Burned Out - Quitting w/o an offer?
Currently burned out in PE and ready to jump ship. Been at my fund for about 3 years and think it's pretty unlikely I'll make it through to bonuses, so I'm seriously considering resigning asap. Conventional wisdom regarding any job is that you should have another offer lined up prior to leaving, but candidly I'm tired of the late nights and endless iterations of IC materials, and I don't have much interest in starting work immediately at another fund/bank in the industry.
From reading other threads on here, it seems like the usual advice is to try to collect as many paychecks as you can, push back on work, and stay employed for as long as possible until you set something else up. However, I feel that I'm at a small enough shop where pushback is easily recognized as BS, and any additional pushback beyond what I'm already doing (i.e., unresponsive to emails past 8pm/weekends, careless work, pushing deadlines, etc.) could end up getting me fired. For additional context on the situation, I have about $200k in savings and more than enough to cover a very frugal lifestyle. Frankly I'm less concerned about paying the bills, and more concerned with the optics of a large gap in my resume if I can't/don't want to find another finance job immediately.
With all that in mind, does anyone have advice on how to navigate an abrupt exit from PE with no plan about next steps? Is it better to leave somewhat gracefully on your own terms, or continue to tread the fine line of getting fired because your work quality suffers significantly while job hunting/progressively burning out further? Curious to hear other users' experience with managing that transition, especially in the private equity world where there's less bureaucracy and seniors have more visibility into the day to day workloads of the associates.
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
You already know what to do fam. Just leave and find yourself. Nothing is worth more than your health
I left a job without anything lined up as I was severely burnt out - I was fortunate enough to have a strong set of references from a past role to advocate for me / counter any red flags from the gap on my resume.
If you need to do it, do it, but make sure you go in eyes wide open and with a good plan to back it (can you count on colleagues that will still serve as references, do you have a contingency plan if recruiting takes longer, does your story check out with recruiters, etc.). I would highly suggest treading the line of getting fired and milking your current gig as long as you can. It's hard to get in that mindset if you've been a type A person your whole life, but far easier / less stress in terms of choosing a next gig. Recruiting from a place of desperation can cloud your judgement and you want to land at spot you'll be happier with.
Been there mentally. I'm sorry you feel this way. If you look through this forum, you'll see many are feeling the same or have been there. Have followed this forum for years and anecdotally think the volume of burnout and mental health crises posts has DRAMATICALLY gone up over the past 2 years with this pandemic period.
I know it seems impossible, but consider trying to line up the next job and negotiating some space in between. That is probably optimal. Try therapy to help keep you sane while you recruit.
If that still feels impossible, also consider going to your firm and working out the exit a bit. "Hey - I've come to recognize that this really isn't for me and it is time for me to pursue another opportunity. However, professionally I would never want to leave you in a lurch and so how about we work out a mutually agreeable period where I roll off my projects, I'm allowed to recruit with good recs, and you get time to backfill my role." Might be able to salvage your bonus or at least your rep / not burn bridge. Some risk to that approach too for sure - so definitely think it through, only you know your firm, not us - but I think that would lead to a better outcome for both parties than you quitting outright.
Best of luck.
If you're not looking to go back into PE, quitting without an offer is a lot less risky than it sounds. Seriously, most places you might be looking to exit to (startups, corp dev, corp fin, etc.) won't care if you spent 3-6 months without a job. In fact, if you spent that time doing something cool (backpacking around the world, learning to surf in Hawaii, shit like that), interviewers would probably just be jealous. Most of them probably wish they had done something like that themselves.
Remember that with $200k in the bank you are in a better financial position than 99% of people in their mid-20s. You can afford to take a few months to figure things out and do your own thing.
Feel free to DM me. I know a few people who have been in your position and done this.
Honestly- there is a very easy way around the "gap in resume" part. Pay $24 for a website domain and make a landing page. Think of a name for a firm (e.g. "Happy Street Capital") and voilá, you're now officially a search fund. Don't know what that is? Highly recommend looking it up, lots of guys leave PE to do it- effectively you try to find a company to buy and operate yourself. Typically guys take out an SBA loan to make the acquisition.Now you can take the time off you need and when you're ready to go back to work you say: "I wanted to try to find a company to buy and operate, had a lot of interesting conversations, but ultimately valuations were too high". You also have a website you can point to (just has to be a landing page with a few sentences eg "Happy Street Capital is focused on acquiring a single small business in North America in XYZ Sector"). I know a lot of search fund guys (former PE) DM me to chat more if you want. Shows you did something interesting and entrepreneurial