Worth it to skip IB and go straight to HF?

Title pretty much says it all. I am in a position where I could potentially skip the IB analyst stint and go right to L/S HF at a $2-3bn fund that has been growing substantially. I would love to get input on anyone who has done something like this or could give me any insight. I am worried that if this was to play out and I was lucky enough to make it happen that I would potentially miss out on the training and networking that 2 years in IB can offer. Would my modeling and network lack or are these things that I could easily make up for while working at a HF. Obviously many things would need to fall into place for this too happen and I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch but I wanted to hear what people have to say about this type of career progression. 

3 Comments
 

Do banking first. Two years and you'll have to really screw things up to get fired, pretty sure at most large banks HR makes it almost unheard of for full-timers to even get cut in the worst of times. A fund can let you go whenever 6mo. in maybe and then you're SOL right out of school.

 

Just do whatever you actually want to do. If you want to work at a HF just do that and if you don’t know what you want then maintain some optionality and do IB.

 

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