What Was Your Biggest Career Setback; How Did You Recover?
'In the long run, everyone gets what they deserve'
I had two friends who were partner track at UMM PE-Fund and an MBB firm just before COVID who essentially got pushed out/forced to leave due to circumstances outside of their control.
A year later, it's been interesting to see how they've re-established their careers. One has struggled, though given his/her temperament and work ethic I know they will end up just fine in 3-4 years.
We always talk about success and "breaking in...", but rarely talk about what happens when things don't go your way.
For members here 10+ years into their career, who have been around long enough to have taken their lumps, I'm curious to hear...
a) What the (rough) story behind your biggest career setback? How did you handle it?
b) Reflecting on it now, what advice would you give to younger members who may be in a similar situation? What did it make you value that you had not realized up until that point?
I only have 8 YOE and am not in PE but I’ve been through a major setback so I thought I’d share. I’m in tech and about 3 years into my career I experienced a major bout of depression. It’s something I’d never experienced and quite frankly scared the shit out of me. I couldn’t focus at work, didn’t want to be around friends, and became so distant from my gf that the relationship ended. Like many of you here, I’d spent a lifetime hyper focused on achievement and it felt like it was all going to come crashing down.
Some friends had joined a startup and seemed very happy. I decided prioritize my immediate happiness and took a job at the startup to solve fun problems with people I enjoy rather than going to a prestigious unicorn. Lucky for me, my startup became a prestigious unicorn then went public earlier this year. I won’t share figures but it’s enough of a cushion that I can continue working on fun problems with people I enjoy and never have to worry again.
The biggest lesson for me was to try to turn my setbacks into action immediately.
Am only mid-20s, but the biggest career setback BY FAR was not informing myself about investment banking in university. Might have given me the motivation to pursue better grades instead of running after the delusion of opening up a hedge fund myself...
Oh yeah, and not choosing a target school for UG, of course, although I could have.
Same. Wish I could tell my younger self to get into a good college and then worry less about being fucked up all the time and a little more on good grades and getting a good job out of undergrad. Took me a while to find my path - will definitely tell my future children about this.
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Young director in banking at a large bank laid off right before COVID and my bonus. Was part of an underperforming group with junior staff quitting and not being replaced due to budgetary concerns. Was essentially turned into an analyst supporting a MD and having to put my own business development efforts on hold. Easily churning out 80+ hour weeks and regular weekend work, mostly on pitches, while recognizing a lot of the work was a big waste of time and would never generate any revenue. However, I continued to power through thinking more junior support was on the way only to eventually be shown the door. Spent almost a year unemployed reaching out to industry contacts, dealing with hiring freezes, getting ghosted by small banks I previously would’ve never even thought of contacting. I even received a rejection letter from a Big 4 firm on Christmas Day. Actually had to laugh about this because it was so outrageous. After countless rejections, I was finally brought on by a smaller bank to not only open an office for them but also oversee my sector at the firm.
Lessons learned:
1.) As others have mentioned, there is zero loyalty in this industry, especially at the larger banks. You may think you are the ultimate team player, working nonstop, sacrificing vacations, churning out work that you have no business handling and in the end it means nothing.
2.) If you recognize issues with your current group, either address them head on early with your team or start looking to lateral immediately. If things don’t improve quickly; leave. Don’t stick around thinking things will eventually improve (even if higher ups say they will) because they most likely won’t.
3.) Firm prestige means nothing in the long run. It may open up some more doors early on but you should really focus more attention on the team, making sure that you actually like and respect the people you are killing yourself for. Plus, girls don’t care what firm you work at.
4.) Don’t ever give up. I could’ve easily jumped off a bridge getting a Christmas Day rejection letter, but instead I laughed about it and kept pushing on. This type of experience will definitely challenge your confidence but ultimately hard work and perseverance will pay off and you will come out of it stronger and better than ever before.
I left an investment banking rotational program to jump in to PE. Huge mistake. Should’ve tried to find a way to make my rotations through PE and equity research at the bank work better. I have not recovered from that mistake even 15 years on.
I'm slightly underneath the age cutoff, and I haven't been treated poorly yet at work or had to deal with super-tough circumstances, but I was essentially ushered out of my first job for underwhelming performance. Haven't told anyone besides my parents, but it was a huge blow to my confidence at the time.
It was a standard X year program after grad, and I was so focused on exit options that I essentially sabotaged myself/my work and made myself so anxious it was impossible to perform.
A lot of younger folks I speak with are incredibly impatient, and remind me of myself back then - they want the megafund job in PE now, a job at a top VC firm, or a corp strat role at a sexy company. They want to have an answer for their career path in that instance.
I wish I knew how long careers actually are - my old boss is now 70+ years old, spry as a bird, and CEO of rapidly growing new company he and his friends founded. It's so easy to lose sight of the fact that very few careers are straight up and to the right. Many of the most successful folks that I admire took non-traditional paths and found success in their 40s after multiple adventures and/or failures.
