Thinking about quality / rep of deal experience as analyst?

Currently a second year analyst in a decent group but not getting exposure to quality deals (low-quality companies, performing poorly). At the end of the day, getting paid fine and experience is still good, but I look at other groups in the similar field and realize there are analysts getting much better reps in terms of the quality of companies they are exposed to and the reps / diversity (raisings, m&as, etc...).

As someone who is probably not staying in banking long-term and looking to go into pe / hf, am i overthinking this? I have an opportunity to move to a top group where i will get high deal reps (which is good and bad) and importantly higher quality companies that are probably more interesting / enjoyable to work with (as opposed to companies with meh financials and prospects).

Obviously there are cons in that I will work longer hours. But will this experience pay dividends? If I stay, I justify me staying by saying eh it probably does not make much ofa difference and I still get interviews at good pe shops, but if i move i will work much harder but get better interviews, better learning experience as well. And also wondering, once you are in PE, do staffers discern what group you come from, assume hey the associate hwo came from gs/ms/jpm probably is more experienced and we should staff them on the bigger / more important deal?

I'm not trying to be a prestige whore here, perfectly fine with my current group. But wondering if I should take into consideration future implications of going through the motions with mediocre companies. I assume theres a reason certain groups have great exits compared to others with worse exits so is this essentially due to deal experience (and the quality of it, whatever "better" deal experience even means - correct me if im wrong please).

2 Comments
 

Exit Ops for PE declined sharply in terms of associate recruiting vs. analysts. If you want to leave IB for PE, heavily suggest doing it as an analyst. Assuming you are already at a BB/EB or any respectable MM firm, would look for exits now compared to trying to lateral and then look for stuff as an associate as 1) lateraling isn't guaranteed and 2) the increase in firm/group quality probably will be countered heavily by the fact you are recruiting as an associate. IMO as someone who went A2A, the best times to leave IB are either as an analyst or as an MD. You can leave at other times, but you'll get worse opportunities on average. 

 

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