Hi All - I'm currently a 3rd-year analyst at a BB based in NYC. Feel free to ask me anything. I'm pretty involved in school recruiting (widely considered a semi-target on this site), but can speak to any experiences that would be most helpful to current junior bankers / prospective ones
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Hey, answers as follows: 1) I am considering PE. However, a lot of the larger funds have a similar work / life balance to banking as an analyst / associate, so am still weighing whether I want to go to a smaller shop potentially outside of NYC (southeastern funds are supposed to be better, generally speaking). 2) Long-term goal is to find a career in either investing or advising and climb the ladder, would rather not pay $100k+ for MBA to learn similar stuff from what I learned in undergrad / banking, but would consider school if I decided to make a big career change. I've also heard the additional network is quite helpful esp if you get into a top program. Hope this helps
What do you look for in lateral hires?
How much does undergrad matter in lateral hiring? (prestige, gpa, etc.)
Good question. I actually lateraled internally from more of an asset management-type role so completed this myself
Look mainly for interest, proven work ethic, ideally banking experience, unless you're willing to start over as a first-year analyst. The benchmark you're competing against is a returning summer intern, where we've been able to test drive their ability to do the job. Prestige and don't matter that much, as long as you've got generally got good grades and can do the math / stats needed for the job as a junior banker, my bank / group don't focus on that
I'd say M&A is the best for pure modeling experience. However, a lot of the M&A guys that I work with at my firm have no idea what's going on with the business (partly because they're all over the place working on stuff in industrials, consumer, tech, etc and hard to focus on one space / business day in and day out)
Having an M&A team will mean that you in coverage are doing less M&A modeling, however, if you can prove you're strong technically, deal teams will sometimes leave M&A out of certain pieces of a transaction / pitch (speaking as a junior banker of course)
Coverage and M&A groups lend themselves to very strong exits for all private capital roles (buyout / growth / VC) - modeling most important in BO since the job is mainly modeling and valuing / thinking about businesses with a large track record
For about the first year as an MBA associate, I've found the best way to succeed with working with senior analysts is to act like you are the same rank as them (being analyst, analyst) on a deal team rather than more senior. You'll learn more and will train you better to become a stronger associate and long-term banker. Analysts generally don't like getting bossed around by someone who has never done the job that they've been doing for 80 hours a week for 2-3 years