Most people drawn to hedge funds are climbers. Pushing themselves to achieve career goals is part of their DNA, but the climb shouldn’t outweigh getting even better at the thing you do best and enjoy the most.
Like a giant booster rocket, you have pushed your career into the lower stratosphere. Your fear, though, is that you are onboard the booster and not the rocket, and that someone else – like a senior PM - will be the one to soar forward. You’re feeling discarded, undervalued, and without the requisite fuel or equipment to push further, explore deeper, and succeed at a higher level. And after years of striving to get to the station you’ve achieved – compensation, recognition, responsibility, notoriety even – you are no longer rising. And in our business, even if you are actually stable, it still feels like going backward. Falling away.
First, let’s take a look at the booster metaphor and disprove the idea that climbing is all that matters. Then, let’s figure out how to get you into an orbit that makes sense for your goals.
Is it just the climb?
With all due respect to the great Miley Cyrus, the time when your career ascent begins to level is merely a next stage. In some circles, it’s called the mature stage. There are still plenty of opportunities to move forward, to grow in different directions and to challenge yourself to, above all, keep improving.
The challenge: Analyst-to-PM is not happening, or at least not at the rate you want it to.
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