Titles in HF World?
I was just wondering how titles in hedge fund world work. For example, I know that at big banks, you start out as an Analyst (if you are hired out of undergrad) and in two or three years you are promoted to Associate. Associate is also the title MBA grads get. Do hedge funds have such standardized titles as well. If someone is an Associate at a Wall Street bank, what do they apply at Hedge Funds?
It literally varies by firm. An entry level role might be Jr. Analyst, Associate, Analyst, Business Analyst, Research Analyst, etc. It's all over the place.
Associate at a bank would be entry level at most hedge funds (2 yrs + MBA) or 2-3 years with no MBA and then a change to buy side.
Worry about the compensation and the job, not the title.
Depends, for most transaction oriented places (PE, IB) titles tend to follow Analyst then Associate. For coverage based roles (HF, ER), where you don't do 'deals' you just make recommendations for purchases, the titles tend to go Reaearch Associte then Analyst. This obviously varies depending in the bank/fund an is less predicable the smaller the shop.
+1 to Ravenous's point.
We have analysts....and the portfolio manager. Some of our analysts are paid 150K a year. Some are paid 4x that. Just make sure the pay makes sense.
IB Associates are pretty entry level. We treat them largely the same as pre-MBA banking/consulting analysts with 2-3 years of experience, though they might get paid slightly more starting out (it equalizes pretty quickly though). There's not much more that you would learn as a junior banker that you wouldn't learn as an analyst that would help you for this role.
That's a good point and one that is often misunderstood. Some HF look for bankers specifically, but being a banker doesn't train you to succeed at a HF. The only thing that prepares you for working at a competitive hedge fund is... working at a competitive hedge fund. Not UG, not b-school, not Goldman M&A, not sell side research. It's not that being an analyst at a hedge fund is necessarily better or harder than any of those other things, it's just that it's so much different.
Re: titles -- I didn't even have a title for the first year I worked here. It doesn't matter.
Depends on how formal the senior guys want to be. At my shop we have analysts and PMs. Analysts get paid depending on time spent with the firm. Those who crave titles only want them to sound important.
This post was related to writing a cover letter. To be safe, should I put something like "Analyst/Associate"? Don't want to demote myself- I was promoted to Associate. But I would like to indicate flexibility.. like PennTeller says.. just make sure the pay makes sense
Agree with the above. Most common in my experience is two titles - analyst and portfolio manager.
Analyst can be 25 year old, or very senior guy whose focus remains on research (think of a publishing analyst at a sell-side investment bank). Sometimes these guys might be "senior analyst" to differentiate them from the group. Portfolio manager is a bit tricky too because the role can change dramatically. Some PMs do a lot of research work that analysts do, while others are lightly involved, while still others might not have a clue about the names they own - they make more macro/top-down calls and look to their analysts to figure out the names.
As for an investment banking associate, I think you'd most likely find job postings that would say "HF seeks analyst with x to y years of experience". I don't think I've ever come across a posting that says "looking for associate-level talent".
Is this a posted role with a recruiter or more a networking thing? If the latter, you can always put "investment role" or "position on the investment team."
Plenty of Banking Associates get "demoted" to Analyst. Then again, I also know an "Analyst" who also happen to be a sub-PM running $200M and is making bank. There really is no rhyme or reason to the titles so don't get hung up on them. Think of it this way. In banking, an Associate is a post MBA junior banker, an Analyst is a just out of undergrad college kid. In sell side research, the associate is the college kid and the Analyst is generally closer to Managing Director/VP level.
A sampling of the positions where I've had friends recruit into with 2-3 years of banking/consulting.
ValueAct - Associate Greenlight - Analyst Bridgewater - (Senior?) Investment Associate....this one I'm less sure about. Och-Ziff - Analyst Oaktree - Associate Canyon Capital - Analyst
Draw any conclusions you wish but that's pretty much all over the place.
Ultimately, most folks, unless they've already clocked in multiple years on the buyside and are ramped up completely on the strategy, are pretty useless their first year. Just focus in on the role (and if it's in a smaller shop, do your research on the manager) and, if that checks out, then see if the money mostly makes sense. If it does, then you're in a decent spot.
analyst and PM, nothing else matters. welcome to the world of actual performance based pay. you won't demote yourself, they can read your resume just as well as everyone else.
What everyone else said. Titles are a none issue for most people at hedge funds, performance is the metric.
HF Internship - Specific Job Titles in HF? What Would I Be Doing? (Originally Posted: 10/01/2015)
Hey so I am a junior in high school and my teacher told us today that he used to work in finance, and so after class I was asking him. He said that he has a bunch of connections in my area in hedge funds, and I asked him if he could help me find an internship. He was happy to, and he asked me what specific job I would like to do in hedge funds. I have been looking for a while and cannot really find what specific positions there are that an intern could be. He mentioned that he was working with technology at a trading desk, and basically said I should come back to him with some ideas.
So what are the specific jobs an intern could do in HF? What would I be doing on the day to day?
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