I am depressed and lost: 1st year Analyst
I want to leave I dislike my job, my superiors, my team culture.
Have been working until 2:00 am minimum every single day since day 1 Worked every single weekend
I want to quit, and am planning to, but all the finance jobs I can find require 2-3 years of investment banking, PE, or Consulting experience.
I have a stellar resume: Did 2 BB IB internships and returned FT, yet I can’t get any traction with other finance roles.
What can I do? I just want to be able to have a life, see my family, disconnect from work. Is this too much to ask ?
I feel so lost and desperate and disappointed in myself. I need guidance and help
I’m really spiraling. I went from being in control of my life and having a career plan to not knowing what’s going to happen next and being anxious all the time.
I’m just so exhausted and worst part is I’m only a couple months in, I haven’t even experienced the worst part of banking.
I really don’t want to stay in banking any longer. I’m not interested in PE or HF or VC. Just want a regular 40 hour work week job in Finance making a decent honest salary.
What can I do ? Any reason why I can’t get any traction (I know you can’t tell much without seeing my resume)
I haven’t gotten a single first round anywhere.
Bump and good luck on your search
Point #1 (potentially uncomfortable): How you feel now about investment banking may be different from how you will view it in the future. How did you get into this job in the first place? You must have done some sort of preparation for this job. You must have interviewed with a number of places. You must have had some ideation in your mind that this was what you wanted to do. Why was that? Is there some sort of thought in there that will give you the strength to persist a bit longer? You likely didn't end up in your current position because this was never what you wanted to do.
Point #2: Disliking your current team doesn't preclude the possibility that you would like working for another team of investment bankers. At this point you've gone from wanting investment banking, to getting into investment banking, to swearing off not only investment banking, but private equity, hedge funds, and venture capital as well. Was this true before you joined your current job? If not, why are you swearing off a bunch of career paths where you have never done the job?
Point #3: Regular 40-hour work week finance jobs are a dime a dozen if you broaden your search parameters a little bit. I'm betting that when you say "I haven't gotten a single first round anywhere," you're talking about only a few opportunities in your existing city from the "sexy" tech-oriented names for whom most of your beleaguered peers at your firm and others would like to work. This is incredibly narrow. Have you ever hopped on Indeed and looked for finance jobs? Have you broadened your search to anywhere in America? Is there a real reason you have to stay in the city where you are right now? What worries you? Your landlord? Your girlfriend? Your family? The landlord is not a good reason (please look up NY duty to mitigate damages for the landlord if you are in New York state). Girlfriend or family may or may not be a good reason. Otherwise, you're young, so why not look elsewhere? I guarantee if you do an app-o-rama for finance jobs across the US, you will not only get first-rounds, you will get offers very quickly for jobs that make more on an hourly basis than what you make today, and you would get to live in LCOL cities to boot. The catch? Career progression may be slower, but you can go in with eyes open on this one.
Point 4: A good framework for making decisions in life is regret minimization. The question you need to ask yourself here is "would my regret be greater if I deprived myself of a happier finance job with lower expectations now, or would it be greater if I took the finance job and felt locked out of the money of IB/PE/HF/VC?" If I wanted to get back into the industry, how would I do it? Would I get an MBA? Would I work for a regional boutique? Could I start my own M&A boutique some day? Could I buy my own business on an SBA 7(a) loan and be a mini-private equity company?
Ask the right questions, and you will make the right decisions.
bump. good luck man, take care of yourself
Take vacation and reassess once you’ve had sleep and are clear. Can you talk to your staffer, etc. about how you’re feeling?
Who is “they”?
Also nobody gives a shit about your health except you. But they don’t have to deal with the consequences so you have to prioritize and I’m glad you did. This is not good culture.
Is there an element of you getting faster at what you are doing over time? Are you currently overstaffed ald could you get that fixed?
In my first year in banking I was pulling very long hours (avg probably around 90 hours / week). This has significantly improved although obviously still doing way more than 40 hours a week.
The key is to get faster and make less mistakes. Over time you gain the trust of your team and together with fewer mistakes that leads to fewer iterations. And people will like you more / seem friendlier to you. Of course you will also get more staffings and responsibilities but overall you will get through things in less time, particularly if you started off a lower base than some of your peers (which I probably did).
Also consider that you adapt to what now probably feels like constant stress and that goes away mostly.
Right now I would advise you speak to your staffer and tell him you are feeling a bit overwhelmed with your workload. It’s important you phrase this as wanting to 1) make sure you are able to deliver the expected work quality (on time) across all your staffings 2) that you want to be able to do this job on a sustainable basis, emphasise you are giving your best and remain very motivated.
Even if your workload is not reduced, your projects will end at some point and you can try to get lighter staffing through taking on less intense ones going forward.
Most bankers will have been in a similar situation at one point or another and if your VPs and above are any good they will realise they need to support you in some way. So don’t shy away from speaking to them, ideally go to the person at senior Associate / VP level you have the best relationship with and try to get their advice.
In any case, try to hang in there for a bit longer - you have only experienced a couple of months that are probably not representative of the banking experience, for example if you were immediately involved in a very intense transaction.
JPM MMBSI? Decent comp for 40 hrs a week on avg
What does the comp look like ?
$85k Analyst, $110-170k Associate - depends on what group, and probably close to $200k as VP
Bonus is ~ 10%
Keep in mind that your group’s work expectations aren’t the status quo everywhere. Try for a lateral before you decide to leave for good, you might surprise yourself.
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