How do I negotiate time off between banking and PE?
Curious if anyone has done this. Between COVID killing my college experience and opportunity to safely travel and banking just killing all my time I would love to figure out a way to negotiate 6 months to 1 year before transitioning into PE.
Has anyone done this? I really don’t see what the downside could possibly be. Sure you be leaving a year of comp on the table but it would be worth it imo.
One argument against this is that 6mo - a year is a long time to not be working. You’ll be so far removed from your banking work that you will need to re-learn lots of the things you were doing just 6 months prior, or you’ll just be a lot slower.
6 months is a lot and you may even get bored - 2-3 months would probably be sufficient for you to travel wherever you want.
Agreed I think 6 months is actually a stretch now that I think about it. 2 to 3 would be perfect so I’ll shoot for that.
This won't be doable at a reputable UMM/MF. They want you to come in ready.
6 months is probably a stretch but I’ve seen 3-4 months as pretty common. Just quit your banking job a few months early and take the summer off, no one will know or care
I mean if you don’t care about the bonus go for it but I’m not sure if the 6 months is worth the $140k in comp
$140k? Lol I work at Barclays
80k bonus + (125k base / 2) = 140k of foregone comp
Don’t understand how I would be leaving my bonus on the table. They get paid out in August so obviously I would set up a start date for after that.
Oh sorry, a few people at my firm left IB early - was thinking bout that
6 months to 1 year is likely not going to be approved, you'd be out for so long you'd have to re-learn stuff and firms would view you as a flight risk / you might never come back. I really wouldn't even try to negotiate for that, it's a red flag
If you don't care about the bonus, leave banking early and push your PE start as far out as possible. Could squeeze 4 months out which is plenty of time to recover from banking and get bored / mentally ready for PE
Why exactly would I be leaving my bonus on the table? They get paid out in August and I would ideally want to start in January.
Most funds are not going to let you start in January. It leaves them down an associate for 6 months, you won't be ready to go when you start, and you're practically into the next recruiting class. You can ask if you want but I wouldn't.
The typical analyst leaves early June and still gets bonus paid in August. Some banks will let you use all of your vacation days at the end, worth asking your staffer, that buys you an extra two weeks too. You could start in mid-late August, that's a solid 3 months off. If you want longer you'd be leaving banking earlier hence no bonus
I'm planning to just quit my job with nothing lined up and travel. During that break i may apply for jobs across countries
At what point have you accumulated enough prestige and business acumen to be able to just quit your job and not worry about having a gap on your resume effect future positions, assuming you keep up with some level of self study?
not sure maybe at least 2 - 3 years? i myself have only done ~2 years IB (worked at non IB role before for another 2 years) but i'm fairly confident i can land something again if unemployed for 6 months. The demand for bankers are strong and not many people want to do banking these days. I don't hope to get back into banking but I see it as a fallback
There's two levers here - leave banking early or start PE late. The latter is very difficult, particularly at a fund hiring a class of multiple associates, as they typically want everyone to start together and go through training in a single batch. A straggler who wants to start late strictly for travel reasons is pretty unpalatable when first impressions count, and you're bottom of the totem pole at the firm.
If you can figure out a way to leave banking a tad early, go for it, but agree there may be monetary trade-offs. Plus, the PE firm is hiring you with the expectation that you're completing your banking program, so it's not wise to shave off more than 1-2 months. I'd fully be ready for the small talk question "when did you finish banking?," and if the gap is surprisingly long, it might ruffle some feathers (bit disingenuous, rusty, etc.).
Got it. So I’m a bit older the typical analyst and will be getting married this year. What if I tactically plan my wedding to be shortly after my banking stint and leverage that to get a later start date at my PE firm?
Came into this thread thinking you'd be asking for 2-3 months off. I have never personally met anybody that was able to take 6+ months off, unless they left banking early - if you go down this route, make sure your new PE firm is ok w/ it. I haven't seen anybody able to defer a full year period, but then again some of this may be selection bias.
I mean this gently. You are getting a lot of feedback that this won't work along with a range of reasons as to why, yet you keep looking for some magic answer that will spring you out of this dilemma.
There isn't one. Putting your wedding after your banking stint is only going to consume a portion of the total time your next employer will give you before your start date, not extend that start date further into the future.
For better or worse, firms want their associate class to start at fairly the same time. Training or onboarding programs require time and attention from other staff. All the basic "how are things done here" questions get asked and answered over the same period. Deal activity can ramp more smoothly. (Think about the fact that the associate program revolves around the summer, aka the dead period in the industry. Juniors conveniently leave when seniors generally vacation. New juniors conveniently begin just before or right when vacation is over.)
You're asking if it's possible to get a group of the more inflexibly-minded, dogmatic people you might meet to accommodate your unique desires when there's a surplus of qualified candidates to fill a seat that's in strong demand.
The tried-and-true way to achieve a moderate break between jobs is to leave banking early. You can do this by leaving early enough that you forgo your bonus (analysts at banks that (a) did stub bonuses and then brought the analyst class onto the year-end cycle with all other employees or (b) were notorious for underpaying relative to street did this more frequently) or by hoarding your vacation days and taking them consecutively at the end of your contract.
It sucks. It's also the nature of the beast.
Congratulations on your pending nuptials, I hope you get the chance to unwind with your partner and start the next chapter of your relationship well.
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