I'm tired of failure to the point where I cant function normally.

This year has been nothing but an absolute disaster. Rejections raining from the sky all around, and the more I try the more I get disappointed. I've applied to over 120 positions, did 16 instant hirevues, dozens of rejections, and never heard from most. Every time I get a rejection I use it as a motivation to keep pushing, but this is it. I'm graduating with nothing. 

I'm so tired of failure. I attend a "target" school and have okay-ish experience. Not to say I'm entitled to anything, but I haven't even had a single real interview. Not even my former company is replying to me. I'm so fucking tired man. I have nothing left. I tried to improve every step of the way but it seems that nothing is working, nothing at all. 

I have exams next week and I'm so mentally blocked I cant bring myself to study. It feels like everything I've done was for nothing. It feels like it's all over.

 

I wish I could do that but I really do think there's nothing left to try. 

 

That's why the break is so important.  You need to clear your head so you can broaden your thinking about what your first career step should be.

I assure you over the medium and longer term, no route is closed to you.  You just need to start somewhere and if you think IB/CF is the only thing in the world, then that break is going to be really important for you.

 

life is a grind dude. either stay in education to buy some time or find the least worst job/internship available and use it as a stepping stone. there will always be a need for hungry and hardworking juniors who want to learn

I started in audit (yes the white collar equivalent of AIDS) and after many job changes now work in UMM PE

 

Doing a panic masters just because you don't have a job lined up is a BAD idea. I would just keep applying and eventually you'll find a Corp finance/accounting job that pays decently. If you can live at home and save half your pay check even better. Do that for a few years, get a promotion or two, and go to a t20 MBA. Recruiting on an MBA level at top schools is so much easier than undergrad. For example, somewhere between 30-50% of the class gets MBB (300k starting comp) at all the t20 schools.

Also remember that your career is probably going to be 20-40 years long and your first job is not your last job. It's easy to feel badly comparing yourself to people on this forum who are already in the 1% of earners for their age brackets. Your already doing better than most people your age.

 

100% agree.  You could travel the world for a year and it would cost less than a masters, and give you more benefit.  Not saying travel the world for a year (although not the worst idea), just saying people need to realize how expensive education really is.  We pay so much for so little, all because we think we can sling credentials around.  Which we really can't.

 

I'm already in a masters, staying in school longer won't help plus I don't have any money for it

 

what a great transition; did you go from audit to BB/MM IB to UMM PE? there seems to be a perception that lateraling to PE at the IB 1 or 2 associate level is "much harder" and it is best to do 2+2 for "optimal recruiting" but would love to hear your thoughts based on your background/on cycle/off cycle recruiting. did you do on cycle or off cycle and did you diligence the fund based on culture or just did on cycle? 

 
Most Helpful

I’ve been those exact shoes bro. The grind is unbearable when you’re nearing the end of undergrad and you’ve got no job. Meanwhile all the dumb fucks around you are patting themselves on the back for getting dream jobs, and even if it’s a 60k audit job at EY, at least they’ve got something. It sounds like you still have a few months until graduation. You just gotta keep pushing no matter what it takes. You WILL land something eventually as long as you don’t give up. Keep optimizing, keep improving, keep trying. Paradoxically the results of your labor always come right after you’re ready to give up and you’re wondering if it’s even worth it to keep pushing. That’s a key step in the journey of all monkeys.

I also graduated with no job after school. Ended up networking my way into a bucket shop the summer after graduation where I got some tiny company m&a experience while getting paid next to nothing. Didn’t even see my deals close but was able to leverage that experience that to land a job at a respectable mm firm. Ended up clearing well over 150k in my first year at the firm (Covid comp + multiple closed deals for my group).

There’s nothing I can say that will change the situation you’re in now. There’s nothing anybody can say. You have to do what thousands of others in your shoes have done. Keep pushing. All the best stories are the ones that involve hardship, and all of the most interesting people are the ones that have known the depths of failure.

There’s a reason Pursuit of Happyness is a movie about a homeless guy that gets a job on Wall Street through sheer persistence and force of will, and not a movie about Brad getting a summer internship handed to him by his dad’s friend.

 

Hi! I'm sort of in the exact same situation as you right now! I think your story is super inspiring and I was wondering if I may send a PM to learn more. I feel like there are a lot of things from your experience that may be applicable too my uphill battle rn. Thanks!

 

I graduated college without any work experience. It took 6 months and 500+ job applications to land a job making $52K a year. My boss yelled and cussed at us and even tried to fight me one drunken night.

One year in, I got fired. Then another 6+ months of applying to jobs. Well over 100 applications this time.

Less than 4 years later, and I make MULTIPLES of that. I no longer worry about money. I buy whatever I want.

