Alternative career path (options) to Investment Banking

I would say that each of the suggested "stepping stone" paths have their specific strengths and weaknesses. I am no expert in any way so take this all with a grain of salt.

Private Equity: There are several "technical" similarities between PE and IB at a junior level, however the overall thought process and business decision making skills are quite different. In addition, IB is transactional and always selling ideas whereas in PE you are being sold ideas and continuously looking at investment opportunities to deploy the funds money into. Focusing at a junior level, it should be less onerous to make the leap. Also the connections you build with IB guys pitching you will also be helpful in your pursuit to the IB side. Lastly, I would expect that making a jump into PE vs. IB from your current background might be even harder as many folks use IB as a “stepping stone” to make it into PE.

corporate finance: Assuming you are referring to a corporate development role / strategy group at a company, I would maybe rank this top 3. But this can depend. I hate to say it, but the easiest path is to work for a client of the bank in their corp dev team because, well, being on the client side sometimes has its advantages. As a corp dev employee, you would have probably been pitched to several times by IB guys and you would effectively have met many of the bankers covering your company. In addition, you would work on the companies operating model, with IBs, and work on any transactions (M&A / capital financing) that your firm undertakes. This would be a solid way both on the networking front and on the experience front. Again, I am talking at a junior level.

Consulting: This can depend on which type of consulting assignments you've previously been staffed on and how your experience may align with the specific IB group you are looking to get into. Again, the skill set at the junior level may be easily transferable (excel and powerpoint), but the breadth of your experience is what will matter most. Also depending on the sector you worked on primarily will help leverage you into the same industry group in IB (pharma/oil/mining etc.).

Equity Research: This lateral move can be made and have seen it multiple times. This would also be highly dependent on the technical expertise you gained from a specific segment you may have covered on the ER side. For example, groups such as Mining/Oil/Gas/Pharma are very different and arguably more complex than other industry groups with specific and complex workings in their modeling. If you come from an ER background covering a particular industry, you would have a stronger selling point to making the leap and will effectively climb up the curve much quicker than someone who has to learn all the industry specific nuances from scratch. I've seen my friends go from Pharma / Oil & Gas ER to IB without losing a year at a junior level, so it’s doable and maybe a desirable path as you likely won’t be held back. Now if you try to go into a completely different IB group (M&A/DCM/different industry), I probably wouldn’t recommend this route.

Commercial / Corporate Banking: Similarly to ER, if you work in a specific industry group, lateralling over to the IB side in the same industry would make the transition easier to sell but is still challenging. Difference is, you know the industry, you know the clients and you have a better understanding of what to look for so you just need to prove your selling and strong analytical and modelling skills (not much DCF/M&A modelling in com/corp banking). But you certainly will have an edge over candidates lacking the industry specific knowledge. As is with ER, if you try to go into a completely different IB group, I wouldn’t recommend this path at all.

Sales & Trading: Anyone feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but I don't see this happen too much (other than summer positions in undergrad). In your case specifically, you are 23 years old and I would assume that you like to work somewhere that you could get some of the experience accounted for in IB. I honestly can’t see an M&A/Product/Industry group counting your S&T stint as “relevant” thus resulting in you starting as a first year analyst (which is not a big deal but I would assume it is less desired at age 25+). Excel skills would be decent, Bloomberg is all you end up knowing and you likely won’t use that as much in IB as you would FactSet/CapIQ. Also your hours will vary substantially and selling yourself in the interview that you want to go from working 9 hour days with a nice pay to slaving 15 hour days/100 hour weeks might be challenging. Again, my opinion is that it’s harder. Period.

Hope this helps you out and if you have any more questions, feel free to send me a message.