1Y Analyst & thinking about quitting. Very lost - any advice?
Massively need advice + emotional support lol:
Context:
Just graduated from a T10, did an internship at a PE/GE firm my junior summer, got a return offer after, which I accepted quite quick since they gave me 5 days to decide & even though I lowkey really wanted a signing bonus and there wasn't one (lol I know that's nitpicky of me), it seemed like a good place to start my career & also avoid the IB-PE pivot (personal preference, wanted to skip the banking years). No one in my family has any connections in finance, all my closest friends are pre-med or tech, I wasn't involved in any "finance bro" communities in college; I really just did as much as I could leadership-wise, built up a lot of entrepreneurship/VC-esque experience, and worked my ass off during recruitment to get the internship. All of this is important context because it also all means that I had zero benchmark to compare anything to, no mentors, and nothing to really use as a baseline for what I should be aiming for -- from a firm, comp, & career trajectory perspective.
Fast forward to now, I'm around 2 months in, working long hours, exclusively sourcing, running around doing various tasks for the firm, and extremely tired. I do so much work during the days into late, late evening & I get tasks all the time. VPs don't voice expectations well. Culture-wise, a mixed bag of good and bad. Deal flow is very slow on our specific team, to the point where I doubt I'm even going to TOUCH a deal my first year here. Some people even joke about how slow deal flow is here. Starting to feel like I picked the wrong place to work, and I had no idea of any of this as an intern - which also puts a bad taste in my mouth, since there's zero transparency here. I know it's toxic of me, but I'd genuinely rather work at a hellish PE/GE firm and get to actually work on deal/execution, instead of doing this weird no-mans-land job - where I'm massively stressed, doing so much work when I just barely started this job, and not seeing any deal experience in the foreseeable future here.
Another concern is my comp, especially in such an expensive city. Getting paid $75K base, $30K performance-based bonus evaluated at EOY, which I'm not sure is even really guaranteed. For an analyst at a (decently well ranked?) PE/GE shop, I think that's low? Which is a conclusion I've only come to after making a WSO account and reading some of these threads. Granted, it's not a GA or Insight or markedly "top tier", but I'm literally getting paid less than my roommates working 9-5s (since idk how much of that EOY bonus I would even get).
I'm also really concerned because I think my skills after these 2 years are going to be worthless? I'm good at the meetings with founders, have a really strong sense of our thesis, industries, portcos, pipeline, sourcing, analyzing companies for growth and potential - but I literally don't have any financial modeling experience. And I doubt I'll get any true execution experience while I'm here. I did extremely quantitative classes in college, so I know I can do this stuff - but I won't be able to learn if I don't get a chance. I truly do like the broader role & industry, but I feel like I'm stuck now. I'm also the only new addition to the team this year, so there's genuinely no one to compare notes with.
Do I jump ship & move laterally? Do I wait it out? How long? I have genuinely no clue and I don't know ANYONE in this space or broader industry well enough to ask this directly/discuss options with. I'm also scared that the PE/GE community is such a small world that I'd feel weird recruiting for stuff in the same city and small pool of firms while I work here. I also don't know how to really frame why I'm leaving without saying everything above. I think I'd fully be burning bridges if I left before the 2 years were up - it's not binding, but "strongly encouraged."
Are these concerns valid? I totally get that I'm just an analyst who just started. Maybe I'm asking for a little too much here? Just let me know if that's the case - looking for literally any answers. And honestly I'm regretting being so naive about taking a job offer & not really looking other places because I thought PE/GE right out of undergrad was tough/prestigious/worth it.
Thanks in advance, truly. I'll be reading these comments while working until past midnight lol.
Reading this back & realizing how long my post was - thanks for getting to the end of it if you did.
75k is really low. You could get paid more than that at a big 4 or any legit bank in a major city. Start looking at new opportunities rn
Thanks for the advice, seriously appreciated. How long do you think I should wait it out? Not really sure what to do
I think in general it's a good idea to have the next thing lined up as early as possible (even if you love your current job) so I would start going out to alums / contacts about lateral moves 100%
It's very unlikely you'll land a legitimate role after 2 months of FT experience. Those usually start being interested in you after 8-10 months.
I would wait it out and figure out what your exit is going to be - IB at a MM/LMM, another PE shop? Think about it. This is not an uncommon situation, there is a good bit of downside risk in joining these smaller firms where training and dealflow are total unknowns.
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