What to do if you don’t like modeling...

Worked in IB for 2 years, now on the buyside in a more strategic investing role but have realized that I just hate modeling. It’s not interesting to me, I find it tedious and I’m not spectacular at it either because I just don’t have the drive to put in the time to learn in my free time. Honestly just barely get by. But majority of my value at this level is from my ability to model and be analytical about finance ... Anyone else experience this? Any advice?

2 Comments
 

Well, what do you want to do? Which aspects of the job appeal to you (beyond the paycheck)?

If you want to work in the investing world, your options are:

1) Suck it up. You’ve made it to the buyside - senior roles here are more about relationships and thought processes than modeling, so if you’re good at those you can start moving away from modeling once you reach VP (or equivalent)

2) Move to a more qualitative role - business development, maybe VC/growth equity (still going to require some analytical ability), maybe IR if you really want to step back

3) Move to an asset allocator. You’ll be able to focus on more qualitative factors (asset classes/sectors/managers that you want to allocate to)

 

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