this is a hypothetical...would you rather start a career in an ibank or a small HF (say 100 mm AUM but growing). HF job pays less (but potential in 3 years is good) and has normal hours (9-5). Your thoughts?
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What does HF stand for?
it all depends on which bank, what the strategy and reputation of the fund/founders are, and whether youd rather work in a HF environment as opposed to a bank.
personally, if i had the choice coming out of college, id still do IB mainly because if I dont like it, I can still go to an HF and it also opens up doors to PE, corp dev. etc. im not saying the HF wont open those same doors, but it could be harder than if you were an analyst at GS for 2 years.
100MM is very small; this is not the place to start your career. Their assets may be growing, but the same could be said at one point about every hedge fund that's gone out of business. If the fund folds up, what would your next move be?
If you're looking to start your career at a hedge fund, you want it to be a large-ish fund that's known on the street. The same can be said about starting out in IB; you don't want to start your career in the M&A group at random XYZ bank, even if dealflow is growing there.
i would go for IB man - tried and true. hedge funds are on their way down..just read yet another article in the financial times about how most have negative alpha and the difficulties in finding new market inefficiencies.
What would the job be at the fund?
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