How do I approach lateraling firms?
Sup guys,So I'm dead set on lateraling firms. I've come to realize that no one at my current ER firm makes it to the type of buyside roles I am interested in.How do I go about lateraling. Throwing my name in the application pool hasn't worked. I've networked with a few people, although they just give me the basic advice of continuing to network. They haven't yet forwarded my resume to the hiring team (not that I'm entitled to that). Am I doing something wrong? Also I've reached out to recruiters of the companies I am trying to work for but been ghosted.
Try reaching out directly to analysts at firms you’d like to join covering industries you have an expertise in. It’s a toss-up whether they respond. If they do and you have a good chat, it’s also a toss-up whether there is a opening. As you can tell it comes down to a numbers game.
Bump, in a similar position.
Most of the time I advise against lateraling firms. What do you hope to accomplish by lateraling? More access to elite funds? Most top single managers, activists and long onlys call your future analyst less than the multi-managers do. It might improve distribution, but you as a product are barely impacted. You are also risking dealing with idiosyncrasies of your new boss and new team dynamics.
The bigger problem you want to focus on is YOU. You can solve the distribution by networking one-on-one with your target funds, but it comes down to YOU. If they haven't forwarded your resume, your work is either not good enough or you are pitching the wrong ideas to your audience (ie. catalyst-driven to a fund that focuses on LT earnings growth, or growth name to value shop, etc.)
Recruiters are generally not helpful for sell-side research.
Depending on the types of buy-side roles you are targeting to, it's possible you have unrealistic expectations.
I successfully lateraled for better culture, opportunity, and higher comp. But I agree with above that buyside exits between two sell-side firms may not be that different.
Assuming your current shop has any reputation, buyside firms likely know your qualifications. Not sure another sell-side firm will help much with that as you’ll still be down to the networking (and possibly recruiting) game either way.
Sure, so what do you do if you can't get past the buyside recruiter?
Currently stuck with an analyst who is 1) disorganized and ends up not publishing, let alone reading, half of the things I write 2) has not evolved his skills at all to generate any actual insights and gets by with his historical knowledge of the space, nor wants to take any risks with his research 3) has 0 interest in my progression and gives you little to no client exposure almost two years in (am just a content machine).
This is at one of the higher-end research research shops btw, so when I am lateraling so far it has only been for worse platforms and people are confused as to why I am not moving to another team internally (I don't want to navigate the politics of this quite frankly) or why I am not moving to the buyside (which is my genuine goal, but not happening because I am stuck on a middling team and have 0 client interaction).
So what is really in my control? Brute force networking with buysiders over LinkedIn or try to force a lateral move or stir the hives nest and try to move internally....all tough options, the first seems the best as it is most direct to my goal, but who knows how long I can be stuck here treading water?
Your situation is unfortunate, I can relate because I was in the exact same situation. It just means you can't leverage your platform to have inbounds versus an analyst who mentors you, gives you exposure and recognition, where you have a pathway to ramp to your own brand and access to a broad array of investors.
But you can and should take control of what you can control. Yes, you should precisely be brute force networking with buysiders. If you think you are entitled to not have to do that, remember others are doing it (I was and so were many others who weren't even in sell-side research but got buy-side jobs)
That approach is mandatory if you want to work at a style that barely interacts with the sell-side anyways. It doesn't scale, but a high-touch one-on-one relationship is most impactful in a profession where most jobs are filled through referals.
Thanks a lot for the response and your constant presence on this forum! Time to start systematically networking, which I should probably have been doing anyway.
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