At what point is a buy-side offer worth it over top banking offer?

Hey all, thinking about recruiting for next year, and wanted to gauge what the forum thinks. My long term goal is to end up in a public investing role, and I'm assuming starting out on buy-side will help me more with that. However, I'm well aware that top banks will open more options for me in the future, e.g. by giving me better odds for PE, so I'm wondering what's the minimum level required for a buyside offer that would top an offer from top 3 BB or PJT/CVP/EVR? Is a >1bn AUM or a >100mm aum/IP enough? What about MM PE? I also want to take into consideration lifestyle and comp, but that's secondary.

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would choose a 1bn hf over a bank in your shoes. the optionality of banks is a bit overstated—you have more choices, but you probably won’t have a better shot at getting into HFs from them compared to smaller ones. at the banks you’ve mentioned, you’d have maybe a 30% chance at getting into a solid enough PE shop that HFs will look at over other HFs.

you also need to think about how successful you’d be at the hf now vs in 4 years. ib/pe may offer training, but it’s very different than an actual hf. this means you’ll have to be trained more, and you’ll earn a lot less with 4 fewer years of experience. maybe you get 300-400k after going from stints in ib and pe, but you could hit higher than that if you do well with 4 years experience.

 

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