Is the job market this bad?
I have 3 years IB experience and still an active MM associate in SF. Pretty much the only opportunities I get are either other IB roles (which I don’t want to do) or PE (which I don’t care for either).
I am either getting completely ghosted or rejected after 17 billion rounds of interviews and case studies for literally anything else. Product roles, strategy roles, bizdev, operations, strategic finance. It doesn’t matter. I’ve already had people review my resume to death and I feel like I interview well.
I am about two months away from quitting and hitting up the forest service.
I feel like I’m getting more and more depressed everyday. I just don’t care anymore about this job.
I’ve been grinding since I was 14 working tables, grinding in high school to get good financial aid, grinding in college for GPA / internships, grinding through COVID retardation, grinding through analyst years, now grinding through my associate role and it just sucks.
Then finally when it’s theorcially my time to step back and possibly work less hours I can’t even get a phone screen for 80k bizops roles. Okay I’m done complaining.
.
Seems like a skill issue tbh
Stay strong brother, you have a stronger work ethic than all the other candidates for these other roles. Many firms right now seem to be risk adverse to take someone not from the exact pool they are looking for (strategic finance -> strategic finance) despite the reality you are probably better.
Thanks - definitely notice that too.
If you don’t have prior experience with the exact title you are applying for then it’s probably a no.
Forget about recruiter or formal job posts in the public domain. If you are serious about pivoting into the venture-backed world, just dm the founders of any pre-seed, seed or series-A companies you are interested in on X or LinkedIn.
In your dm, briefly explain why you are want to go into an operational role and why you are interested in learning more about company xyz. Ask them for a short 20-min zoom chat or coffee. Build your rapport from there. It is a numbers game, send as many DMs as possible, treat them as sales leads. Don't take it personal if you don't hear back.
Agree with this. Right now every job opening is flooded with thousands of applications and recruiters are being extra judicious. Go over them and reach out to the hiring manager. Most times it won't amount to anything but eventually your background will catch someone's eye.
I wish there was a shortcut but unfortunately it's volume and persistence. Good thing you're still employed, it'd be much harder otherwise.
Helpful thank you.
Yes!!! Thank you
This is the correct approach, just don't expect a founder to actually give you the time. From experience on founder side what peaked my interest were the people who reached out directly, laid out an email similar to this, and then askes to be put in contact with a senior leader elsewhere in the org. Founders generally have a million things pulling them in different directions and needing demands on their time. If you show me that you know enough about my company to know that you need to speak with James in operations then that tells me you have enough grit and drive to put through an interview cycle. It also shows you respect my time and the time of my team by getting straight to the point.
Agree, I should preface that it works for companies upto the Series A level where there are no clear organizational structure and founders are still heavily involved with hiring.
The recruiter industry has really screwed this up. There are SO many freelance recruiters hunting for commissions and there are startups facilitating this activity like never before. It makes applying as an independent candidate more difficult than ever and even if you go via a headhunter there are 10 others funneling in people with 5-7 YOE including MBB + corporate experience against you for a role that claims it’ll take someone with 2-3 YOE. It is quite frustrating indeed
100% true, at least in the NYC scene - fuck these recruiters man. They gatekeep like crazy and founders IMO sometimes are arrogant enough to post that being ex-MBB is the bare minimum requirement to be considered to be their strategy / finance monkey while you click on their profile and they went so no-name school in middle of Kentucky with a few million in funding (I've actually seen this specific example in NYC while I was job searching last year, it's insane).
Seems to be a generally tough time to recruit, across most segments i.e. not just in finance. Hang in there man.
Thank h1b1
You need to do some investigative work when you speak with the recuruiter to start with. Bizdev and strategy roles are super common fake jobs that companies put up to give the appearence of growth. Make damn sure they are actually hiring, get a commitment in writing from the hiring manager that the role has budget available.
As if forest service jobs are easy to get.
