Pay is worse. You often eat up your free time travelling to next project or flying in and out on your own time.

Sponsors M&A (London)
 

OP here - slower work with some mistakes. Don’t want to give out too much cause I’m in a small team that frequents wso.
I was in a really top lateral process the week before my chat. I can see how that impacted my performance but it also seemed like this wasn’t just a sudden thing but something going on for a few months. 
 

agree on consulting. S&T might be my thing - I might be the only person who loved the recruiting and coffee chatting process. Enjoyed speaking with people and building connections - was exciting at times. Corp dev does sound good but not sure how I feel about the pay cut. I don’t have patience which is why I chose IB so waiting to run up the ladder might for not so much pay might not be the best thing. Also how do you decide what kind of corp dev you want to do.  I’m currently in the DIG group.
 

I understand these are conflicting things 

 

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