First job - what to do with my life?

Hi, I don't know what to do with my life for my first job, here's some background:

I am mexican, 24 years old, I graduated last month from a top mexican school with a 3.6 gpa, I love finance, I invest and trade, and I have this job offer:

DC boutique investment bank specialized in cross-border deals, they do M&A, reestructuring and some consulting. It's small(15 employees). They need people fully bilingual that know latin culture cuz cross-border transactions are picking up. This is what they are offering:

50k with a 20-30% bonus 80hr week tops 25% time travel to Latin America

I want to work for 2-4 years and then go to a top 5 business school in the US, at the end I wanna come back to Mexico and start a HF/PE/VC or work for one, there are only a few players here and I think that in the future is going to be a good market.

Some points: The money is not that much, altough is much more that what can I expect to earn in Mexico. Being a small and specialized bank I could get a lot of deal exposure and get some great contacts. I know DC well and I don't like it at all, the girls are stuck-up, clubs have a horrible ratio(3 boys for 1 girl), expensive and the winter is coold. 80hr week is not as bad as 100hr, or I think so. I love investing and the markets but I don't know if I am going to like banking. On top of that, I value my friends, my girl and my family back home.

In MX the best that I could get is a PWM/ER gig, earning 30k a year with 10% bonus, altough that's more than enough to live comfortably here.

So, what's your opinnion? If I accept the job is it realistic to get into a top 5 b-school with a great gmat and everything? Is it worthed?

Thank you guys, really appreciate it.

11 Comments
 

Idk what to say man..50k base comp is better than most grads are getting from a finance degree, I would take the offer and start networking with other shops and start building solid contacts. And when you see an opportunity just jump ship.good luck amigo

 
Best Response

Question for betote or anyone else:

What is the HF landscape like in Mexico or LatAm more generally? I speak Spanish and used to live in Mexico, and would love to get back to LatAm at some point. The fund I work for now invests everywhere in the world except LatAm (I guess because the PM is worried about businesses getting nationalized in shitty third world countries or whatever). I assume Mexico is a relatively safe place for capital but don't really know. How hard is it to get a job at a LatAm focused HF (within LatAM) if I am fluent?

The salary doesn't really matter. Take the cross boarder job, do well at work, slay the GMAT and you will get into almost any b-school. Being Mexican with international experience will really, really help you in the app process.

 

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