What do you tell people you do for a living?

For the people on the investment teams at LO asset managers, what do you tell people you meet what you do, especially from a dating perspective? I find saying “a mutual fund” is a lot less sexy than private equity or a hedge fund. Having A/B tested “finance,” I’ve also found that answer alone usually unsatisfactory for the inquirer.

 
Funniest

Just say you’re an analyst at an investment fund. Now they might ask what kind of fund? You simply respond with “long only equity fund”. They’ll never know if you’re referring to a closet benchmark hugging mutual fund with 200 50bp positions or a concentrated LO!

 

I usually say investment management. You could also say I work for x firm in portfolio management. Then you'll probably be asked what you actually do, and you'll have to explain that you're not an investment banker. If you're an analyst you could say I'm an equity research analyst covering banks or whatever. I don't think I'd consider it more prestigious or desirable to have an entry level position at a hedge fund than at a mutual fund, but it depends on which shops. A small startup hedge fund can be a lot of work for little pay and job security, worse than working on a mutual fund team managing 20B that has resources and people to train you and the chance to build relationships with people who will talk to you because you're involved in running 20B. People move between the hedge fund world and the mutual fund world pretty often.

 

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