Lastly, there are ALWAYS better exit opps and there are ALWAYS people who are doing better than you. I could have avoided my greatest setback by focusing on my work at the time and being grateful for what I had. It wasn't a great fit for my skills/strengths, but I wish I could have been a bit more patient and present.
Alcoholism / Rehab.
Several years into my career I was working at at and up and coming alternatives firm and performing well when my drinking really started becoming unmanageable. The firm sent me away to a wonderful treatment facility on their dime but my dumbass didn’t take it as seriously as I should have. A year later I was back to my old shady behavior and ultimately let go.
I spent the next year hanging out in church basements and walking dogs around NYC to pay rent before I was gainfully employed again. It was two years before I was back in a seat similar to what I was doing before my misadventures. Part of me still gets frustrated when I see my peers landing promotions and other opportunities that would have been available to me had I kept my act together but over time those feelings have become background noise and I’ve more or less come to terms with where I’m at.
The experience was humbling, and frankly I needed it. I have a lot more gratitude in my life now than I ever did previously. As others have pointed out, your career, and your life, is marathon not a sprint. There isn’t any place you’re “supposed” to be by 25, 30, or any age, other than where you are. Also, a few years over the course of a 30-40 year career is a rounding error so don’t sweat it too much.
25+ years. God, where the hell did it all go?
I'll share some pearls of wisdom and some stories. Some might be repeat advice, but...get off my lawn!!!
Family first. Wife in ICU. Boss peppering my blackberry (Yes. A Blackberry) with 15 emails why the calls have not been setup. He knows where I am. Proceeds to tell me," Well she wont be awake ALL the time, and since you have all that EXTRA time..."
Being young and stupid and scared, I caved...badly.
Fast forward 2 months. 80 hour weeks. We lose the deal, get blamed for not giving 100% "for the cause" and got canned.
Wife just out of ICU, two other kids, mortgage, car, medication. Digging through couch cushions, AGAIN, for Ramen noodle money? Oh shit.
Went to bar. Got loaded like Prom night with an ugly date and free Scotch. Feeling sorry for myself.
Stagger home and told the wife. Looks at me up and down and snarls in her loud Jersey accent, "Ya hated that job anyway. I wouldnt piss on that asshole if he was on fire. Now get off your drunk ass, start that god damn business you always wanted to do. Meatloaf in the oven. Love you."
Its been tough. Had to back burner the business at times and take other jobs. We finally are turning the corner after 7 YEARS of hard work.
Other friends have RETIRED. Others bought BTC at 300, when I had no extra money to spare. Others own refineries. Others run F100 companies.
I own a wife, 5 kids, 2 dogs, a reasonable mortgage in a third tier city.
I also have a chance to make a difference in real peoples lives, create hundreds of jobs and help them make the world a better place.
...oh and the eight figure payday won't hurt either if things happen to work out.
Life is way to short to let a firing or two get you down. Envy is a deadly sin for a reason. The Jones' are not real people. The clock runs our on all of us, make your time count.
Working in the pits as a young dude teaches you a lot about patience. The job changes most men for the worse. Get me coffee. Pick up my dry cleaning. One boss threw coffee on me after a trade error he made. Flipped out 3 hundreds and said...go get a new suit too. Day ended, he reached out, looked me square in the eye, shook my hand and said sorry. Then we got absolutely hammered. The ICU boss? It was the LAST time, I ever backed down. He was not worth going to jail over.
Triplets, dude. Triplets.
Biggest career setback started in high school when I cared more about skateboarding and playing guitar then doing homework, graduated with a 2.1 GPA, didn't go to college but joined the Army instead. Got out of the Army and as a result of my low high school GPA years before I could only get into a giant Flyover State University school. Studied English of all things because I wanted to go to law school only to determine I didn't actually want to go to law school and ended up as a 30 year old English major from a no-name school working in a community bank doing retail banking dreaming of going back in time to do it all over again.
At least I got into a good grad school program from a top school so crossing my fingers that it all works out in the end, but there is no way I'll ever be an investment banker, so I just lurk this site to daydream and feel sad instead
Your 30, not 70. It is still possible to achieve whatever it is you want to do - Including IB. If you attack every day with a relentless work ethic and keep developing professionally, I think you might surprise yourself at just what you’re able to achieve.
Heads up my friend.
Great thread...guess I will add what I can.
I was on the partner track / MD track whatever you want to call it on a firm out of school similar to your buddy OP. My performance exceeded expectations where I was then asked to move to another team and apart of the culture change. I knew my personality did not match the leaders of the firm and was already interviewing for exits elsewhere but stayed on since the people "I trusted" supported me. As part of the change I demanded a retention since still lacked trust. Fast forward a year, my mentor lost all political wars at the "c-suite" level and everyone he knew was a target, add to it that my personality never matched.
