Fresh Graduate in Corporate Finance needing advice for exit opportunities
I just graduated from a non target and entering full time at a FLDP kind of program at a BB. I need advice on the potential career path ahead of me or any exit opportunities i have that I can leverage my experience in FLDP. My plan right now is to move into consulting, equity research, investment banking. Do any of you guys have any advice on how to approach that. I want to eventually end up in corporate dev or corporate strategy. Thank you so much for helping!
The natural exit op for FLDPs is more corporate finance. I'm not sure what program you're in, but some programs offer the ability to do a rotation in corp strat or corp dev. Sometimes you'll have to network hard for it but you can make it happen if your firm is open to the idea. You can then use this rotation to either go full-time corp strat/dev in your off-rotation position or jump to another firm for their group. This option bypasses ER/IB/consulting.
FLDPs do not lend to easy jumps to consulting/ER/IB. My top tier (not trying to sound obnoxious, just trying to provide color to my experience) FLDP has lead to people taking jobs in these positions, especially tier 2 consulting. But to my understanding, it took a lot of legwork and effort on their parts to get there.
If you find yourself unable to make the jump after the FLDP, you can always position yourself for a top MBA to then get into those industries. A FLDP at a BB should hit the career requirements for these schools. You'll just need to work on GMAT, extra-cirricular participation, volunteering, etc.
Thank you so much for this. My program actually has one rotation for corp strat and one for corp dev, but it is very competitive and pretty much impossible given popular it is in the program. Could you provide some insight on your background? Thanks again!
Completing my second 6 month rotation in next few weeks. That's good news for you. Figure out how to network your way into those rotations. Make sure you absolutely kill it at your preceeding rotations so you're known as a top FLDP analyst.
Not sure if your company has an Investor Relations team but that experience coupled with passing a few CFA exams could assist you in moving into a research role. Especially on your IR team if you can get involved with delving into analyst models and understanding those.
Without prior strategy or corp dev experience, it is going to be very difficult to jump into one of those roles. Definitely grind as hard as possible to get those rotations, and if not I would recommend getting as broad of experience as possible. You want to be able to sell that you've seen lots of pieces of a business and therefore can connect the dots on higher level strategy.
MBA is probably the path of least resistance - FLDP will set you up well for that assuming you excel during the program.
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