Early Career Burnout - Possibility of Career Break?
Junior Portfolio Manager. Work in decent sized pod. Been given opportunity to run a book independently for the first time. Been grinding for this very opportunity since undergraduate and finally achieved it in my late 20s. Have put a lot of things on the backburner to get here, especially family/relationships, travel, and even health.
Now that I'm here, need to give absolute 100% to build track record. No point phoning it in as this stage of career/this type of responsibility. Problem is, can't seem to find enough gas in the tank to give the 100% despite finally getting exactly the seat I wanted throughout my career. Thought burnout / lack of motivation would be sorted once I get this seat - turns out I am wrong.
No intention of coming across as arrogant/entitled here. Love the job, love all things macro, can't see myself doing anything else, and super grateful for my seat. Wondering if anybody in this community has seen cases of taking time (say 1yr) out in late 20s, sorting out personal matters, and coming back to crush it at another seat?
CV looks decent - stuck to single asset class throughout sell-side and buy-side and worked at well known places for my product. Don't have an individual track record, but have worked on large and profitable books and have evidence for that (not claiming the performance as my own ofcourse)
Thanks in advance
One year seems tough, no? Haven’t seen many similar examples tbh amongst people / network in HFs.
How has the cadence of your current vacations / PTO been? Would you feel replenished taking a full 2-3 weeks off?
Thanks a lot - been pretty poor but think it's hard to take leave now because nobody else is responsible for my book and not easy/financially sensible to take the book down to flat for two weeks of leave. The problem is that two-week leave won't necessarily solve my issues. Have some ongoing back problems - ideal solution would be to take a few months off, get minor-surgery / bed rest, and then come back.
If you have something lined up on the other side then no one will notice or care. You can say you had to sit out between or took time off between and no one will care. Challenge is, if you’re getting an internal promote and then jump after a few months it’ll look like you got blown out when you got your chance to step up. Has to be an external move.
But you 100% should try and take 6+ months off. It’s highly worth it to rest and recharge.
Thanks for your views. Yes, perhaps bit too early to take time off - better to show some tangible outcome in this role for atleast a year and then leave so I can get non-compete time-off + negotiate delayed start with new place. Problem is, I quite like the fund and main PM - appreciate the trust he's put in me to give me an opportunity. So going to a new place just for the time-off + managing optics doesn't seem ideal.
My recommendation would be to consider parlaying the offer you have into an equivalent opportunity at another firm, then finagling it such that you have 3-6 months of "garden leave" in between.
FWIW I have done this 3x now and while I'd be in a better career place if one of the stints had been longer, it is hard to regret the travel, experiences and general reflection I had during those stretches.
Thank you - I think what you have said makes a lot of sense if I did this a bit earlier - hard to do it now that I am couple months into the seat already. But yes perhaps something to think about for next year.
How's the PnL ? That matters alot
Also you might feel less burnt out if you're either really profitable or really unprofitable
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