How would you go from big 4 to HF?
My dream is to land a hedge fund role, rise up to PM, and someday start my own.
I’ve had some trouble recently with this, wondering if it’s even possible, but my current plan is audit->TAS->corporate finance within the big 4 firm->PE->HF or straight to HF from corporate finance.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Should I think about obtaining an MBA somewhere in between?
That is going to be extremely difficult. I would try to start elsewhere than audit. Or flip to IB ASAP.
You won’t lmao. Zero shot of going Big 4 to PE, much less a good fund that will allow you to go to a HF.
Know a guy who did it. Was very difficult.
Thanks for the reply, do you mind sharing a little of what he did to break in?
Going to be very difficult. I know a guy who did consulting in a Big4 firm straight out of school and left to be an analyst and now PM at a top quant hedge fund. Extremely sharp and savant-like technical skills.
He went to a HF straight from big 4 consulting?
Yup, that's right. I could be talking out of my ass since I haven't personally done it, but my view of hedge fund recruiting is that it's a lot less formal and more meritocratic.
Big 4 audit > garbage man > HF seems more likely
Garbage man… so do they like trade good finds with scrappers for cash or what?
You want it, go get it. If you want to join a hedge fund, you need to add value to the hedge fund. It’s not the robotic job that audit and IB are.
I started in big 4 audit and i'm in banking now, I have already been receiving messages from recruiters for PE, Credit and Direct Lending funds, even though those aren't hedge funds they are literally the other side of the same coin.
Don't listen to anyone telling you it would be extremely difficult particularly if they've never worked in audit, I found the jump way easier than anticipated and I barely put any effort in.
Thanks for replying, did you make the jump straight from audit or did you switch to TAS/IB relevant role? Is this an FO position?
All my friends who got into banking did so first by transferring into TAS/CF in Big 4 before getting into a "traditional" investment bank.
I am the only one that didn't, I went straight from Audit to IB via a strong recommendation from a guy I knew who had pull in the bank.
Those guys who went to TAS first got into top banks (BBs, EB's and strong MM's) and more traditional IB roles (Lev Fin, M&A, RX).
I am at a Tier 1.5 bank, with Tier 1 being MS/GS/JPM and Tier 2 being Scotiabank or BMO Cap. And I am in DCM, I didn't put in that much effort like those guys but I still put in effort nonetheless.
Dumb question but where are recruiters messaging you? Over email or on LinkedIn?
Agree, go to TAS -> IB or into IB directly
You won’t
B school
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