Suck it up and keep grinding. My family made fun of me when I was living at my parents’ house after graduating. Then I got made fun of when I was fired.

Now, my family raves about how much I make. Nobody helped me get any of my jobs. Nobody reached out to give me a helping hand. Everything I have accomplished from a professional standpoint is due to me grinding my ass off.

I know it sucks when all you see is rejection, but it’s up to you to change that.

 

It’s all perspective, very few people would put in the work that you already have. That’s your edge. You embrace the grind that very few people do. Facing rejection and failure early on can be used to your advantage, you fought in the trenches and prevailed. Everyone hits that professional wall at some point and for some it just shocks them into caving in because they don’t have the experience in adversity that others fought through early on (professionally speaking not talking about outside of work adversity). I’m only 27 but my first few years career wise were an absolute grind and looking back there was no way I’d be able to see where I am now. But that’s life man, losses come and go, wins come and go. No matter the outcome you just keep pushing. It’s cheesy as fuck but go watch the Jocko Wilkins video titled “good”. Lol it has fired me up when I needed it. Also a good thing to do is read, it’s good way to gain more perspective when you are young (we lack perspective due to lack of years and experience). Shows you that making it in this world is not a linear path. It’s mountains and trenches my guy. Keep grinding and try to laugh a little cause like others have said you will look back on this chapter with a grin ✊🏽

 

Have you reached out to your career center and alumni? Brute force in applying has its merits, but sometimes you just need an alum to get you an interview. Then it's up to you from there.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

Been there done that. My worst fear was failing to land a job and having to move back in with my parents because I knew how toxic the home environment was going to be for me. I graduated when the pandemic hit and despite my best efforts at applying and networking, my worst fear came true. I would spend the entire day applying to jobs. Family laughed at me and told me to go be a doordash driver. I felt like I had failed miserably and it was all over but I kept pushing through and ended up where I wanted to be in the end. ~2.5 years later it's all but a faint memory.

You're getting a small glimpse on what it's like to be a grown man who has been thrown to the wolves and must fend for himself. Tough isn't it? Good news is that you haven't even graduated yet. You have time and a long road ahead of you. Best to rest up and enjoy your last few months in college while you prepare for the journey. Go eat some good food, drink some good booze, and get laid. You'll be alright.

"If you’re going through hell, keep going. Why would you ever stop in hell?” - Steve Harvey

 

bạn đang có cùng một vấn đề với tui, tui cảm thấy mệt mỏi và đau đầu khi cứ mãi trả lời những câu hỏi về kinh nghiệm mục tiêu lẫn điểm mạnh của mình trong khi tui mới ra trường thì lấy đâu ra kinh nghiệm để mà kể chứ , nếu tui biết điểm mạnh của mình là gì thì hay quá 

 
mỹlinh

bạn đang có cùng một vấn đề với tui, tui cảm thấy mệt mỏi và đau đầu khi cứ mãi trả lời những câu hỏi về kinh nghiệm mục tiêu lẫn điểm mạnh của mình trong khi tui mới ra trường thì lấy đâu ra kinh nghiệm để mà kể chứ , nếu tui biết điểm mạnh của mình là gì thì hay quá 

pho real?

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

As cliche as it is, failure just makes you stronger. The more you fail the more you’ve put in that strong effort and you can build on the experience to optimize yourself. Think of all the failures as concrete reasons you didn’t get what you want and apply it moving forward. And as you’ve likely already seen, your stage is a volume game. The more networking calls / apps / cold outreaches you put in, the more likely you are to get something given the probability and more importantly the experience you build on each rep. Good luck out there and PM me with any questions.

 

You sound in a downward mental spiral and you need to get out of it. Here's some perspective:

-You haven't graduated yet, you likely have at least a couple months to go. A lot can happen in a couple months.

-Graduating without a job does not mean you've failed or that your career will be a failure. It just means you haven't achieved your near term goal of employment just yet.

-You're feeling like your 'target' school has failed you. It hasn't and it won't. The network lasts forever and it will help you a year from now, a decade from now, and beyond if you use it correctly.

-Examples to prove you'll be ok:

1. I know international students who found jobs literally in the last couple of weeks of school prior to having to leave the country. It's more than possible and you don't have that scary deadline creeping up on you.

2. I have friends that graduated without jobs but kept grinding through the summer into the fall and found great roles at big banks. For some this happened right after graduation, some months after, and some even a year afterwards.

3. I applied to about 350 roles before getting one and I started in a sales job that I got laid off 18 months later from with no savings and no interviews lined up. Now I work in PE.

Bottom line is, this is just a hiccup in the grand scheme of your career. Put recruiting on pause while you study for exams and focus on getting the best grades you can. You have the next week to do well in these exams and you have the rest of your life to make a great career. 

