Worth it to go from back office to middle office?

I'm currently an AD in the back office of a BB IB. I have an offer from a different BB IB to go to their middle office. It's a $15k raise which is fine, but what I'm really wanting to know is does this help my prospects of moving into IBD/FO? Or is the middle office really just the same as the back office? The recruiter wants to make it seem like it's a good "next step" if I want IBD/FO but I'm sure they all say that. 

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If you're gunning for FO IBD, I don't think it helps very much given the additional time investment, waiting a year or two, and restarting the recruiting cycle. I'd say it's more worthwhile to invest more time in networking and seeing if you can land a front office IBD role at a boutique or LMM shop. That said, if you're open to eventually moving into corporate finance, then MO would be a constructive move forward.

Happy to talk through this more if you DM me

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To give you better advice I need the following:

What does AD stand for and what kind of position are you in now?

What kind of role would you be moving to?

Which firm are you at right now, and which firm would you be moving to? 

Quick and dirty answer, you should try to move to front office at your current institution. Some firms, however, like Goldman Sachs, do not believe in this kind of mobility so it's impossible. I know that Citi is good with internal moves (even from back to front office), so giving me the answer to the questions above will be really helpful.

 

AD is associate director level. I would be moving into a position with the same corporate title but in MO instead of BO. I would be supporting reorgs, corporate actions, and M&As. 

Without naming company names, my current MD bluntly said that there is no path to the FO from where I am now without a full time MBA regardless of how well I perform. The recruiter at the potentially new firm said that there is a path from MO to FO and I would be interacting with them on a daily basis. Again though, recruiters say a lot of things.

This would be a no brainer move, but I own a house in my current city and would have to sell it and move to a higher COL city for the MO role, and I'm taking the GMAT in September and was planning on applying to MBA programs here. So it's basically move and don't start the MBA next year or stay here and do the MBA route. 

 
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