I've read many threads on WSO that dealt with career advice, but was hoping to get some input on my situation.
Background: went to a non-target private school in the south (decent reputation and ranked business school) and graduated with honors, currently working at a BB in a BO function (think controllers) and have less than a year of tenure. Accepted the offer very early in my senior year of undergrad mainly because of the name of the firm and what mentors were telling me. Day-to-day functions are incredibly accounting based, but have the opportunity to work with IR and cover reporting peer banks among various of other competitor analysis tasks, to make matters worse I'm not even in NYC, in a secondary office. Certainly not what I want and I've been networking pretty hard externally to find another position focusing on valuation and capital markets.
Fortunately through networking and preparing work sample valuation models and reports on equities I have been able to land interviews, ultimately resulting in a few offers, albeit not in NYC (think Stamford and Greenwich, CT). Currently I have options with a sell-side research boutique that is well respected (top-15 ranked by II) and an opportunity in buy-side ER with a small HF (think 5 employees and $300mn AUM focusing on small cap value opportunities).
Knowing the career I want to have, either running a fund down the line or a senior analyst leading my own coverage universe, I think these are both great ops. With that being said I am getting some backlash from family and contacts with a long tenure in the industry (think former MD in IBD and VP in S&T). Both of them saying; "You need to have at least a year" and "You can't leave a brand name like that", both of which I feel are bullshit responses. In my opinion I don't think a brand name is worth shit if your role isn't relevant. For the past three years I've known what I've wanted to do, and now finally have an opportunity to get my feet wet and leverage that experience into a greater one down the road. So I ask you, if you we're in my shoes what would you do? Will I get fucked by leaving the firm before a year? If it was up to me I would leave, but I haven't gotten much support for those close to me, am I thinking in the correct way here? Willing to provide more details if needed, please help!
