for those who don't make it to PM?

Just wondering where else you/your friends went, if not ER -> ER Analyst -> PM

Just being on the buyside ER track would make you very valuable for most funds, would you be able to transition into management, marketing/sales management?

I'm talking about coveted roles that will still get you decent pay, etc. please post your experiences

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Most large firms have attempted to deal with this exact issue: the perception (real or imagined) that research is not paid as well or is not as important as portfolio management.

The bigger the firm is, the more prevalent the problem is. The perception in these larger organizations is that if you are not being handed promotions and title changes, your career is stagnant. So in some way or another, they try to create an "analyst career path" but none of them have done it very well - it's usually analyst (post-MBA), senior analyst, maybe director of research, maybe something above that.

Either way, the end result is that a number of places tend to promote their best research analysts out of research and analysis, and into either portfolio management or organizational management (the reality is that most of the good research analysts I've met are pretty lousy managers of people, and tend to dislike doing it).

The firms that have a decent handle on the issue just pay their analysts more and more as the work they do becomes more important to the firm.

 

I think you just stay in Analyst space and that there really is nowhere to go other than another firm to do the same thing.

You will get title changes Analyst->Senior->VP->PM->Head of research, etc, but you remain within the Analyst world. Not sure if that makes sense, but I haven't seen someone move into say trading or something.

"It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed." Theodore Roosevelt
 

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