Title explains it but I am referring to associate roles that exist primarily at the largest asset managers/fund families for people right out of undergrad or with a few years of pre-MBA experience. Since it is typically very difficult to promote within, what do most of these associates do following stints? I know that MBA is common but is it possible to move to other long onlys or hedge funds as a full blown analyst? What about PE?
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If you have your CFA and have spent a few years covering something as a Research Associate, you could make a move to an Analyst role somewhere. You might have to go boutique-ish, as getting Analyst role w/minimal experience and no MBA at a top large firm would be incredibly difficult, but the move to Analyst would be a next step for some people that could handle it. I don't think you would be able to go PE as most PE places want PE experience already (I have no PE experience, but that's what I've gathered), but a Hedge Fund or other long only is reasonable.
interested as well
Things you can very clearly do:
Direct promote (the philosophy for direct promotes varies quite a bit depending on the firm; as you pointed out, it can be very hard, maybe even impossible. Honestly even if you can get direct promoted it might be worth it to seek outside options since you'll always be 'the baby' for lack of a better expression)
MBA, as you noted (for whatever reason two years of re-learning what you already know makes you a more palatable Analyst -- maybe it's the fact that you now have debt and can't quit as easily?)
"Junior" Analyst/"Senior" Associate positions at a Hedge Fund or Long-Only (this is what I would look into personally)
Investor Relations (Hey, don't knock it until you've tried it)
Things you can surprisingly do:
Go corporate (I always thought this road would have been largely blocked off if you hadn't come from a consulting or banking background, but so long as you're smart and show interest in whatever company you're interviewing with, you'll be fine here. I think it's because people outside finance largely aggregate us all into the same group since they basically have no idea what we actually do)
Things you maybe can do, but are significantly, significantly harder than if you'd come out of banking:
PE (Dat transactional experience, dawg)
"Junior" Analyst/"Senior" Associate positions at a Hedge Fund (I know, I know, I put this up in 'Things you can very clearly do', but I'm just an ironic-ass cat; unfortunately, some funds have a very specific candidate in mind when it comes to junior hires: That candidate is normally a modeling guru-top bucket-deal crusher who's BCAF (blue chip as fuck). You are not that candidate, although your experience is still going to serve you incredibly well -- probably better than banking -- for a career in investing).
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