Waiting for the right offer?
For context, I left my IB job about a month ago due to poor mental health, largely driven by my group's terrible culture and issues in my personal life. Shortly after leaving, I received two offers for corp dev roles, neither of which left me feeling super excited. I'm ultimately most interested in early stage investing, and I'm not sure how well corp dev would position me for those roles long term.
I'm leaning towards taking the one with stronger culture fit, and if I decide it's a poor fit, I'd continue to recruit while keeping it off my resume and wait for the right thing to come along. I've received mixed advice from friends and family - some suggest waiting it out until I find something you're excited about, others say that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush and that I should just take one of the two offers.
Given the state of the market, does it make sense to wait for the "right" opportunity if you're unemployed? Would love to hear how others who have been laid off or who have taken time off due to mental health / burnout are approaching the job search, or have navigated it.
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Take it.
How did you find the corp dev roles?
Cold applying on LinkedIn. Just did resume drops and got calls a week or so after applying.
In this environment definitely take it
Interested in this as well. I was recently laid off after exactly one year as an IB analyst (off cycle hire). Don’t have good deal experience given low deal activity last year and really only 4-6 months on the desk between training and everything.
Got a MM PE offer but turned it down cause it was a pay cut (100 base) and 1.5 hours away in Connecticut 5 days a week. Struggling to convert interviews into offers w lack of experience. Very solid brand names (summa cum laude from target and top group at top BB) but no real experience.
hey man - OP here. Not sure what your financial situation is, but I'd probably focus on building experience over comp at this point. If you only have 4-6 months of experience out of undergrad, I'd try to take a role where a) you like the people, b) you're paid enough to pay the bills and c) you're building some experience relevant to the field you're interested in pursuing. If I were in your shoes, I'd be networking with boutique banks (if you want to continue to do banking) and talking to HHs about interesting investing roles. Not sure how doable buyside is after 6 months out of undergrad but it sounds like you can spin your experience well if you already received an offer.
In a similar situation - I'm concerned that taking a role I'm not super excited about in corporate will complicate moving to the investing world.
There's not one clear answer, unfortunately. What I've been telling myself is that either way, a bumpy start to a career does not mean that 20 years from now we are fucked or cannot enter the roles that make us excited. Just trying to get comfortable with being on the nonlinear path, and being optimistic that things will work out with perseverance and effort.
Yeah I really do not like being and knew that I would not like it going in. I just did this as a stepping stone to investing roles and am really hoping I am done with IB. I can get interviews because I was technically employed 13 months in IB so I’m assuming it jsut comes down to embellishing now
I'm in a very similar boat here, how are you approaching the recruitment process now after turning down that initial offer?
Any updates on this? Curious to hear how you've approached finding buyside opps post layoff
Take it. You can't be waiting around in this environment - companies have brought hiring to a screeching halt and there are far too many IB analysts out there without a job right now. The longer your gap becomes the more questions you will get, and the more you will start getting dinged for it.
I think you should take the job, try to be there for at least a year and de-stress from IB, and spend that time getting your mental health/personal issues back on track and figure out what your next step looks like. I know it feels like this is the most important decision ever but truthfully, there are a lot of paths back to being an investor and I would prioritize fixing your burnout first. If you want to keep recruiting you will look like a red flag with 2 short stints (and imo, IB and then a more than 3 month gap looks a lot worse than just putting corp dev job on your resume, which they'd see anyway with background check)
Thanks for the detailed response.
Quick question for you based on the response - why is there such a large focus on resume gaps? I have friends in tech and consulting who have taken ~6 months or more off to recharge or travel and no one seems to care nearly as much. I've felt enormous pressure to avoid gaps, and it's pretty frustrating from a burnout perspective. Recruiters have to understand that shit happens and people want to live their lives. The idea of only having 2 weeks of vacation per year and then spending the rest of it working 60+ hours without any large breaks seems pretty limiting from a personal development standpoint.
I’ll give my two cents as someone heavily considering the same — I don’t think it’s as big a deal as some make it out to be. I’ve done a lot of research lately and talked to people who’ve done it and didn’t have much trouble finding a job after. Granted, most people in those shoes tend to go for things on the corporate or startup side and I don’t know about investing roles which may be more old school.
Another pretty contrarian comment is that I’m not sure the job market is that much to fuss about. Like you, I’ve done a number of interviews lately and gotten offers but none feel right. The prospects surely aren’t 2021, but ultimately if you have a strong resume and interview well I don’t think the attitude needs to be “take any job you can get.” This can be very case-by-case (i.e. I’m a woman for what it’s worth, possible that helps, etc.), but ultimately I think if you’ve managed to get solid offers in just a short amount of time, I think it’s more skill than luck, and that you can have equal amounts of success with other roles / at a different point in time.
Definitely all subjective feedback, but coming from someone who used to think all the same things others are saying, and now have realized it isn’t so black and white.
What firm laid did you leave?
Boutique
Extremely impressive that you locked down multiple job offers in THIS hiring environment. When people with experience are staying unemployed for months at a time due to limited opportunities. Wow.
Echo sentiment above; would take the best offer of the two. Great outcome at this time and can be explained away / spun easily in a year if you don’t like it.
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