Trying to break into IB from equity research. How hard will this be? I really want to get into IB from current role as ER oil and gas
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I did this exact transition, I covered O&G and then Industrials for about 4 years on the ER side. I'd been wanting to leave NYC and was looking at smaller IBs in other cities. For me, working at a "NYC" investment bank helped a lot when applying to M&A roles outside of the city. People see you as a "Wall Street" person more than an "Equity Research" person, if you catch my drift. That being said, I talked to a few M&A firms before landing my current role. During several interviews I had, the interviewer would question whether I had the technical skills to do M&A (as if moving logos around is technical) vs. equity research. I had to really lay out what an ER associate does on a day-to-day basis, and once the technical similarities were established I found the interviewers were more receptive. Frankly, the IB desk jockeys who think they have superior "technical skills" are scrubs, if you're a capable ER associate you will do just fine. Project that confidence about tech skills in interviews, because its accurate. ER associates spend far more time in Excel / VBA / any database program than IB.
If you also had an offer for portfolio valuation at Lincoln int, would you still advise me to take the ER offer? I want to do ER but also feel like the portfolio valuation might be an easier route to get into IB
If your ER role is at a bank you'd be willing to work in IB for, honestly could just make the jump internally there. I dont know how easy it is to go from Lincolns valuations team to its IB group but a ER -> IB internal lateral is a well-trodden path
Agreed, that's probably the most straight-forward path to take.
Isn't the technical aspect in ER essentially identical to that within IBD M&A, the difference between the later is in the context of a transaction (which is obviously the biggest difference)
I think that’s correct in a general sense, but the amount of time working in “technical” programs such as Excel and Access is much greater in ER, IMO. When you’re in ER, you cover an industry and thus need to be constantly following publications, data releases, company commentary, etc. and putting those pieces of data into industry and company specific models. In M&A, you do those same things but on more of an “as needed” basis depending on project (I dislike the term “deal” greatly lol) requirements and where in a project’s timeline you are. At the end of the day, ER’s purpose is to provide data and opinions on stocks to the buy-side and thus that’s where your focus lies. In M&A, your focus is on finding a buyer and closing the transaction for one client.
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