Burnt out analyst, not sure what to do

I know how you feel - I was in the exact same situation, although it happened once I made the transition to the buyside at a hedge fund. Wrote about my experience here.

Take a weeklong vacation and try to stay unplugged as much as possible. Just communicate to your superiors that you really need to take some time off. Try to realize that you only have one more year left to finish your two years and your career options are very wide open afterward. Make sure you get enough sleep as well. It may be hard in banking to do so especially if your on a live deal, but if you can get 7/8 hours of sleep then that will go a long way in helping how you feel.

Don't isolate yourself from others either. I remember when I burnt out I did not want to do anything or even go out with friends. Try to stay social and keep a positive attitude. We are all extremely fortunate to be able to have broken into wall street finance and make the money that we do, and sometimes we forget how fortunate we are compared to billions of others in this world.

Cases like you have quadrupled in the last years at BBs. I am sure it is not you, not your skill and won’t affect your long term future if you behave fair, honest and keep believing in yourself.

What I don’t like about the sound of the first reply to your post is this „You are still lucky, so keep feeling lucky“ attitude it conveys...

Reality is: You are under fire and probably have some good reasons to feel the way you do (it sounds like a fundamental thing rather than just a mood).

Keep in mind you are still inexperienced, however, if this state continues, you need to act rather sooner than later:

Go for open conversations with some of your bosses. Don’t confuse being polite with being direct or realistic during conversations. You need to make sure your ambitions and interests are at least partly aligned with goals of your superiors. If this is not the case or has never been the case, try some further conversations and let it go otw!

During your conversations, consider generalist non-sense quotes in the sound of: „It has been worse once I was in your shoes“ as one of the best red flags you can actually get....

Otherwise, risk is high that you will constantly end up with a feeling to give more than you actually get.

Lastly, stay positive: It is not about where you are now. There is plenty of opportunity out there - you are young and probably very qualified. Perfect conditions!

You will always and ever find many (!) more worse off. Fact by birth for the likes of reading and posting here... Pushed to max (just to illustrate where this attitude goes in extremes): You have electricity and internet access, many ppl don’t, hence appreciate your situation and be more happy! ...C’mon, sounds too strange, right?

Trying to feel better again in making your own self just more aware that others inside or outside your work environment are (way) worse off is actually a pretty sick attitude, don’t you think? It‘s sth like accept your own unhappiness by relativising it with a greater population of unhappy/unlucky ppl for comparison - „I am happier and more grateful now, because I just realised many more others (than I thought before) are even way more unhappy...“ - This should actually make you even more unhappy than happy, don’t you think?

No offence, I still hope I know where you come from (for good reasons and motivation). Still your argument itself is very sick if you think closely about it...

Such view can get very toxic once it even manages to talk people into believing sth which they actually don’t feel or experience at all...

Humility for sure is a very good thing, however, to push for an additional degree of humility when you are about to get mental or physical burn out? Wrong approach, pretty sick, and just insane...

That is a true bummer, but you're young and have plenty of time to figure it out. Do you have any hobbies or spend time doing things outside of work? I know its hard to do when you're grinding as a first year, but its one of my biggest regrets from my analyst days. I know I could have been so much happier and fulfilled if I took the 30-45 mins a day to exercise or an hour or two to do something outside of working, partying, or watching TV.

I agree with the other folks here - have an open conversation with your team and try to get to the bottom of it. Just know, you're not alone and you can absolutely right the ship.

Have been in your situation (wanting to quit 6-7 months in with little end in sight). Get out if it is seriously impacting your mental or physical health, but also keep in mind that juniors have considerable ability to push back these days. If people see that you are working hard, produce good work, and raise your concerns maturely, you may be able to explore slight modifications to make the experience tolerable. Hard to know the culture of your group, but worth a try in my view.

Have you considered B school to figure out what you enjoy? As others have alluded, would try to stick out the 2 years because you have a great brand on the CV, and the 2-year stint will trump ranking longer term (you don't have to be top bucket if not focused on PE, but can still leave with your head held high and a very solid reputation and book of contacts).

sounds like MBA --> corp dev is what you would prefer...so go that route ASAP

You should take a vacation. A week or two. That won’t cure you but it will give you some breathing room to think and decompress. When you get back from work, hit the ground running on recruiting for whatever you want to do. Don’t let banking rule out the buy side based on being burnt out - it gets a lot better especially at smaller shops (kudos to you if there are other reasons, I don’t want to make assumptions about what you want to do with your life).

Don’t quit. Your halfway done and every day is one day less... if you make it 2 years despite your issues you will look back at this as an accomplishment

Thanks all for taking the time to reply and your advice so far.

I think I could’ve been more clear in my post - I appreciate the advice on managing burnout, and talking to my team about making work more sustainable, but what I’m having the most trouble with is figuring out my next step and what I’d like to do after banking.

I started feeling like this career wasn’t right for me very early on in my first year but have had a lot of trouble pinpointing what might be right for me (and obviously don’t get a lot of time to reflect nowadays...). Would love to hear your thoughts.

You have great experience working at a BB with plenty of opportunities, though it has only been a year, you can definitely move jobs if you craft your story the right way. I would not wait for the 2 year mark if you cant handle, but dont quit as the longer you stay the easier it will be to move.

Look at the tech industry, whether it be VC or working at a unicorn in strategy / operations, product management, corp dev. etc, they pay a lot, willing to promote faster, better culture and give stock.

Take a look at all of the traditional exit opportunities in finance and pick one. Corp dev, family office asset mgmt, HNW portfolio mgmt and leading a business unit at a F500 would all be low pressure gigs with nice comp.

Look up the Japanese concept of Ikigai. It helped me. About me... Engineering undergrad —-> F30 —-> Venture backed Start up —-> Failed —-> burnout —- > MBA ——> Figured myself out (or thought I did) ——> PE / Pension Fund ——> Hated it ——> More soul searching ——> F500 Corporate VC —-> Couldn’t be happier. Meets all the criteria of what I define success to be.

A lot of times in life, you have to eliminate options by trying them before you land on what you should do for a living.

Don’t fall into the IB or nothing hype prevalent on WSO. It’s a echo chamber of mostly monkeys who aren’t even in college. Very few folks on here have gone through a complete career switch or explored beyond the realm of finance.

A better bet is to reach out to career switchers who started in IB, similar to yourself. Reach out and understand their journey, their thought process.

Enjoy the journey. Don’t be the monkey who reaches the top of the tree only to realize it’s the wrong tree.