Feeling undervalued and sad
Hi all,
This is a bit of vent. If there is one place where I can assume people may feel the same way and understand, it is on WSO.
So I have been working at a very exclusive, top investment research company for 2 and a half years. The work is incredibly intense and I work really hard.
But I am constantly undervalued and overlooked. I am incredibly underpaid. My total comp is 75% below the industry average. The reason for working here is that the firm is an incredible brand name. When cold emailing for jobs the firm’s name is fantastic for opening doors.
The issue is that I am not "in" with the company.
The company is very clique. Everyone else knows each other very personally from way back.
I am an outsider and boy do I feel it.
Despite being a very senior member of the team and producing great work (according to the CEO)I am not trusted with big client meetings. They are given to others within the company who have the same seniority as me. I also don’t have the same access to the CEO.
Despite producing the best work in the company everyone seems to gush over everyone else’s work and I feel jealous over it.
I hate myself for taking it personally but I feel really sad.
I am still motivated to work hard because I am doing it for myself and for my future. My aim is to move over into a top global macro hedge fund and I use my work to nurture an edge. Something I can take with me to the buyside and crush it from day one.
I have no loyalty to this firm. I fantasise about the day when I can tell the company to fuck off.
Does anyone else feel this way?
Update: Thank you so much everyone for the advice, I really appreciate it.
The brand name only carries value if you use it. You're feeling unappreciated, severely undercomped, and have an incredible brand name to leverage. It's time you stop complaining about it on online forums and do something about it.
This applies to all facets of life, if you don't like your situation, change it.
So true but the only thing stopping me is that I have only been here for just two and half years. And its too early to jump ship?
If it doesn't work out in a hedge fund which are notoriously volatile then it could look like job hopping?
2.5yrs is not too early, you're fine
Take those feelings and that frustration and blast away your resume to all the right places. Make it fun. Track each application on an excel line and call it a victory for every application. Take life by the horns and make every effort to shift to your ideal lifestyle.
Know how you feel. I felt underappreciated at a prior company- my peers in my rotation program were getting top ratings, which I think had to do with them having "easy to please" managers. I got mid ratings, which made me below average for the group. Definitely felt it- less attention from leadership, lower raises, etc. Wanted to stay through the end of the rotation program for resume purposes, but it was tough to stick with it.
You have the right mentality- stay for the shortest stint that does the most for your resume. Really look at yourself critically and honestly to make sure you aren't doing anything that is leading you to not be "in" with the company. Work to change those things, but in general- plan your next jump and make sure it's a good payoff for your resume.
Yes you are not alone. Many many other people feel this way. Maybe not the exact same circumstances but so many people hate their jobs, their coworkers, their work-life balance, their stress, their office politics, their spouses ;). I was in a similar work environment and got out after 3 years. Love where I landed. Keep your chin up. Work hard and move on.
What kind of dollar figure are we talking? If you'll forgive my honesty, "75% below industry average" is unhelpful at best and sounds almost intentionally vague. I can only imagine that the industry average for a very senior person at a top investment research company is quite lucrative. Further, I don't think the HF world operates much on industry averages.
And why not just leave? It sounds like you have a lot of written work product that you'd be able to (after appropriate redactions) share with other employers, or at least talk through.
I once felt the way you feel. It was a company where people are lower-caliber than what I'm used to. I had left IB for a quant shop that's a lot better at promoting itself than actually developing good strategies. The inside was a joke - lazy, inside-the-box thinkers who were building effectively a closet index fund while thinking they were genuinely on the cutting edge. True buffoons. As a relatively honest and driven person I had trouble from the moment I got there. So did others who came in from Type-A backgrounds. Not saying your situation is the same, but sometimes people leave you out because they know you're better than them and that's not too helpful to them.
This. What Rahma said. There are people out there that dont want you around if you are smarter. It is super odd and shocking if you have only been in "normal" environments. Tends to not happen at "better" places imo.
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