London AM overview - mixed consensus on breaking in as a graduate?
Been reading past forums and there seems to be differing opinions on whether its possible to directly break into AM out of uni. Some are saying firms outright don't hire grads, while some are refuting this.
I'm a 2nd year and have a BNY Mellon summer internship offer - typical recruiting has finished and most firms have taken down grad scheme listings so it's proving difficult to find any options.
I also have some general questions regarding AM in the UK:
What's the typical career progression? From what I can gather, it's something like 2 years as ER analyst, associate, and then eventually PM, with early career base pay being around 70k for top firms (eg AM arm of the US banks, Fidelity, PIMCO, etc) which is the same as IB analysts, but with only around 10-30% bonus.
What's the WLB like? It seems to be better than IB and the US in general, but it'd be nice to hear from people with experience.
Who on earth is suggesting its hard to break into am out of undergrad? This is not hf we're talking about man haha just do your summer and not be a degen and you will get a return.
The BNYM offer isn't for the investment management / typical AM unit - I wasn't really career focused and didn't start the process late so I didn't get a typical AM summer internship. I'm learning more now and trying to find out how feasible it'll be for me to get a AM / ER role out of grad.
For context, the internship is in their Growth Ventures unit, and the only other thing I have going for me is the Oxbridge name, though I am brushing up my valuation and modelling skills so I'll be able to pass any technicals / interviews. I'm just wondering if it's feasible for me to get to that stage since I've recently read that most AM grad roles are taken up by converted interns, or that I'll be dinged by HR when they see that my internship was neither BB or in AM.
For the second point I could perhaps twist it - given that the growth ventures unit is new they don't have standard procedure for interns yet so I think I'll be able to collaborate with the AM unit, but also the fact that I should be able to twist my exact activities on the CV, as I doubt HR will be confirming whether or not I really did some ER - the background check will most likely be just confirming I indeed interned at BNY Mellon, and nothing more.
What's the growth ventures unit about? If its front office, it will be viewed in a similar fashion to if it was am at bnym. At a firm like that with no specific 'well known' niche most recruiters won't be looking out for specific divisions, they'll just want to see if its front office and its somewhat relevant to banking(if not relevant to banking they'll just look at brand name and hope you have a damn good reason for why the switch to banking).
RE your last point: honestly I know this may sound crazy coming from a senior but yes just twist the shit out of it with recruiters. for final rounds with bankers though don't be a dumbass and be completely honest. We can tell if youre waffling.
Regardless, you're probably going to struggle to get a bb/eb ft/offcycle next year with only that internship, would be best to shoot for summers.
Edit
There are less spots than IBD but to an even higher extent there are less applicants. thus less competitive and relatively easier to break into. If you understood proportionality better you would be at a hf by now.
Pe and HF are the only high finance careers which are relatively difficult to break out of undergrad due to the skills required(Equity HF probably the hardest and thus some that do recruit out of ug outsource their analyst training e.g. millenium). This is evident in the quality of applicants. In the Uk, most people I find going into top am got rejected from ib initially and those going into ib either didn't have the risk appetite or lust for hf/pe or were flat-out rejected from hf/pe.
Lose the ego, Being in a less competitive career is somewhat unimportant. tons of ib people try to jump ship to top LO AM anyways when they realise how great the work-life-balance to pay ratio is.
I have a virtual assessment day for the BNY Mellon investment management summer internship upcoming. Could I ask you what kind of technical questions you had if you also had a 3 back-to-back interview structure, please? Also, how did your interviews go? Growth team will have some similar concepts overlapping and at least the structure of the assessment days I would think should be similar.
Aim for a graduate scheme on the sell side. Become an expert in a hot or Illiquidid niche to gain lucrative skills. AM firms do not train well, unlike the bigger pods.
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