What are some intellectually engaging exits after 2-5 years of IB analyst/associate experience?
Looking for both traditional roles that IB prepares you for as well as any atypical routes you may have taken or seen others take. Any experience or opinions appreciated.
Cheers
| +419 | Evercore Intern Seizure | 64 | 3h |
| +130 | UBS IB Americas has failed, now behind Santander and Stiffel | 34 | 17h |
| +125 | Sent my Claude prompt to 200+ Teams chat. MD wants to see me Monday. | 43 | 54m |
| +79 | deleted deleted deleted deleted deleted | 45 | 3h |
| +69 | Some banks are overrated as fuck | 22 | 3h |
| +67 | How do I understand vs. just memorizing? | 12 | 3h |
| +48 | Associate & Above IB exits | 18 | 1d |
| +48 | The good and bad with Wells Fargo | 18 | 6h |
| +42 | Tech to IB Pivot | 22 | 11h |
| +34 | Advice on Neuromaxxing | 9 | 4h |
Career Resources
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
Private Equity.
Great insight on forum per usual
I second this
Sports PE
Leave the industry and go “find your passion” that everyone talks about these days. Bunch of squids
what does that even mean, what does squids mean??111/1!!!!1/1??
If you don’t know, you’re a squid
Onlyfans
The hours, sedentary lifestyle, sleep deprivation, and random diet of 2-5 years of IB stint will considerably lower your earnings potential.
Might pull of the exit, but strongly advise against it. Would recommend an active lifestyle job for this exit (or can break in directly as an unemployed fitness freak).
World Bank, IMF, Treasury, Fed, PhD, macro research
On a serious note, after having had an internship working in politics, compared to finance it feels like a joke. Some of the jobs working for congressmen as "aides" involve real grunt execution work, but if you could get yourself onto the policymaking side of politics, everyone there as far as I have seen is an academic. Most have a law degree but some get the job without it (the proceed to get their law degree at night). Policywriters are not the most fun people compared to finance caricatures but they all are into being intellectual. Plus u have the private side exits working for lobbyist and law firms that draft legislation and pay higher wages. All positions will be a singificant salary decrease compared banking
Buyside research at a top AM
macro/commodities HF.
don’t know how people can stomach staring at 10-ks
Wouldn’t this be a very difficult exit from ib?
whoops thought it said alternatives to IB not exit. yeah impossible exit unless you do macro equities
Don’t know how people could stomach staring at charts of soybean prices
objectively 100x more interesting. in my limited exp with commodities HFs, imagine choosing any factors you want (rain, war, shipping cost, price subsitution with other commodities, bespoke S+D forecasts) using any kind of model you want (time series, ML, factor models) to build your own supply and demand curves. Its like simple Econ 101 but complex and unique for each trade.
I've got respect for the L/S places that do deep research better than anyone else, but 99% of equities investing roles are boring asf and hard to differentiate if you aren't just a beta rider.
As others have said:
Interest is all relative. If you love investing, it’s cool getting a job that you can understand various asset classes or the way people outside of IB view the world. Personally, I think PE and IB are close enough together it’s easy to get bored or find PE work kinda a slog.
The real thinkers make the fund so wage slaves like yourself can work there and be stuck in the matrix while they get rich off your ideas. Wake up man you don’t have a Bugatti or Koenigsegg after years of slaving or the ability to buy one despite trading your time for money when there’s people who didn’t even go to college who have one.
Think you don’t know how hedge fund comp works. Also, I don’t know what sort of Andrew Tate BS you have been reading. I absolutely could buy whatever car I want lol.
this might actually be Andrew Tate
+1 to this. Seen some really cool startup exits from IB / MBB + T2 consulting / PE types. Especially in 2021. At least in digital health, I've seen some really interesting ones around corporate strategy (identifying new patient markets to target based on demographics, conditions, reimbursements) or business strategy (how to generate revenue and improve margins in existing businesses). Nowadays, business strategy is more common as many of these companies in this space are desperately trying to improve margin as many lost a ton of their valuation from 2021.
Any advice on how to find / go after these startup exits? I imagine startups aren’t using headhunters.
Just a matter of searching for “business/corporate strategy” roles at startups and cold-messaging / trying to build relationships?
Thanks for the reply and honesty about the PE work!
There are like probably only a dozen or two people who move into these roles per year
bump
You had me until "Intellectually Engaging"
Cognizant your flair is not "restructuring", but I'll throw a dark horse suggestion out there: turnaround & operational consulting. In my past, I've noticed most of the top performing turnaround consultants come from an IB background.
