Exit timeline for lateral analysts?
Hey everyone,
I broke into IB as a 2nd year analyst from a non-banking role, with the ultimate goal of exiting into AM. Major thanks to everyone on this site, since the advice here played a big part in getting the offer. Curious to hear for those who entered midway through the analyst program, did you stay for 2 years and leave after your 3rd year, or dip after just a year? I've seen some things in on the site for people who did 1 year at Bank A > 1 year at Bank B > exit, but never anything for a non-banking role > 2nd year analyst > ?
The current environment probably changes things, but it would be interesting to hear what people have done in the past.
I have nothing to add to your comment, but I'm curious your background and how you broke into banking. I can't DM you, but I'd love to read a short writeup.
Sure happy to give a little detail. I graduated from a non target that had very limited placement into front office roles, and was able to wind up in a company's corp fin department doing mostly FP&A and capital allocation type stuff. I knew I wanted to go into AM early on and saw my options as 1) try and leverage my current role and industry experience (which felt like a tough sell and would apply to a small amount of teams), or 2) try to break into IB or ER and have a better chance from there.
Our team had a lot of visibility to the rest of the company, and by volunteering to help on strategy projects, I was able to get some decent experience under my belt bit by bit. After a couple of years, somebody I had networked with and kept in close contact with was able to introduce me to a group hiring, and the rest is history.
In short, being proactive and seeking out projects that were more parallel to what somebody in banking might do got my resume in good shape, and my network took it from there. This didn't happen over night, so I'd encourage anyone who couldn't break right after graduating to not freak out: it's tough but doable to break in later if you keep your sights on it.
You won't be able to find many 'comps' as most banks don't let non-IB laterals start as second years, so big props to you for finding someone willing to give you a year of credit.
The short answer is you can exit when and wherever you find someone who's willing to pay you to be an associate – there's no hard and fast rule on timing. That said, I'd wager that most people in your shoes do two years as an analyst and depart as a 'third year,' because 1) funds likely want to see you put your 'regular' two IB years in and 2) funds recruit well in advance, so you'll have (relatively more) issues finding leftover slots in 'your' class. Lots of kids your year will have secured jobs a few months into their first year, remember.
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