PubFin or Real Estate
Public Finance with an MM in the southeast, or Finance Analyst with a small private real estate dev?
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Ultimately, it depends on what you are more interested in. With that being said, I would personally choose PubFin as it's a front-office role that has good junior pay (at least at BB), decent WLB, and would provide you the optionality to transition into IB, S&T, AM, and RE depending on the deals you're staffed on.
I appreciate the response. The RE Dev offered to match the PubFin comp, but I imagine as I progress to Associate, VP, and so on (if I make it that far), that the comp will be substantially higher. I’ve always read that the exit opportunities for PubFin are not good, but they still have to be better than an Analyst position at a small no-name property developer?
Go ask this question on the real estate forum. You can make significantly more money in real estate than public finance. There is little to no upside in PubFin. You move up and get paid a higher salary but no chance of ever earning a promote, carry, starting your own firm, etc.
Give some details about the RE firm - if they can match starting PubFin pay I would guess they are respectable
The firm I'm at now is really small, owner operated. I'm one of two analysts. There was talk of getting equity in deals and profit sharing, but I'm not sure that would ever come to fruition or if I would be here long enough to see any of it. They did offer to match the base and target a 25% bonus, I guess that would really depend on meeting goals though. I think they would be able to match the IB offer in the short run, but in the next 3-5 I think I would make much more money as an associate in PubFin, even at an MM.
When it comes to exit opportunities, I suppose I'm conflicted there as well. I know working at an MM in PubFin doesn't exactly give me a good chance at lateraling to a better group at a different bank, but the odds would still be better than where I'm at now right? I guess the goal would be getting into a better group at a different, or the same, bank. I feel like this opportunity at least gets my foot partially in the door.
The people I work with now are great, and my boss is a wonderful person. I would hate to be giving up the relationships for an opportunity that isn’t as great as I thought. On the contrary, I really don’t care for the work or RE as a whole, I took the job because it was all I could get.
1) If you don't care for real estate, it's ok to leave. But I would take caution you on making long-term career decisions based on how much you'll make on the next 5 years. Your first ten years of earnings will be dwarfed by your peak earning years if you're successful (in most finance fields). Focus on finding a field you love and the money will come, sometimes sooner than you think. I chose RE, I'm an associate now and I make as much as most IB Associates.
2) If PubFin gets you closer to being an IB analyst (what you appear to want to do), then go for it. Just make sure you're actually being thoughtful about your moves. Several years from now, you will still have to explain to interviewers why you quit certain jobs. It's 2022 and I still have to talk about why I pursued a different career after an internship I had in 2016.
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