 

I feel you. I had (have) a huge mental block to studying for the GMAT too - even with a good score I have mediocre work experience. It's not off completely, but its getting better. I'm planning my 3 week over seas vacation and learning the language as we speak.

I'm going to quit my job once I feel the language skills are good and the weather condition is  favorable - regardless of economic conditions. Time to take a break from this BS. Life is short. What's the worst that can happen when things are already mediocre?

Anyway... If you can't work, can you try to have some fun for a bit? What's the worst that can happen to your already unsatisfying life?

 

I went into my junior fall semester with nothing as I struck out of IB/CIB SA. I had zero finance internships on my resume and little to no experience at all. Networking is what made the difference. Leading into junior spring semester, I landed three consecutive internships as a spring analyst, summer analyst, and my current internship I'm doing as a part time job (They gave me a return offer to which I declined). Following this, I finished 2022 with a homerun and landed a FT offer back in September for CB. Heading to NYC this summer from an ultra non-target background.

I was in the same boat as you, it sucks but you have to keep going. Things workout when you keep doing the right things over and over. You can do it bruh don't give up

 

Dude you are trying to get a job in an environment where the FED has openly stated they are looking to create a net negative job growth of 2,000,000.  Chill the fuck out.  This is how economic cycles work.  It sucks, the kids who graduated in 2009/10 were royally fucked by government mandated hiring freezes.  Guess what, they are doing okay.  Well except the ones who tried heroin, they are likely dead in a ditch somewhere.  But everyone else is fine.

 

Theres a whole great big world out there beyond IB. I'm 50 and most IB/PE people I know may be wealthy but they are "checked out" of regular life, missing all the things that make it worth it when you get to be my age. There are a lot of ways to make a lot of money, with a much better life. You only live once. Stop drinking the OJ.

 

I hope you and every student can understand this:

The corporate world is dividing, slowly, but at an exponential rate and it is chopping at the middle class. Do not try to keep up. Develop yourself to a position of ownership. It will not matter in 50 years what bank you were at. There will be owners, the most free amongst us, and their will be the enslaved class slowly dying off. That is my bet for the next 50-100 years. Start to look at things from the macro perspective. After bouncing around for your first few positions upon graduation in the corporate world, whether it be banking or not, you will understand what I am talking about. Things are changing and they are changing fast. Go for the lessons over the credibility. Obviously you need some credibility in your early career to establish yourself a bit but beyond that you need to start adopting the ownership perspective. How can you own something valuable to others?

 

Sure - if you look at corporate America broadly, there seems to be this upward pressure from efficiencies being made via technology and the rise of skill in English speaking countries where the dollar is strong.

For example, India and their booming IT support economy. For this example America is country A and India is country B. A lot of IT related support function teams have been outsourced to India across US corporates in the last few years, brought on by the pandemic. So what?

Well, add onto that automation and new efficiencies across the corporate structure via software and you have upward pressure on the working class of country A in terms of wages and openings for positions. The result is a sort of race of learning new modes of working to upkeep the same position.

There’s also what I call natural pressures such as a need for efficiencies to reduce skilled head count due to a macro economic slowdown in growth of the more mature economies.

I see a squeeze happening in the developed world, mainly country A.

 

Keep pushing but maybe modify your CV quite a bit if you applied to 100+ jobs without getting much traction despite being at a target.

In the end it really is a numbers game and even if you don’t get a FT IB position right after graduating that’s fine as well, it’s gives you another perspective and you might realise that there is more to life than grinding 80-100H weeks.

 

I went through this exact situation, and I had an experienced resume from a target. I was so fucking demoralized but I never ever gave up - even though I thought about it many times. I ended up at a bucket M&A advisory shop which was really toxic due to the management team being fucking insecure assholes. Ended up getting laid off after four months and now I’m figuring things out just like you. I sulked, and wiped my wounds but now guess what? I’m getting tons of interviews and I am positive I will lane something again that’s better for me. You know what changed? I’m not longer desperate for a job. Just like you I was months away from graduating and I was applying to anything. I stopped focusing on what was the best fit for me and only focused on getting a job. People can sense that trust me and that’s why I got rejected so much, and that’s probably why you’re getting rejected too!

What you need to do is seriously relax and take a break from all this. You went to a target okay great. Stop focusing on being a failure because that shit is demoralizing right now and right now you need to be more positive than ever. Focus now on your good qualities, and you’ll soon realize that you are a great person and candidate and you’re capable of getting a job. I can already say from reading this that you are a smart person and an incredibly hard working one. You will get there my friend, just stop forgetting who you are. You’re way better than what you think you are.

 

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"Be persistent and you will get, be consistent and you will keep it, be grateful and you will get more" #phuckQuotes

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