Which FT Offer Should I Take?
I have two valuation analyst offers for full-time positions. One is at a big 4 focused primarily on audit support with some PPAs in a non-NY tier 1 city. The other is at a decently well known independent shop (think a tier behind Duff and HL) focused on PPAs and financial opinions in a tier 2 city (think Boston, Houston, Atlanta, Charlotte).
Which offer should I take with the goal to transfer to ER or IB? I eventfully want to break into HF.
I personally am leaning towards the independent shop since big 4 is mostly audit support, but I am worried about the lower brand. If things go wrong, I assume big 4 offers better MBA opportunities.
Ex big 4 here who lateraled to banking. Go with big 4. Doesn’t matter if you are subject to not as good project experience, the fact that you have a better brand image gives you more advantage at recruiter resume screening. It’s very easy to craft your big 4 experience to be extremely IB/ deal-related, but you have no control when the recruiter has simply not heard of your lesser-known valuation firm and dinging you based off of that
Ex big 4 here who lateraled to banking. Go with big 4. Doesn’t matter if you are subject to not as good project experience, the fact that you have a better brand image gives you more advantage at recruiter resume screening. It’s very easy to craft your big 4 experience to be extremely IB/ deal-related, but you have no control when the recruiter has simply not heard of your lesser-known valuation firm and dinging you based off of that
That makes sense but when I saw the big 4 is mostly audit support, new hires do ~90% audit support and ~10% PPAs. I am worried I will not get much "deal experience" despite a better brand. If new hires did a fair amount of PPAs at the big 4, big 4 would be the choice.
Being on 2-3 deals when you were at big 4 gives you enough to put onto your resume/ speak at an interview. Focus on talking about how you practiced your modeling skills as that’s what people care about the most. Also, bankers really don’t know how groups inside a big 4 work/ differ from other groups so like I said, you have a lot of freedom to craft your response. Also, your 90% 10% number seems arbitrary because I’ve been in your shoes and if you network and tell your staffer you want to be on deals, the odd is definitely higher than 10%.
Also you are right, big 4 gives you better network for MBA app (not saying it gives you more advantage in the actual application because it’s still a competitive pool)
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