This is the new normal. The tech bros' great AI revolution is accelerating the inflation of assets and the devaluation of human capital. Jobs are going to continue to be harder to get and keep, and they're going to be paid a lot worse. The market is going to continue to rip and the federal government is going to literally stop publishing jobs data. Anybody that isn't already part of the ownership class missed the boat.
We're in the end stages now.
That's what I feel too.
If no one has any jobs or money, who's going to buy all the stupid crap that keeps the country going?
Why is everyone blaming the immigrants when it’s clearly AI projections and c suite expecting to do more with less headcount? Look at Amazon and Verizon. Did tens of thousands of H1Bs enter the system?
Because this is the entire narrative, and it's an easy boogeyman, and the majority of the voting public is buying it.
Ok so obligatory not in banking so take this with a grain of salt. My initial reaction is everything you said may be true (you are a great guy / girl with good experience, a strong resume, and you do interview well), but you may still struggle. A lot. So why?
When I tried to branch out (e.g., get into consulting with banking internships, get out of consulting into an M&A investor role), I had a really hard time. In short, you're now competing against people with more targeted experience than you. For example, the first ~5 times I tried to interview for PE or Corp Dev spots, I lost every single round to someone with 2-3 years of banking experience. In short, a lot of people want very specific experience, what is most relevant for the position they are hiring for. I saw a Corp Dev Manager role the other day where the VP of Corp Dev literally posted that they wanted "3 years of IBD with an engineering degree!" So imagine that you have 3 years of IBD experience covering the relevant end market, and youre bounced due to your GD undergrad major. Just another sign of it being a tough job market and the hiring managers having all the power.
IMO, banking is sold as this great job (same with consulting) due to the variety of the exit ops. Personally, I haven't found this to be the case. Sure, maybe if I attended Harvard UG and did 2 years at GS in NY (pick the biggest firm in the hottest market with the largest appeal to all non-bankers), then yes the world would be my fucking oyster and I could cherry pick jobs in every adjacent field at my leisure.
When I was applying for FT roles with a bunch of banking and PE internships I had a VERY hard time getting even a first round for adjacent positions (Corp Dev, Consulting, even FP&A). I applied to so many roles that I thought would be a cake walk given my banking internships that threw my resume in the trash, without so much as a first round screen.
TLDR: It is much harder to pivot to other fields than people make it out to be, even with great IBD experience.
The job market is trash right now top to bottom. They aren't even releasing the monthly data anymore because it's so bad. If companies aren't using AI as an excuse to jettison staff, they're strapping themselves in and hoping to ride out the next couple years.
A couple more points:
Consider the hiring managers' perspective: (a) if they never worked in banking or directly with former bankers, they will probably undervalue your transferable skills, (b) if you are truly over qualified for the role, then if they are wise, they don't want you. You may come in and do great but if there's not quickly runway for career and comp progression, then you will be unhappy and churn out, leaving them hiring and retraining again. Lots of roles look good on a job posting but are not as great as they seem, (c) if the hiring manager is not senior enough, you could be a threat to leapfrog them if they let you in.
Thus "I can't even get X" is a telling thought (you think it's beneath you, why wouldn't they?).
2. The unemployment data really is bad. (A) for young people, and (B) it's generally been trending higher very, very slowly. From 2010 to 2019 it was constantly getting better (the opposite). (C) low hiring and low quit rate, relative to the overall employment rate. Many drivers of these things but don't forget this is the bottom line.
3. Linkedin changed a lot. Roles are easy to market and easy to apply for (like how the common app changed college). My personal theory is this creates an 'illusion of plenty' where hiring managers get flakey and wait for "the one". Analogous to dating apps.
Sorry you're going through this. Try to stay positive. To those who know, former bankers are great employees. They're smart, are waaay better at excel/PowerPoint, and usually are easy to manage because they will give you 55 hrs a week and think they hit the lottery vs an entitled kid that complains when you ride him to get 30hrs of work out of 45.
How senior are the roles you're applying for?
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