Where Do IBD Analysts Go?

I have been looking through tonnes of profiles on LinkedIn and it seems like only a handful of people who start off as investment banking analysts end up as associates, even fewer as VP's and even fewer as MD's.

Most senior profiles I see (in Europe at least) start of in a consulting firm/financial firm in a non-IBD role, move onto something else, complete an MBA, get into IBD/PE and them climb the ranks.

Do you think the most successful senior people come from 'random' backgrounds vs the traditional IBD analyst background?

If so many analysts quit/leave, for whatever reason, where do they go? I have only seen a few profiles which say 'IBD analyst' --> PE and they still tend to have churned out many years as an analyst/associate at a BB in IBD and have a top class education too.

Most people tell me its because they move onto something else entirely (either within finance e.g PE, a startup or something else). Or perhaps its because they have never needed to create a LinkedIn profile in their life.

What are your thoughts?

3 Comments
 
Best Response

A lot of associates are career switchers with MBAs. Analysts move into tons of different roles, PE, VC, HF, F500, Startups. Some analysts do the third year and then go on to associate positions. Also you have to remember how few analysts there are. The BB hire maybe 100 each in the US on average so there is probably about 1000 analysts in any given class, then figure all the MMs and Boutiques maybe add another 1-2000 positions. It's not surprising to see so few go on.

 

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