Hey everyone,
I’ve seen a lot of discussions about moving from F500 corporate finance to IB, but not a ton about moving from corp fin to a markets based role. Has anyone seen this type of move happen without B-school?
A little more about myself and my thinking: Currently a second year analyst at a F500. Our group is pretty broad, which means we get exposure to a nice variety of work: lots of modeling, some projects with the strategy guys, interaction with banks' debt/equity cap markets groups, etc. I’ve learned a ton so far, but I don’t think I’ll want to stay here forever. I really like the markets side of the job and think I would want to do something related long term, but I’m not 100% sure what’s realistic for me to consider. I don’t really want to go the more traditional IB route, since one of the things I'd change about my current gig is the “on call 24/7” mentality. I’m fine being in the office more than your standard 9-5, but I’d be happy to give up getting called back to work late on a Saturday night, or have dinner/weekend plans blow up 2 hours beforehand.
Some very different options that came to mind:
Capital Markets: What I think I have the most transferable skill set for, given I’ve gotten a decent amount of experience on the opposite side of the table. From what I've gathered, it also seems to have a decent mix of lifestyle and interesting work.
Research: Could try to leverage industry/modeling experience and combine that with some current responsibilities (boiling down research for the higher ups, doing earnings write ups for other companies in the space, etc).
Sales: Similar thinking to research in that I could spin some of the same experience, but I know both of them would probably be a hard sell. Sales has always kind of appealed to me, and the idea of having a more structured schedule (besides client events after work) seems great.
Sorry for the long read, but what do you guys think - are any of these a possibility? I’d rather skip the MBA, But I honestly don’t know how realistic any of these would be as a direct lateral with some networking.
tl;dr: Is it realistic to make a jump from f500 to a markets based role in the future, or am I some jabroni who has no idea what he's talking about?
