Career / Life Crossroads
Current 2nd year PE associate at a MM firm in a T1 city. I’ve been in a bit of a slump personally / professionally and am trying to figure out what I should do next.
I’ve been at the firm for 4 years now and have generally enjoyed it. WLB and comp have been good for the most part, I’m generally well liked across the senior team and I have a clear path to VP (no SA title). The firm has been doing ok as well and I’m not particularly worried about it imploding anytime soon.
That said, I didn’t go to a good undergrad and don’t have the strongest social life or professional network. I'm at a point where I want to make a change and ideally improve both of those things. The main options I see are:
- MBA: Could help with social life and expanding my professional network but would mean leaving a firm I’m pretty happy at and where I have good upward mobility. Getting back into PE post MBA could also be difficult and I’d be giving up several years of comp
- Move upmarket: A lot of people in my associate class have been moving to MFs like Apollo / CD&R. This has never appealed to me that much given that I genuinely like my current firm, but moving upmarket could help with the name brand and potentially open up more doors down the road
- Stay at my current firm: Focus on building more of a social life and professional network through hobbies and more deliberate networking while continuing to perform well and move up at my current firm. Obviously easier said than done
Would be interested in how others would think about this and whether there are other paths I should be considering.
