In a rut / feel weak; how to get out
I am approaching 2 years in IB now - currently '24 y/o. I came in to this job thinking this would be a good training ground for my early career / to get my trajectory in order and set myself up for a high earning career. I would say this has been the case, my firm pays well and I have a few good projects on my resume to speak to which is nice.
Recently I've been going thru I guess what you can call a quarter life crisis - really am not enjoying the job and people I work with and don't think that PE would really be any better. Also I took a few L's this year both in my personal life and from a job rejection that hurt.
At this point I am kind of coasting in my job, though it is intense I have managed to consistently been working out, going on some dates, but I really feel generally unfulfilled, and that I am wasting my 20's just being a worker bee. Also part of this I think is that I come from a fortunate background and tbh since working my quality of life has just substantially diminished. I just have less free time and no more financial freedom than I did before my job.
I just feel a bit jaded as well as constantly stressed, I don't have that excitement for life I did some time ago (my friends and family have noted this). I think the few rejections I ate kind of compounded as well. I'm not thinking of it constantly but it kind of put me in this negative state.
What you’re going through/feeling is pretty common. The honeymoon phase of banking naturally starts to wear off for people and around this time (or much sooner…) and you start to realize banking probably isn’t a role that you can see yourself in long term. On the bright side, it gets the wheels turning in the sense of you start to really think about what else you may want to pursue next (which is not as easy as it sounds).
What I’ve done in the past, and would recommend, is to start exploratory conversations with people who are currently sitting in roles/fields that look interesting. Most people are very open to having a chat to discuss their role/responsibilities, what they like/don’t like, etc especially because they know you’re not reaching out asking for a referral or something and you’re generally interested in having a casual conversation about what they do.
fact this realization came in 2yo instead of 6mo in means you’ve got more juice than many. there are tonnes of roles out there that could use your skillset, go hunt - especially some niche fields that pay decent and could be interesting.
i ultimately jumped into corp dev > biz value consulting and couldn’t be happier. great WLB and decent pay (not IB but for 35-40hr weeks v good)
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