I’m currently starting my second year at a mm buyout group after spending three years as an analyst in ib. Although I enjoy my current team and the work itself, I’m beginning to feel a bit burnt out / less productive compared to when I first started.
For anyone who has experienced this around this time, how did you get through this slump
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That is pretty common in general, especially IB and PE. Very few people in the industry just stumble into these career paths and a lot of planning goes into it and excitement is stemming from "making it". It's pretty reasonable to assume that when you first start your dream job that you would want to make sure everything is perfect, so you go above and beyond and few errors because of the countless times you look over materials. Over time it's natural to have that initial excitement wear off and start to feel like burnout. Think of your career like a long term romantic relationship...it's exciting and fresh and you want to make sure its great at the beginning but years and years later you don't have that same feeling as when it first started and you need to reevaluate if you still want to be there and if you do, then you need to work on how to keep the job exciting and interesting.
After the first few years I spent in PE I had a similar feeling, but I got through it realizing what was happening and started to create new goals like closing so many deals a year / getting more creative in how I was viewing deals (not every shop is more entrepreneurial in how they view their deals, so I was lucky in this regard). If this feeling lingers or you just realize that you don't feel strongly enough about the industry to make it work, then you could look at Corp Dev jobs to shift away from work related self-value and explore what else life has to offer and cure the burnout that way.
I feel like one of the only IB guys that did just stumble into it. Went to a target, no real idea on what I wanted to do for work, resume dropped on everywhere that did on cycle recruiting, got a job at a BB with zero networking and minimum effort. I’ve always been the type of kid that does what he’s told and doesn’t need to study for tests until the last minute, so the summer analyst gig was pretty easy. Plus it was remote, I was an intern, didn’t really know what I was getting to. Now over a year in, been fucking worked to the bone, and never even wanted to do this shit.
Truthfully, very few people go into IB genuinely wanting to have their full career there. It's why so many people leave after only 1-2 years. If you really dislike the business model and the work you're doing then you have plenty of opportunities to switch careers. You can look to be an investor in VC/PE, you can slow down your work life and go into Corp Dev for 40 hour weeks at 100k salary, or even FP&A if you want to leave the transactional finance world. No one will judge you for burning out in IB, because a vast majority end up burning out in IB. Just work out what you'd want to do next before leaving the IB role (and hopefully get your bonus too if you can).
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