IB Burnout - Is it worth it?
*reposting it here because a mod moved it to Job Search - it would be great to hear the IB communities take on this so please leave it here if possible.
After a brutal summer with one of the lowest conversion rates in the banks history, I managed to secure a full-time offer at at a place known on here to be one of the biggest sweatshop groups in the industry.
The last thing I want to sound by making this post is ungrateful, because I'm not. I understand how hard the full-time recruiting environment is right now, but it honestly makes me sick to my stomach knowing that I'm going to be going back to that place relatively soon and working for a bunch of psychopaths. I (and all of the other summers) were in pretty dark places over the summer and given how few people were offered and that I didn't have any time to full-time recruit, it seemed like I just had to accept it.
I guess the situation I'm facing now is: 1. Keep recruiting for another role or 2. Go there and potentially face serious damage to my mental/physical health or burn out completely (It's happened quite a few times over there, I've seen it). Would reneging with nothing lined up be completely stupid? If you ask anyone, I'm one of the most hard working / disciplined people they know but this place almost broke me. Is it honestly worth it?
Would be great to hear some opinions from people who have pushed through at sweatshop groups.
Moelis?
I usually give myself the "when I'm 70 years old" test in these types of situations. What would you do if you were looking back on this situation from that point of view?
IMO unless your alternative is FAANG corp dev or MFPE, even just making it through a year in banking will give you better options than anything you'd land at this point. If you burnout, go take a corp dev job. But I think you're doing yourself a disservice to renege with nothing, or to renege for a far lesser role. Don't aim to be the best analyst day 1, just get your work done and don't stay later than needed.
Try to prepare yourself as much as possible - get your mental health in a good place now, find a therapist in NYC that you like (do Zoom for now) just to get your support system laid in advance.
Yes your year or two there is going to suck, but it lays the groundwork for a much better job down the line, and the branding and experience will follow you your whole career. If you take some random FP&A job or whatever else is still recruiting right now, it'll take you years to catch up with your career.
Looks like you’ve been in the role for awhile. What has made it worth it for you?
I would quit with nothing lined up and trust the universe will land you where you need to be.
IMO wouldn't overthink it.
Like others have said, just get the required work done, learn + build resume, and don't take things personally. I've noticed its the new analysts who strive to be top bucket are usually the ones who are super stressed, in a bad place mentally, angry all the time, and then eventually burnout. Unless you are someone who always strives to be first in everything, just focus on the work at hand while strategically take breaks/push back when you can.
You can always quit whenever and switch into something much more chill, so would just take IB as a learning experience and challenge.
First off, I wanna start off by saying a lot of my peers were in your shoes one year ago. So I feel you. You don’t sound ungrateful at all, just realistic about the sustainability of this job.
My advice would be to keep recruiting for 2023 FT offers. They are definitely few and far in between, but they come by. If you get an offer, reneg.
My second piece of advice is this: if you don’t think you can last for 2 years, ask yourself, can you last for 1 year? there are plenty of people who quit banking before their 2 years are up. I personally know 3 people who quit at the 10-14 month mark to move to the buy side (equities hedge fund, growth equity, credit fund) and It’s definitely non-traditional, but it’s an option.
it's giving Nomura green tech
I strongly recommend sticking it out.
The challenge with early careers is that your first few roles are going to either be (1) incredibly demanding or (2) worse - very low learning curve. Some folks even manage to find roles that have both 1 and 2!
Don't think of banking as a lifelong career, but rather a 1-2 year gig that will get you where you want to go in terms of business school or exit ops; and from that perspective I think you'll find banking offers the best risk-reward curve you are going to find.
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