Unable to close deals, going insane

I am unable to close a single deal. I know that, as just an analyst, I am not the reason why processes fail. I know it is the market, the company, the seniors, and the buyers which all have significantly greater influence on whether a deal wins or dies. I do not care. 

All the hours and all the weekends. Triple-check every page, put thought into the deck, get top reviews. Deal after deal, failure after failure.

I can't even leave banking with my head high. PE firms show no interest, recruiters react negatively. What now? A2A without a win? Leave for some random finance role?

I try to fight the immense feelings of envy and self-loathing. I am losing.

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I'm not totally clear why you're unhappy and feel like you're "losing"?

If it's because you aren't able to move to PE, then I get that, but that isn't happening because you haven't closed deals.

If it's because you can't do A2A without closing a deal, then honestly this is misguided - that won't be a factor influencing that decision.

If (and maybe this is the case) you're somehow measuring your self-worth on whether you've closed a deal, I beg you to find some other way to measure that. It's not your fault as you've rightly pointed out. You are almost certainly making great progress in your career as you've gotten hands-on deal experience (and frankly there are a lot of Analysts who have been spending the vast majority of their time on pitches in the last couple of years - there aren't that many juniors who have closed a bunch of deals), and you weren't exactly going to be asked to step up and negotiate the SPA anyway, so the pockets of learning you don't have are small. You are making a huge amount of money. I don't know, but I hope you have a significant other, healthy family, and friends. 

So to be honest if THIS (specifically, the lack of deal closing) is what is making you upset, then buy yourself a beer because you are smashing it at life.

 

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Hey man, as you said it’s not your fault and it’s not going to impact you or the opps you get. What matters for exits is the work you have actually done on those deals - did you hold pen on the model? Did you conduct analysis? Did you draft dd requests? Did you use your analysis skills to find good insights about the business? At the end of the day that’s what people care about, everyone is very well aware that you don’t have influence on whether your deals close so this shouldn’t have an impact on your exits.

I landed multiple offers for PE without a single closed deal on my resume, so you can do the same just showcase the relevant work streams you’ve handled on your terminated transactions and keep your head up.

 

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