Bad at IB = … in PE?

AN2 here and can confidently say that I am not good at IB. I have gotten bad reviews and honestly struggle with the work. I am not very good at modeling, I do not really understand accounting concepts, and I am not very sharp in PPT. However, I am a great hang and well liked at the firm.

I do really enjoy business and making decisions at a strategic level, and have recently been recruiting for PE jobs. I like the idea of being on the buyside but I am not sure if I will actually be good at the job based on my IB struggles.

Any thoughts? Am I delusional to think I will be good at PE?

4 Comments
 

not gonna lie bro sounds like you should get into like lending or something relationship-based, build up a book of business and shit. Sounds like you would be way worse at PE than you are at IB, analysis/modeling is way more nitty gritty / detailed, way less margin for error, generally stress levels are higher, etc. I honestly think you would hate it tbh, you sound like a chill dude tho. 

 

Yeah I feel you. I can’t really tell if I just didn’t care in IB or if I genuinely didn’t like the work / was bad at it. Definitely feel like PE probably isn’t the best path for me though, but for some reason I keep convincing myself it wouldn’t be that hard to learn.

 
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If you can't do IB you're going to get chewed up and spit out in PE if you land anywhere other than the chillest of boutique LMM bucket shops outside T1/2 locales. Modeling and accounting knowledge is table stakes. They're the bare minimum for doing the job and you'll be hard pressed to even get an execution seat if it's a weak point (particularly given you have bad reviews from your current gig). Even if you did somehow manage to scrape through with great behaviorals that impressed the right people, if you didn't improve rapidly within the first few months on the desk you'd be dismissed from most places pretty quickly because there's no shortage of otherwise viable candidates. Being likeable will only get you so far, your colleagues will not want to carry the load just because you can't figure it out. If IB isn't for you (as in the job is too hard, not that you just don't like the environment/would prefer to be an investing seat), PE DEFINITLY isn't because it's just IB 2.0 at 90%+ of places.

I'm not sure how you can "like the idea of being on the buyside" if you're self-admittedly bad at one of the more fundamental parts of most buyside jobs, which is analysis. Is there something they do that you think you would be good at that could offset weak financial analysis skills? Or do you just like the idea of being paid more (not always), having better hours (not always), or more perceived prestige (not always)? If you don't think it's that hard to learn modeling/accounting then why wouldn't you have done that before starting your current job and instead allowed it to go on for 2 years to the point your manager(s) to have expressly told you it's a weak point and given you negative reviews that will now inevitably follow you if you ever ask for a reference? You're right in your comment above, it's not really hard to learn, which is why it's concerning that you DON'T know it. You're a 2nd year analyst man c'mon. 

If you're a great hang, that's awesome man. Maybe try BD. When I started out in PE I was BD-focused because my modeling skills were pretty weak compared to guys coming from banking and I was a team sports/party bro in college so frankly my strongest skills were in socializing/managing relationships. But I wanted the better pay and more than just sourcing chops, so I passed on bar crawls with friends through the first few months of my ASO stint to practice with multiple modeling courses/guides till I could demonstrate to my MD that I was competent enough to be trusted across both BD and execution workstreams.  But I already had straight As from all my accounting & finance coursework and understood all the concepts, I just didn't have excel skills because frankly I hadn't needed them to be particularly sharp in my previous job which had also been BD-heavy. And if you can't even manage powerpoint... I'm not exactly sure what you could really bring the table because "good hang" isn't a resume builder. 

Loan origination, wealth management, private banking, etc. There's a lot of other options that are still good finance jobs that put much more emphasis on relationship building/management than depth of analysis. Maybe look into those and see if one strikes you as a good fit, because I know guys making low-mid 6 figs in all of them who rarely if ever have open anything from MSFT suite other than Outlook and occasionally Word (mostly to redline agreements). But given what you've shared, most traditional asset management/PE/HF roles are just not on the table for you unless you build those other skillsets. 

"If you don't have any enemies in life you have never stood up for anything" - Winston Churchill | "It's a testament to the sheer belligerence of the profession that people would rather argue about the 'risk-adjusted returns' of using inferior tooth cleaning methods." - kellycriterion
 

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