Burnt out after 1.5 years in GE / PE...what do I do next?
Looking for some advice from folks who’ve been in or around this situation.
I’ve been in a growth equity / PE role for ~1.5 years (joined directly from undergrad, no IB background). I like the core investing work - market research, sourcing ideas, business model analysis, financial modeling, etc. That's the part I'm good at.
The outbound sourcing is the part I struggle with. At this point, ~80-90% of my time is spent cold calling, cold emailing, cold LinkedIn messaging founders who mostly don’t want to talk. Weekly we get ranked on outreach numbers (calls, emails, connects) and anyone below quota gets called out in our team meeting. I get that sourcing is a big part of junior roles in GE/PE, but it feels like pure sales with no real exposure to execution (have had no formal training or opportunities to learn how to model, which I need to learn given no IB background).
I’ve had strong reviews and great relationships with senior people. They want me to succeed and have said they see a long-term future for me here. But the day-to-day is burning me out, and I honestly don’t think I can do this much longer.
I thought I'd spend my whole career here (naive, I know), so I’m having a tough time trying to figure out what’s next. Ideally something where I can leverage my research, modeling (still developing on my own time), and analytical skills - but with less outbound sales. I’ve thought about buy-side equity research, execution-focused PE (less outbound sourcing), corporate strategy or corp dev, maybe even lateraling into a more traditional investing role?
Comp is currently ~$150K all in - would like to stay around $120K+ if possible. I’m fine working long hours, just want the work to be more research/execution-driven.
Would really appreciate any advice...thanks in advance.
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