Possible Lateral Move as Analyst 2 to Associate?
I'm slightly over 2 years in my current workplace, I joined as a fresh grad. I'm not in the proper bank, but still my job is about M&A, Corp Fin, so is the title. Anyway, I want to lateral to IB given a slow career progression and low pay. Considering over 2 years of work experience, should I be aiming for senior analyst or associate roles?
I realise this is tricky, because banks have 2/2.5/3 year analyst programmes so the duration varies, but can you please help me assess realistically which title should I target in London?
Alternatively, I can also wait to hit 3 years of work experience and then try to lateral, but will it change anything in terms of the job level I can target?
I'm not sure where you currently are, and if you're not at a "real" investment bank (I'm sorry but it's difficult to understand what you mean by "not in the proper bank, but still my job is about M&A, Corp Fin, so is the title"), you're negotiating power in this market is weakened considerably.
To progress your career, if IB is your serious goal at a "real" investment bank, my advice is to drop any pretence about your title or grade. It won't matter in the long run, and you are competing with people with the same years of experience entirely in IB. I would expect an AN2 role would be a good outcome. Associate I think there'll be minimal chance.
Thanks for the reality check. I'm actually in an investing arm of a large corporate, without going into the details, but we do many things in-house instead of delegating this to bankers and B4 so my experience is somewhat similar to an IB analyst. My question about the titles was caused by the post-MBA associate programmes which say that MBA folks can have minimim 2 years of prior work experience (quote from GS website). I already managed to read on WSO that MBA recruitment in London is very limited, but some banks still do it anyway. I also assumed (maybe wrong) that lateral associates get the same training before hitting the desk as post-MBA associates so I thought that lateraling to an associate would actually be easier.
I'm not saying I agree with it, but unfortunately I don't think you'll be seen in the same way as a post-MBA with 2 years' of experience, at least in the UK. It's (this is an opinion) a much more traditional market for recruitment in the sense that the "gold standard" new hire is someone who did exactly the same job at exactly the same type of firm.
I've never heard of any kind of formal training for lateral hires of any kind (other than Compliance I'm afraid)
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