Moving from Big 4 Audit into No-Name Boutique IB-Capital Markets (HK)

To begin with, let me give some context about myself.

I was never fully aware of the rigour in recruiting during my early days at university as I smoothsailed my way to a top university in the UK and had no idea how difficult it was to break into finance. I had no friends/family working in this sector to really give any advice on seeking jobs.

Long story short, I ended up not having any meaningful internship experiences during my time at uni and ended up in Big 4 Audit. I hated the time there and it was really the first time ever that I had a real strong urge to do something - get out of audit and move into banking

In audit, there's really two paths that you can take:

1. Annual audits, same thing every year, you probably won't understand what people did last year and end up doing some BS work just to get it signed off.
2. IPO/M&As, much longer hours, busy seasons year-round non-stop.

As you can guess, route 2 is probably the better route to take if you want to move into finance as the experience here is much more relevant. However, it really depends on how lucky you are and what team you work with that decides whether or not you can get this experience. My team in Big 4 had a really aggressive department head who would take on IPO and M&A engagements. IPO engagements were basically annual audits + the listing process. M&A is mostly special audit, which you can pivot as a due diligence role. M&A opportunities for normal auditors rarely come by, my seniors had a chance to work on this when one of our major listed clients acquired another company, which led to the need for special audits. This case is extremely rare as audit firms may need to separate the M&A advisory stuff from audit, which in this case, was not that apparent.

Most of my time was spent on IPO engagements as we didn't have any M&A engagements when I was still working there. Most auditors don't really want to move into IB as the hours here in HK are already killing them. Thus, IPOs and M&As are usually "shitty" engagements that nobody wants to do. I volunteered for the IPO engagement with one sole purpose, to hopefully get to network with some bankers, advisers and meet new people. Reality is, this didn't happen though I did meet a very interesting guy who was also my client.

So how did I move on to a no-name boutique?

This can be split into:

1. Experience during IPO audit
2. Applying to jobs

During the IPO audit, I managed to do some cashflow forecasts and some projections, don't ask me why auditors are doing this job in HK. Also had to prepare weekly material (PPTs, latest models) for the client and the IPO team. I spinned this as relevant experience during my interviews later on.

On the job application side, I applied to jobs online, mostly focusing on Capital Markets (yes I know ECM isn't as sexy as M&A and all that but what other chances have I got?). I don't have any contacts in HK as I didn't grow up here and my uni rarely had HK recruiting events. Sure I could try cold networking on Linkedin but that didn't work out.

In the end, I landed a position in M&A Advisory at another Big 4 but I didn't take it as I didn't like the team and how they wanted me to be stationed long term in Mainland China for at least 2 years. I also managed to do a final round interview at a BB but for a PE Operations role, not that great for moving into FO whatsoever.

I finally got an offer from a no-name boutique. Terrible pay, (better than Big 4), no bonus. The experience so far hasn't been that decent but hey, I'm still new and I can only take what I can get. We do capital raising and have a PE arm, mostly growth equity.

I'll be looking to lateral once again and would be very appreciative of any advice you guys can give.

Also, do DM me if any of you need help on moving from Audit to some form of IB, not that I'm that great of an example.