IB or buyside after undergrad

tldr: I’ll be an SA at a top EB this summer. Do I accept a return offer or go for a buyside role in my non-NYC hometown straight out of undergrad (in long only public equities or maybe PE)?

more info: I anticipate being moderately happier on the buyside, as I’ll be near family & friends, work moderate hrs, and can be a multi-dimensional person. That said, I don’t want to give up the branding from the EB, the connections I’ll make, the skill set I’ll develop there. I plan to eventually attend HSW and then maybe start a company.

Curious which you guys think is better for my career, straight to buyside or an analyst stint at a top EB, and by what magnitude.

14 Comments
 

Curious to see why'd you see a fall in returns even if the economy begins to fall? I'd figure analysts are the cheapest and cuts would primarily be at the VP level?

 

Generally when firms don’t do well they don’t give out offers so their future costs don’t increase why increase headcount when deal flow is going down?

Interns / incoming first year analysts overall are a net minus to a firm. If economy isn’t good, a firm can easily hire well trained 1/2nd year analysts from other firms that got fired for the same amount instead.

Also, not giving an intern an offer costs nothing for the firm. Firing analysts (albeit not that high) you still have to pay severance, etc.

 

The quality of the buyside firms you can recruit for would increase following an EB stint relative to out of undergrad. For this reason the two years spent with an EB make sense career wise.

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I used to do Asia-Pacific PE (kind of like FoF). Now I do something else but happy to try and answer questions on that stuff.

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