Career decision - need help/advice

Hi guys,

I am looking for some help/advice with my career.

I am a corporate credit analyst at one of the ratings agencies with 2 years experience and CFA level 2 completed in June 2012. I'm based in the UK in London and went to a complete non-target UK school.

My dream job is buy-side equity research however I am realistic that this will be tough to get into directly from credit research. I have had a few interviews for sell-side ER and had an offer that fell through from a no-name shop. I invest in my own account which I run properly producing research notes for all of the stocks I hold and I have had a few informal buy-side ER interviews through this but no offers.

In the meantime, I am constantly getting calls from recruiters for credit risk management jobs at IB's. The money is much better than what I'm on now and with potential for much better bonuses. Part of me thinks I could do CRM for 2 years and move internally to ER but another part of me thinks CRM might be a dead end. I could stay where I am and complete CFA level 3 and look to move then. Or, I could work in CRM for 2/3 years and have enough cash to do an MBA.

Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks