How competitive is it to get asset management out of undergrad?
In comparison to Banking, S&T, and ER? How much does going to a target school matter? I feel like I’d be a lot more happy in asset management than banking and will be willing to take the pay cut.
There are less seats but also less interest. I went to a target and got a couple of LO equity offers coming out of undergrad without previous internships in buy or sell side ER. I would say it's difficult (as is recruiting for anything worth getting) but definitely not impossible.
There are essentially NO entry level seats unless somebody makes one for you at major shops. One of our last three interns was a F-in Wharton MBA student who'd managed a $100M sleeve of a hedge fund in Korea.
If you get an offer, you're likely to be on the internal sales desk, which is miserable.
Actually getting in is pretty sweet. I know a guy who took a paycut from the sales desk for an internal transfer to our team. He said that there was no way in hell that he'd go back.
If you get high enough though, hours can go back up. It's very tough to feel sorry for somebody making seven+ figures though.
What team are you on? I'm just talking about buy side equity research here, which I know for a fact Fidelity, T Rowe, Wells Cap, Harris, Dodge & Cox (just to name a few) recruit for out of undergrad. In fact I believe all of the above have structured recruiting programs where they take kids every year, not on a need basis like other funds.
You know I can't say. AUM beats all those, and I support a single fund bigger than a few of them.
+1 to Dunder, Whatever1984 doesn't know what he is talking about here. The large asset managers mentioned in this thread hire out of undergrad every year.
I don't know of a single UG hire in any respectable part of the business that wasn't a former intern here, or had family that worked here.
I joined a large asset manager mentioned in this thread out of undergrad without having interned there and I know plenty of other people at my firm who are in similar shoes. I will agree thought that most roles are filled through internships but that is true across asset management, banking, consulting, etc. The biggest difference is just that there are less seats / smaller classes in asset management. Another point worth noting is that unlike banking where a ton of banks take a large # of analysts out of undergrad every year, asset managers have smaller classes (~5/yr for asset class is probably a reasonable assumption for the largest AM firms) and that drops quickly outside of the top ~5-10 firms. I would think the median for undergrad hires across the industry is 0-1 (i.e. most firms aren't taking anyone out of undergrad). If this was weighted by AUM it would be a bit higher (my point is that most small/medium-sized AM shops are not hiring regularly out of undergrad, but that doesn't mean the big ones don't).
Work at a large AM firm mentioned above (BlackRock, TRowe, Fidelity) - ballparking but I would say each year we take 4-5 interns (each) in Equity, Fixed Income, Fundamental Research. Conversion rate for full-time is somewhere around ~80% with ~10% not receiving return and ~10% moving to IB, etc. I am in a less competitive group then the ones mentioned above and I was selected from 200 applicants so I am assuming at least 3-400 applied to Equity, with maybe 2-300 for Fixed Income and Fundamental. Generally, kids will come from places like Harvard, Wharton, Lehigh but I've seen kids from Louisville, etc.
Harvard, Wharton, and Lehigh? wtf