Best Career: M&A, RX, Capital Advisory or Industry

First off, I currently am planning on being a career banker. Currently a generalist and have the option at my current firm to specialize in any product / industry of my choice. What would you recommend based on your experiences giving consideration to lifestyle, comp, most interesting deals, ability to bring in new business as you rank up. Obviously the answer is largely dependent upon what you’re most interested in, but I don’t have a strong preference at this time, after working on all deal types across many industries. Still trying to figure that part out. I may switch to a larger firm soon, and assume I’d want to “specialize” at that point and I would target specific groups.

  1. Capital Advisory provides the best work life balance over time, is the easiest to bring in new business, and comp is relatively good (in terms of fees per deal).

  2. M&A seems to provide below average work life balance, harder to bring in new business compared to capital advisory but easier than RX, but provides the highest comp.

  3. RX has the worst work life balance, average difficulty bringing in new business, amazing comp during poor economic times, but poor comp during good economic times. Also arguably the most interesting and complex deals.

  4. Industry - not sure. What has your experience been like?

Curious to see how everyone disagrees/agrees with my views.

4 Comments
 

Biased, but if you want to be a career banker would argue Rx. Better job safety and demand for us consistently is greater than those trying to break in. 

 

Anecdotaly, the real ballers at my EB are industry guys who are well-known in their respective coverage areas.

 

I was thinking along the same lines personally, but thinking more between RX and M&A. M&A is the way I went because I wanted to leave banking eventually and that sets you up well. However, I do think RX is much more interesting and if I wanted to stay in banking would have done RX.

 

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