The moment I arrived in the new team everyone collectively worked to push me out. Naive young me, thought this is great new place, new changes, exciting to build new business. In reality everyone was trying to find ways to explode my performance, collect emails, pressure me and mentally break me down. It all came directly ahead 6 months later when someone reached out to HR and HR effed me. My mentor was forced to give me a warning letter, and basically they were aiming to do same thing to him as well. My former boss was pushed out and sent to another firm cause he saw painting on the wall. Since I got my warning letter I knew it was all over and started to not speak to anyone for the next year, cancelled all social events, never went for lunch, never mentored anyone or cared. Even though my team performed and turned around and grew the business I got quite possibly the bonus I got my 2nd year out of school a complete insult, juniors with 3 years experience got paid more than I did the next 2 following bonus cycles. Ended up doing 50% of my previous efforts and still helping the team make their goals that next year while off everyone's radars so HR did not end up having enough to take me out and pull my retentions. When the firm decided they want to "re-org" again put up my hand up went to my mentor and said "I want my retention in full and XYZ and I am gone...Typically the people who put up their hands are those there 15 years plus not 7-8 years. Made HR put everything in writing got a lawyer to sign off on everything and said eff you all and left with my retentions which qualified me to be top bucket overall that final year even though my annual bonus was super low. Those 12 months was beyond stressful, thank god for ps4 since I had to be super careful at work all day stressed, keeping logs...could never socialize with anyone at work.
Recovery: I took 8 months off searched everything (various diff funds/styles/payous), dealt with some personal issues. Ended up landing with a buddy who I always wanted to work with at a better shop, with a way better direct payout structure. Ended up having one of my top career years and ended up switching to run my own team somewhere else a year layer and just had the best (18 months of my career). Oh and btw my mentor...he got pushed out 2 months after me, took us a long time to rebuild trust and our relationship. Others I "trusted" or knew them for years are dead to me now. My mentor landed at a top competitor to shop A, brought him on 4 months after and he just had beyond his "career of career years" ever and is set to retire in 2-3 years now. I joke with him at times he should send a thank you letter to those who got him canned from the "c-suite" path at shop A.
Learnings:
1) Do not trust anyone at all in this industry unless they are blood. Loyalty while so important everyone has to put their blood/family before you at some point. When they do or at least justify in their minds people will become really awful.
2) If you "go for the king, KILL the king". Our mistake was not getting rid of the bad apples when my mentor/bosses got their chance at a higher level. The people who they kept and hoped to cordially work with, ended up conspiring to come at everyone not on performance but personal levels.
3) Try to have a mentor/someone outside your current firm you can go to with career forks/tough situations. This was my biggest problem once I lost all trust I had no one from the outside who could guide me. Just former collegaues or industry friends who were like "shit sorry man...thats awful".
4) If you have to work somewhere to change your personality/style it is not the place for you longterm. If your work quality is good and you killing it and "group dynamics" and "politics" is what worries you try to exit asap. You will find someone who appreciates you and your style out there.
26 years into my career. Only two "regrets":
1) I was an Army Officer with a great career. 6 years in I decided to get off active duty 2 months before 9/11 because I was not in a unit I liked (misaligned mission, non-deployable). 9/11 hits and my unit is in Afghanistan 2 months later. I would have been a company commander of one of those units. 6 months later I tried to get back in but could not find a slot that worked for me.
2) Right after that I had two back to back jobs in automotive manufacturing and industrial service (3 years total)...left the first because I hated it and found I hated the second worse (out of the frying pan and into the fire).
After 9 years in those first 3 jobs I have have learned that if things don't work out, move on and keep fighting. The last 17 years have had some ups and downs but the confidence I gained from overcoming the first 3 setbacks has been invaluable and with 5ish years left until I leave industry and do my own thing I feel incredibly grateful about where I am in my career and life.
My biggest setback was when I was diagnosed with a chronic illness. The illness took a huge toll on my mentally and physically. It wasnt something I liked to talk about but soon I had people asking me if I was okay, why I was so pale, and if I had lost weight (30 pounds by the time it was all said and done). I ended up quitting my job with no job lined up. I knew I was barely treading water and I needed time and space to recover. I lived with my parents which took a huge burden off me financially (enabled me to quit in the first place).
Quitting my job was embarrassing at first. People thought I got fired or laid off. But probably one of the worst parts was how I felt like a failure. I had my path lined up and my career goals figured out... and all of a sudden, I put a huge dent in them by falling behind. It sucked. It was hard to talk about and even still is today because while I'm in remission now, I could easily fall out of remission and be in trouble again (Im in a better place to handle the disease now versus the first time I had it several years ago).
The main lessons I learned:
1) There are variables in your life you have no control over. I got this disease randomly. It isnt linked to behavior or anything besides I got it and someone else didnt.
2) Sometimes you get knocked down and its okay to recover before getting back up.
3) Your plans at 30 are likely different from what they were at 20. (See Conan O'Brien's speech at Dartmouth, really helped me).
4) Never be afraid to do what is best for you at that specific moment. Dont try to tread water because you think people will think lesser of you if you put on the brakes.
5) Your career is decades long. Even if you are delayed, you can catch up. I havent caught up to where I wanted to be at this age, but I've closed the gap nicely and I'm very happy with where I am at given the circumstances.