For those who went ER before HF, do you think it was worth it?

Did you gain more valuable exposure to different investment styles and general industry knowledge or would you have rather just gone straight to buyside? Do you think it prepared you right or was just unnecessary?

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You get more exposure to pod shops and faster money as clients, they just pay way more commissions so sell-side ends up bending over backwards for Citadel, Baly, MLP and P72. 

My sell-side analyst is strong on industry knowledge, so I gained industry / product knowledge for sure. I think it's unnecessary, but there are other factors: eg. how long are you willing to wait for the perfect buy-side role (vs going with a sell-side role to get paid while waiting), how confident you are about adding value on the buy-side on day one, etc. 

Despite my view, most buy-side still source talents from ER and IB because they don't want to train juniors on the basics. 

 

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