Hey everyone. Was hoping to hear thoughts on how early is too early for leaving as a first year analyst in IB. Currently at a top BB and have been on the job for ~6 months, and have noticed that both my mental and physical health have been impacted significantly. I honestly don't know how I can continue in this job without more of my health deteriorating....
Have no interest in pursuing PE/HF as it seems that is more of less the same grind. I spend my free time looking up jobs on LinkedIn as it honestly makes me feel better knowing there are jobs out there that I could leave for. Interested in potentially going into a strategic finance role at a tech firm, as it seems that might have better work life balance and still can put the skills I have learned to use as I still have an interest in finance, but not willing to put in the 80-100 hour weeks anymore. What roles would I even be qualified for if leaving IB early?
To cut to the point, how soon can I realistically leave as a 1st year analyst without it looking too bad on my resume? Is it the ~8 month mark, or year mark? Also thinking about it for a long term perspective of having credit for my experience in IB. Sorry for the wall of text but would appreciate any thoughts.
I know it's not the answer you are looking for, but it's going to partially depend on your experience and where you exit to. If you haven't seen a full transaction start to finish and likely been on a few others as well, you aren't really going to understand the transaction process, so what value can you really add from an M&A perspective? That said, if you are trying to exit to an unrelated field like consulting or tech, no one is going to bonk you for 8 versus 9 versus 10 months. General rule of thumb is to stay at your first job for a year and I would encourage you to try to do that, but also if you are miserable get out as soon as you can--just make sure you have another job lined up and that next job you will need to stay at for awhile, so be sure you really like it. In other words, leave whenever you want, just make sure that next job you stay at for 2 years prob.
If I were you it would depend on my current experience/ if you have gotten lucky with staffing's and have seen every part of a deal process and closed an entire deal I'd bounce. If you are leaving the industry, after 9 months people will still probably credit you with understanding that world on a very superficial level/ you won't look like you couldn't hack it if you left after 9 months and immediately started a new job. I would strongly strongly advise against quitting without having your next job lined up though.
It's a tradeoff and only you can really make the call on how terrible your physical and mental health is declining/ if an extra month or two or three would be unrecoverable. Stay strong and keep your head up--the best is yet to come for you.
I’m a current 2nd year analyst, and was in a similar position this time last year—knew I wanted out of my group and was pretty sure I didn’t want to stay in an IB/PE/HF role. I interviewed for a couple different roles (mainly strategic finance / bizops) but didn’t land anything (that I liked) pre-COVID.
Got absolutely crushed for the first ~6 months of WFH, so I didn’t search or interview a ton over that period. However, I did talk to friends/mentors and tried to figure out what roles and industries I was most interested in. By the time things let up at work, I was decently close to the second-year bonus (January bonus cycle) so I decided to stick around for that. I recently started interviewing again and am planning to leave banking this spring.
Here are my takeaways from staying in banking a full year longer than I wanted to. All based on personal experience, you may have a different experience.
At 9 months in, I was competent at my job...18 months in, I’m decently good at it, which has translated into more client interaction and more responsibility on deals. This also translates into more to talk about in interviews.
“Why are you leaving banking early?” stops becoming a question once you hit the one year mark in my experience. If you are interviewing for tech/startup roles, most of your interviewers will have made it through 2+ years in IB/consulting, so if you’re trying to leave after 6 months, you’re going to have to combat the assumption that you can’t hack it in IB.
The longer you stay, the more time you have to get a sense of what roles are out there post-banking and what roles are good/bad. Looking back, I interviewed for and considered a number of shit roles at shit companies just because I wanted out of IB desperately. The longer I’ve stayed, the more inbound opportunities for interesting roles I’ve gotten—MF PE, VC, big tech, international roles, etc. Decided that most of these roles weren’t for me, but I learned a lot in the process and think I will have fewer “what if” thoughts down the road.
$$$$. Self explanatory, but I went from essentially no emergency fund and $20k+ in student loans to no student loans and a 6 month emergency fund over the past 1.5 years. This alone had a significant positive impact on mental health—money might not buy happiness but it 100% buys comfort and security.
I feel your pain. I can't tell if I'm just dogshit or if WFH has made ramping up more difficult or if it is a bit of both, but definitely really struggling and also looking at LinkedIn in a free time. Hard to talk to the analysts in my class or anyone else on the team really because no one really wants to show weakness or vulnerability.
Typically it is valuable to cite sources when referencing statistics.
Statistics show that those who leave their first jobs within 16 months do not significantly reduce their lifelong earning potential, on average.