Mba 2nd year associate looking for "Banking light"

Second year associate in a demanding m&a group in an American bb.

Need something just a little less intense.  Not corporate dev level chill...but not M&A or classic IB.

I'm a little older so not wanting to go to lmm PE(only option as mba associate) and be model monkey for a 27 year old vp. Nor do they want me anyways.

Dcm ecm?

Public finance?

Private funds group?

Private capital groups?

Sales and trading (good desks for ma guys?)

Any group at Tobin and co?

What would you do if you want to keep comp us as much as possible but not being bb m&a level intense.  Past 5 months have been hell.

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I am in a PE group, it is less work than BB/M&A but more than a corporate gig. we have multiple teams as well, also multiple countries/locations if you have languages.

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This is highly dependent on your skill set, industry, network, etc. As someone who went from corporate to IB, I think there are a lot of misconceptions about corporate. Correct that upward trajectory and pay are not as linear as finance, but a 2nd year associate with an in demand skill set could pull ~250k all-in at a F500 in a lower CoL city while working 45-50hrs. Compared to 350k at at BB in NYC/SF with hellish hours this might not be so bad, but depends on your priorities.

 

Would OP be coming in at a Director level then? I doubt very many senior managers earn $250k in corporate other than Big Tech. 

Array
 

As with all of this I'd say "it depends", but I think associate director or director is about right for two years post MBA IB. Some corporates use senior manager and associate director interchangeably, but at least in my industry associate director is a bump up in both target bonus and equity. If you have strong pre-MBA experience directly related to the industry then a director role is certainly achievable. I personally would never settle for a senior manager position after being an associate in IB.

 
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Did you intern/start out full time in corporate banking out of college? How many years in would this be? Not very familiar with corporate banking paths and not sure how common it is to move from IB to CB, but seems like a pretty good comp/hours tradeoff compared to IB and certainly more viable for a long term sustainability.

Interned in college. Most analyst positions will be filled through intern return offers but a decent amount of people (5-10) in my analyst class were hired without interning. 

I spent a little over 2 years as an analyst and 3 years as an Associate. Most people in my group never worked in IB and others are former IB folks. Nobody really cares if you came from IB

A lot of analysts in my class were able to move to IB analyst roles, a few in Corp Dev, and few to small PE shops. The majority of people stay though given the decent comp and work life balance. 
I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon although I admit I considered moving into a DCM role. I’ll probably stay in Corp Banking and use the extra free time to pursue other projects.

 

1. Coverage or sponsors group. Hours will be slightly better and work more predictable in the latter case as GPs will provide you with their own equity case models and dd materials. 

2. Deal teams at sovereign wealth funds should a pretty cushy gig but comp-wise upside would be limited going forward and you'll be walking into commercial banking territory. 

 

You're pretty correct here. Know close friends in busy private capital groups (private credit advisory / private placements) who get crushed purely due to dealflow. Pay is on par with classic IBD groups - at least at their firm - but nothing in terms of relief from hours.

 

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