It's a pretty natural pivot, given a good portion of the "type of work" you do is very similar to IB - you will still pitch for work, manage data rooms/undergo diligence processes, build decks/models, participate in stakeholder discussions, etc.
Hours are ~similar~, but I generally found that you had a little bit more control over your schedule. For instance, weekend work is not uncommon, but many places are WFH M&F, and most ppl generally clear out of the office post-6pm. Also, the bonus structures at a lot of these places are heavily driven directly by the amount of "chargeable" work you do and could be quite lucrative towards hungry, high-performing juniors/mid-levels.
Some firms that come to mind (ranked in order, based on my opinion) are: Alvarez & Marsal, AlixPartners, Ankura, FTI/M3 Partners, Huron/G2, MERU
Just contributing my $0.02
Thanks for the neat idea; haven’t heard of this line of work at all. At the firms you listed, what are the names of the roles you would look for? I’d like to try to read more about the space.
Titles and progression are pretty similar to banking, but would generally follow the cadence of something like:
M&I has a really helpful primer for this space, which I'll link here: Restructuring and Turnaround Consulting: Career Guide (mergersandinquisitions.com)
very interesting, how does comp compare to MBB in rx consulting?
Not the original poster but they're very comparable. From a friend of mine at A&M (in one of the industry groups - Automotives, Healthcare, etc)., it sounded like their specific group paid on par if not better than MBB. Considering their turnaround / Rx team is probably their strongest group, I'd imagine it's similar.
TikTok video-making Product manager ( highly recommend, very fun ) Strategy consulting Venture Capital Finance PHD Movie directing
PE in Guatemala
REPE shops have the biggest brains, especially the ones that were levered offices over the last decade
Working for a small PE firm.
The work at PE firms is really interesting and you actually use your brain vs. Investment Banking.
I really enjoy what I do now, while I was hating my life in IB.
You spend most of your time understanding companies, doing real financial valuation, going to Investment Committees, and there is also the deal execution part but which I find more palatable.
One could say the skills are similar but because you are doing everything from the investment point of view, here you really need to think through and understand the opportunity and you are not just doing valuation at an acceptable technical level but to actually find out the real value of the company, which will have a real impact on your fund's returns (which if everything goes well and you have carry the incentives are aligned).
Why small PE firms? Well because the culture and work-life balance is better and you get more responsibility from the start.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply!
What’s your definition of “small”? Know it’s extremely firm-dependent at the end of the day, but is there a fund size range or deal size range you think tends to give the best WLB?
As a rule of thumb, anything outside of Apollo, Bain, Partners Group, KKR and the ones that you can name.
If you can't name it, probably has a better work-life balance.
In those large ones, life is like Banking all over.
Necessitatibus voluptatum perspiciatis eveniet asperiores dicta tenetur deserunt quis. Fugiat corporis dolorem cupiditate magni impedit et. Enim tenetur nihil numquam asperiores. Voluptatibus et itaque et deleniti voluptas rerum.
Est maxime consectetur aut repellendus accusantium illo. Voluptatem qui minus est quibusdam excepturi. Asperiores sed nostrum ea reiciendis autem cum saepe. Iste eos dolor quia optio quia accusamus debitis.
Eaque ea quia quis ut. Consequatur eligendi natus optio quis officia. Est excepturi consequatur nulla amet. Neque in qui ipsa non. Nesciunt quasi consequatur at dolorem. At eum laborum rerum expedita quam et.
Distinctio eos nihil hic maiores impedit non. Dignissimos distinctio accusamus quia qui.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Vel distinctio qui asperiores consequatur fuga molestiae voluptatem. Amet cumque qui qui ullam. Consequatur ex asperiores placeat illum optio sit. Ratione molestiae autem est sint est aperiam saepe.
Qui necessitatibus animi dicta delectus nostrum et. Et commodi magni vel voluptas. Et praesentium dolorem numquam fugiat temporibus est deserunt.
Aut officiis impedit est quaerat. Cupiditate tempora et non. Voluptatem ex neque est vero non eum dicta ut.
Ducimus dicta qui tenetur est fuga cupiditate quas. Id possimus ut qui iusto cum cupiditate ipsam. Qui unde ut placeat adipisci. Adipisci saepe ea quisquam ut in a. Magni excepturi aut tenetur architecto ducimus. Esse qui aperiam maxime omnis dignissimos saepe.