First Job - Not Learning Anything

First job out of school - no exaggeration I haven't learned anything.

I don't know if the virtual environment is the issue, but I really have been just getting paid 6 figures to move files, work excel, and do high level research (intensively so, but I literally am just staring at a screen all day)

Should I try and get a new job? Please give me some guidance here honesty feel like im rotting lol but at the same time i dont know if its bad to jump ship before even hitting a year

thnks

26 Comments
 

Yeah, felt pretty much the same way as an Excel monkey just out of school. I could have done the stuff after HS with a brief Excel intro course. 

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

efficientmkthypo

Exactly - did you just stick w/ it and see what opportunities presented themselves? Or did you do something else?

I stayed for 4 years in my first job out of college and then left. 1-2 years in I definitely saw things in greater detail. But, was still doing the same Excel financial models, just much more of them with greater efficiency and more responsibility. 

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
Funniest

Bro you literally just described the job of an IB analyst. Just enjoy the crippling realization that this thing that was built up as the epitome of prestige is in fact just another overpaid office job. Enjoy the white collar life. We're all going to get scalped when the Bernie bros finish smoking all the weed and finally decide to eat the rich anyway.

 

haha thanks for responding

right, keep in mind im in asset management coverage so its not IB, but runs a similar model (analysts supporting MD's trying to win biz pitching strats)

My point in how should I play my cards? Stick through it and get to MD, or try something else?

 

If you feel like you're not developing I'd try to find something else. Obviously stay here till you line something up.

 

welcome to reality

it's like that for life. do not listen to anyone elses dogma about how the tedium diminishes the further in to your career you get.

 

If you want to learn, you should stay in school. Real life business is not particularly intellectually stimulating: you make slides, make excel models, have meetings where you talk about nothing, take notes, and then the cycle repeats. It's a great deal cause you don't need to learn much, don't need to do anything difficult, but you can get paid well and live a good life. If you don't like that and you're missing you school math classes, please let somebody else take your seat and go back to school or move to programming/engineering/medicine - those industries need people who like learning and doing intellectually stimulating work.

 

Kevin25

have meetings where you talk about nothing

my favorite

Quant (ˈkwänt) n: An expert, someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.
 

Should I lateral into IB instead of AM Sales to then go into some kind of investment role 

i keep hearing that its tough to go from sales to an investment related position and its better to do ib---investments

which i think is retarded because my work is much more about investments than an IB analyst but we do the same excel/pptx bullshit with the fucked up hours

 
Most Helpful

I heavily disagree with a majority of posters here thus far.

If you're in your FIRST JOB and not learning anything, that is a huge red flag. Our Analysts are drinking from a firehose from Day 1, there is a tremendous amount that they don't know and don't know how to do. It takes easily a year for people to ramp up to be competent and then they leave for Private Equity the next year. Training is 24/7/365. 

Not saying the bullpen feels like Margin Call every day, or that you're never bored, but there won't really be a day that you're not learning something new unless you make it that way. You should strive to maximize your learning experience at a young age so that you are able to do the higher level work and relationship building later on in life.

Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.
 

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Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.

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