Investment Management After Top MBA - Does Pre-MBA Experience Matter?

Current sell-side equity research associate looking to pursue M7 and investment management. I've wanted to work at a value asset manager since undergrad, and have made most of my career decisions with this in mind. I'm going to disagree with a lot of what's been said in the thread so far.

To answer your initial question, yes Pre-MBA experience matters a lot. Here's part of a post from a Columbia MBA student that posted https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/ama-reflections-on-1st-semester-…</a">AMA: Reflections On 1st Semester At Columbia Business School. This was posted 3 years ago, and the IM industry has continued to see headwinds with fee compression due to passive investing. MIFID II is causing the sell-side to restructure with sell-siders also competing for the smaller available pool of positions on the buy side.

"dabears92" dabears92: I would also note that investment management, relatively speaking, seems to be the "hottest" and most desired industry at Columbia. I believe this is driven by two factors: 1) top mutual funds and hedge funds don't interview people without relevant experience, so people that worked in industries outside finance (i.e. Consulting, Operations, Technology, Manufacturing, General Management) will not get interviews, even if they network extensively (caveat: some MBB consultants, for example, a female friend of mine who attended HYP and worked at MBB, do get interviews. Also, certain URM and Veteran applicants are offered some additional flexibility). My most impressive classmates (HYP undergrad, Goldman TMT, Mega-Fund PE) are almost exclusively interested in top mutual funds & hedge funds, and set an extremely high bar for recruiting. 2) the positions are extremely hard to get. For example, for 1st round interview slots, Eaton Vance has 13 slots. Also, whereas Goldman Sachs will hire tens of people from Columbia this year for internship positions, the elite mutual funds / hedge funds have an entire associate class of 2-3. MFS will likely hire 2-3 Summer Associates and recruit at all of the M7 (at least to my understanding, I know for sure they recruit at Harvard, Wharton, Sloan and Columbia). Just from Harvard, 100 people applied to MFS for a summer internship. Do the math - the numbers are quite daunting and competitive.

I posted a similar question, but from my situation https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/years-necessary-as-sell-side-equ…</a">here. A lot of good advice in the thread, with the takeaway being despite that I'm in a solid position with sell-side ER experience, high test scores, etc. it's still an uphill battle. I know you said the MBA is down the line so you may still have time for a job switch before. Sit for the CFA and look for any available sell-side ER jobs in your current industry.

I don't agree with the career path SomePleb laid out. The sell-side is currently in limbo, and no one knows exactly how ER will turn out. If you hypothetically do MBA -> few years buy-side -> you'll be around 30, and you'll be entering a declining industry as an associate with little to no room to become the lead analyst given the sell-side changes I've discussed so far.

While I don't mean to discourage you, I think it's good to have a clear idea what the industry looks like. Gone are the days where active management could always see flows since they were the main way to access the markets. There will always be a place for active management, but just know you'll be competing against qualified people for a limited number of seats. My main point is that you have to know to your core that you want to work in fundamental research because it will take a lot of time to catch up to speed, sit for the CFA (potentially 900+ hours to complete all 3 levels), and develop your own framework for understanding and valuing a company. I'm only a little further on the journey than you, and it's quite a daunting task.