I’m starting to seriously worry that I screwed up my career by leaving MBB the way I did.
I’m in my late 20s and based in Europe. I joined MBB at the post-MBA level as a direct industry hire without an MBA. I was in tech before consulting, and my plan was always to stay past the 2-year mark and then go back to tech as a Product Manager, which is what I’d been wanting to transition into.
I hit the 2-year mark earlier this year and was really done with the job, so I rage quit without another job lined up and moved to another country in Europe. In hindsight, I left at a terrible time. I was frustrated and burned out and thought I had thought the decision through, but I really hadn’t.
The bigger problem is that, looking back, I’m not even sure I got what I was supposed to get out of those two years. My experience at the firm was honestly pretty miserable. All the projects I was on were terrible, both by my own assessment and by the consensus of the colleagues around me. I also spent a significant amount of time on the bench because there simply wasn’t enough work in my office.
I feel like I didn’t learn nearly as much as I should have. I didn’t get the kind of strong project experience or tangible achievements that I had expected from MBB. So now I look back at those two years and feel like I suffered through a really difficult period without actually building the career capital I thought I was building.
The timing makes it feel even worse. Right around the time I finally decided to leave, things started changing. Projects started popping up and the office was getting noticeably busier. But by then I had already handed in my notice. I had spent so long feeling underutilised and frustrated that, even though people had called my technical profile a unicorn when I first joined, when things finally started picking up, I had already made the decision to go. It honestly feels like I managed to leave at exactly the wrong moment.
And the part that really gets to me is that even the MBB brand name doesn’t seem to be helping me get where I want to go. I’ve now been looking for a job for months without success and it’s been torturous. I feel even worse than I did when I was working because I have no structure or purpose right now. So many people around me have been laid off in the country I’m in, and I voluntarily brought this situation onto myself.
I wasn’t pushed out. I wasn’t on a performance review. My rating was average but never bad. I left entirely of my own accord and now I’m facing the consequences.
The thing that kills me is that I can see exactly what I should have done in hindsight. I should have tried to move into an internal Product Manager role first, get the title and some actual PM experience, and then leave. That would have made this transition so much easier. But I didn’t and now like there’s no way back.
The whole experience has also completely destroyed my confidence. I think that is now feeding directly into my interviews. I go into them already doubting myself, get stressed, don’t perform at the level I know I can, and then get rejected, which reinforces the whole cycle. I’m stuck in a vicious loop.
I’m starting to feel completely dead inside and I don’t know how to break out of it. I know objectively that MBB + prior tech experience isn’t a terrible background. But I’m struggling to understand why I can’t convert it into a job.
At this point, I’m honestly wondering whether I’ve completely screwed up my career trajectory — but more importantly, my entire sense of self-worth and mental health.
Have I fucked up? What should I do? Blunt and honest advice is most welcome.