Middle Office BB to Second Tier Sales?
I am close to wrapping up my first year at a "1st Tier BB" in a middle office/back office role which has, perhaps surprisingly, included tons of client interaction and been fairly "close to the markets" (can get into more detail on this if someone wants to PM me). I have been told that I interview very well and am confident that I would be able to portray my current role as impressive once I'm in the door for an interview. I have had a lot of interaction with the S/T side including talking with several junior sales analysts and learning about what they do.
My eventual plan (although subject to change) is to go the MBA route as I graduated from an unimpressive school and have quickly realized that certain opportunities will likely be fairly unobtainable without having a more prestigious institution on my resume. Also am interested in trying consulting somewhere down the road.
In the meantime, since an MBA is a few years out from now and I may soon be interested in trying something new (I feel that I am more of a sales personality and have thrived in true sales roles in college), would it be a total waste of my time to either:
1) Try for a lateral move to the sales side at either a second tier large bank (eg Barclays), or somewhere like Jefferies? (Not sure what Jefferies is considered but I think you get the idea). I am most interested in equity and fixed income sales (have the most experience with bonds) but realistically would take anything.
2) Try for a respectable consulting gig (no idea what this would look like specifically but given my background I feel I could potentially do some random shit like FX hedging services for example, or more of a regular type of mgmt consulting)
Sorry if this sounds like I'm all over the place, again I'm only one year out of school and am just looking to explore my options and not get stuck in BO/MO, the negatives of which have already been covered on WSO. Any advice would be appreciated and I am happy to answer any questions (as long as nothing too personal, once again though please feel free to PM).
As someone in S&T I would try to lateral to a second tier BB definitely possible. Going to be easier to lateral internally. I have seen many guys in risk and middle office position move into the front office at my BB. Good to build relationships with the front office and really try to build a specific product knowledge. PM me as I moved from PB into S&T (know it was not easy at all but networking and showing passion for the markets helped). Consulting gig at a top firm might help you if you are dead set on going into MBA I think that background is a bit more sought after.
Talked to a rates trader at a French bank today who moved into his role from like a consulting firm that troubleshooted VBA stuff etc on bank trading floors after about 1.5 yrs. He said that moving from a role like he had out of college to S&T at like JP Morgan is extremely difficult but doing so at smaller banks that may not even have SA programs is very doable. I don't think an MBA is worthwhile if your main goal is S&T from what I've heard. Probably better to just gain whatever experience you can in a role where you have direct interaction with markets and clients (and obv isn't back/mid office). Masters in financial engineering could be useful but if you've built a track record and found something stable then I don't see a good reason to go back to school. This is all secondhand advice from people I talked to btw. Don't want to give the impression that I'm not still in college lol
I can't help you with all the MBA stuff but if you want to be in S&T and you are willing to hustle I think it is very doable. Moving internally to the product you work the most with will be the easiest. If you work mostly with fixed income desks I would focus there. Plenty of people move from MO/BO roles to FO roles in S&T at banks just b/c the teams tend to be smaller and the flow of people is not as streamlined as banking. Often times 1 junior person will support the work flow of 3-4 senior sales people so if that person leaves that role that role needs to be filled ASAP and you can't wait until a new analyst class starts. On my desk there is 3 of us and an analyst, if that analyst left we would need to hire someone ASAP (and the first place we would look is internally to people we know) and in the meantime would have to borrow another teams analyst to cover which would suck for everybody.
In terms of looking to work at other banks, I don't think the Tier of the bank is going to matter its more or less about who is hiring so just talk to as many people as you can and you will find something eventually. If you have your licences and have some experience using Bloomberg you should eventually be able to find someone who is hiring. Going to take sometime but you will find something if you network hard enough. I would start with the list of primary dealers and then start looking through the league tables in various fixed income products.
If you are not dead set on sales in S&T and just want to move to a more front office sales role I would also look at sales roles with asset managers (they post all the time) as well as private banking all the larger banks have some sort of private banking program.
This is OP, different username. Thanks very much for the helpful info, A few questions:
1) In the hypothetical scenario you mentioned where someone leaves would you reach out specifically to people to know in BO/MO? How would you go about finding/choosing the new analyst?
2) Assuming I already have some experience with using Bloomberg, should I really try to get my licenses before I start looking for these jobs? Is it worth the time investment? My understanding is that series 7/63 are completely useless if you don't have an S/T role
3) Could you please elaborate on what the asset manager and private banking roles look like? Are these as interesting and fast paced as, for example, selling structured products or equity derivatives to institutional investors? Sorry if I sound like a dumbass w/this question.
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