Effort in Lame Duck Portion of Banking Stint

I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this. I have about a little under a year like many others to go to PE. I was fortunate to get my job about a month after I started on-cycle. Curious to hear how other PE associates / more senior people think about this sort of thing. I am not posting in the IB forum because there is an influx of career banking hardos that this post would not go over well with.

I'm starting to get a little tired of my job. I came from a finance background so my learning curve was not quite as steep as others, I had pretty good modeling experience beforehand (especially around the interesting part of modeling like operating models, etc.) but find that the mundane part of banking (formatting nits, focusing on how something looks vs what matters, dealing with the personalities) is getting to be a bit tedious. I'm far from disliking everyone I work with, I think I generally have had a decent gig (it could've been a lot worse, I've never had a VP tell me not to eat lunch, etc.) I know PE may be like that in some ways but I've heard while it's stressful in its own way you are doing a lot more thinking which excites me. The hours never bothered me in banking as much as the baseless egos (that VP or Director who thinks a bit too highly of themself or how technically competent they are, to the extent they try to brag about it). I also had a brutal summer (moreso than others in my group) due to a a big gap between when the second years left and when the new analysts started and having been on too many live projects at once that I wasn't able to turn down and get off of due to the way staffing works for us.

With the vent sesh out of the way, would it be bad to sort of like take a chill pill for the next 6 months? I've done a few deals (both sell-side and buy-side), a few capital raises, and have done a number of pitches so I feel like I've gotten the banking experience. I still get excited about some projects where the team is a lot more creative about structure/financing because I feel like I'm learning something new but the majority of the work is pretty annoying.  If I sort of took a back seat and potentially get notched down to middle bucket is that a big deal? Maybe a few associates and VPs will remember me as a mediocre analyst but lifes too short to worry about those things, I think, maybe I'll come to regret that. Would love others perspectives here from both the people who are gung ho about banking and hoepfully a few people who did something like the above and how it impacted them when they started at their PE firm. My logic here is if I'm going to grind for at least two years as an associte maybe longer if I am given the opportunity and there is a mutual fit, maybe taking the next six months and focusing on myself is worth the minor hit to my bonus.

For context, I'm currently in an M&A group at a top EB / BB and have an exit to a large-AUM ($20bn+) LBO PE firm.

 

You are in a fortunate position - great to be in M&A at a BB, with a certainty of going to a major LBO firm. 

I completely understand that you might feel burned out. However, in my opinion, you should stay away from the chill pill. Elevate your game. Make a mark. Your colleagues today are your references for the rest of your career. Even if you do not include them explicitly as your referees, they will be commenting on you behind the scenes as your off-the-list references. Especially if you are in a BB

 

For what it's worth, I wanted to do the same and was put in a position where I couldn't (worked on a large, complex carve-out for the last six months of my stint). Turns out that really helped set expectations coming into the PE job: I was given a certain staffing right out of the gate in my new job, where they referenced my good performance on the carve-out (I assume they called people at my bank for performance reviews) as the reason for my being put on the staffing. For context I work at a firm similar to yours in size. 

 

It's tempting, but I would keep your foot on the gas until the last few months.  At that point, pretty low likelihood of getting staffed on something where you're expected to have large ownership. 

Finance is a small world and there's a chance senior folks at your new firm cross paths with former colleagues - goes a long way to hear "XYZ was a rock star analyst".   

 

I would suggest trying to take a bit of a step back to the extent you can - focus on trying to angle your staffings to any areas you might not be as strong on, but avoid the shitty one week sprint pitch that won’t actually leave you with any material incremental knowledge. Also during this time I would suggest trying to take the GMAT if b school is at all a consideration / potential route, which based on the fund size you’re going towards will be more likely than not I would think

 

I think there's a range of attitude that you can take, some of which will leave a bad taste. I would really not advice you to "not give a fuck" or to significantly take your foot of the gas. Not sure exactly how your PE offer is worded, but it is often contingent on the satisfactory completion of your banking analyst program (or similar wording). With recruitment coming in earlier and earlier, it's been a growing concerns (at least at my firm) that we are giving offer before the candidates have had any chances of proving themselves in a professional environment. As a result, we've been doing some soft checks into the work product of our incoming associates sometimes in their 2nd year. A drastic change in attitude / end product would be noted and lead to a a pretty uncomfortable conversation at the very least. 

