Honest disclosure - I've never worked on the sell-side... From day 1 of my career I've been working on the buy-side (that's 12-years now)...

First day on my job my PM told me "at our firm we eat what we kill... no one cares about your title or CV. If you don't make your target

you will not survive even a quarter" (and my first day on the job was Sep 1st,2008)...
Fast-forward 6-months - still in the business (after remarkable trading and decent p&l through lehman aftermath)... Went on a business trip with my PM to meet our counterparties at the banks

I was so impressed because every person I met was either "head of (something)" or VP (according to their business cards... I said to my PM "we must be important if these guys have time to meet us"... he told me "everybody at these banks is either VP or head of... even the janitor

Fast forward 12-year :
most of the traders/VPs/head-of are no longer trading for these banks (some are even out of the market completely)... very few (very bright people) buy-side still in the game..

That throws me back to boxing... I often see guys coming to the gym with high

end gear, 200$ shoes, 450$ gloves, doing fancy pad-work (and post on IG), but when they go in the ring they don't last through one round, as the devote too much time to appearance rather than the nitty gritty of the game...
These expensive gloves and super light shoes don't make

up for lack of fundamentals, and will not help them when they are with their back against the rope getting hammered.

My point? the market couldn't care less about our titles and resume.. if one wants to survive he/she needs good fundamental and to constantly grow and evolve