That being said, having secured an offer does give a bit more weight to push back when too many projects land on your plate. Especially if you are good, there's tendency to overstaff analysts and knowing that you're going to be gone soon, senior bankers really don't care about burning you out. Bank and group dependent, but I think you'd be surprised how well speaking up and pushing back can be received if done the right way. A lot of analysts internalize that speaking up is terrible and you have to accept everything that comes your way, but actually being able to set boundaries and manage expectations is really crucial. 

 

Totally agreed that not giving a fuck is a bad idea. I guess I'm in a position now where I do pretty good work (at least I think so), but what's an appropriate level of push back. I know you can't really say without being in my shoes exactly, however, what's a good framework to think about it. I certainly don't want to be seen as bad when I leave but I'm also tired of putting up with the new post-MBA associates etc. 

 
Most Helpful

Let's start with the fresh MBA associates, those are the easiest. You can pushback quite a bit with these guys, especially now that you work from home. When they're spinning their wheels and having you tweak useless analyses just for the sake of it, tell them politely that you don't think there's any value in doing it and you have other priority. Feel free to escalate if they are being completely useless. With late-night comments, I think it's fine past say 11 to ignore until the next morning unless you are on a live deal and it absolutely need to be done by the morning. When your staffer comes to you with new work and your plate is full (or kinda full), you can be upfront about it and tell them you cannot take on more and produce quality work. Or be more upfront about the kind of work / project you want to be involved on. Honestly, as long as you produce quality work and keep your word (ie. are seen as trustworthy), you have more leeway than you think. For example, another dude that was in my analyst class tended to come in kinda late on Fridays (11ish) when he would go out hard on Thursday and he'd often dress a bit more casually than the rest of the office on Friday (ie. wear black jeans). The guy was a great analyst and did super good work and seniors actually respected him for demanding to be treated like and adult and being willing to stand out. He was top bucket every year. He's moved up the rank and if it all goes well should make MD next year. 

I know it may shock you, but senior bankers (and by senior, I mean VP and above) generally don't have a good handle on how the workload is divided across the junior ranks. 

 

You are allowed to say no sometimes, especially when your plate is already full with legitimate work. Frame it as wanting to deliver A+ work on every project...tell your staffer that you'd love to take on that extra pitch, but you're already in the red zone as is and you'd rather concentrate on what you already have. Make sure you're doing enough that it looks credible. You just don't have to jump on every single assignment like you did in the beginning. If you have good working relationships with seniors already, you may be able to self-staff to an extent so you are working more on things you find interesting and less on random crap.

Your focus should be on leaving the firm with the best possible reputation you can leave behind. Optics are the most important thing at this stage - don't fall into the trap of thinking that you're "done" just because you got an offer, but remember that hours are not the only factor.

 

Think there are a lot of helpful comments on here already, but would generally agree with others and advise not to completely give up. For what it's worth, I also received my PE offer about a month into my job and had these thoughts as well, but at the end of the day it felt pretty nice going into my PE gig knowing I had earned a top bucket bonus and that my team thought highly of me and appreciated my two years. Especially with finance being such a small world, I think those relationships really can benefit you in the long run if you manage them well. Not saying you need be a total try-hard and go above and beyond by any means, but I think keeping a good attitude about what you're asked to do and producing high-quality work can really go a long way. And assuming you have a bit of time in between your banking and PE stint, then you can completely log off and not give any fcks whatsoever and feel good about it because you put in a solid two years. Having been in PE for a few months now, it's definitely different than IB but still shares a lot of similar skills, and while banking was pretty tough through all two years for me, I'm pretty grateful for that experience because I feel like it set me up to be a strong associate off the bat when I started here. I personally feel like banking provides a crucial foundation for success in PE, so I would recommend not completely writing off your second year if you can.

 

Yeah, don't exit leaving a bad taste in people's mouth by being too hands off. As people have suggested above, you may have more leverage to push back upwards but I really think it would behoove you for the most part to continue working as if you hadn't got this next role. This is truly a small world and you don't want any kind of word which is non-chalantly said by an MD or VP which could tarnish your reputation at your next gig

 

i've seen some extreme stuff man. there was one dude that would come back to the office really drunk wearing an undershirt and cursing at other directors. didn't have much respect for him but it was kind of funny looking back

i would say probably put in a reasonable amount of effort (you are the budget judge) but put your foot down if you're being unreasonably asked to go full retard on a meaningless project

maybe your staffer will catch on and just put you on pitches for the last few months too

 

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