How hard is it to break into IB later in one's career without IB Analyst experience?
I'm currently at a MM direct lending firm on the biz dev side doing strategy and analytics (heavy data focus). I'm also in b-school (not at a 'target' school) but have a high GPA and my concentration is finance.
I realize that if I do want to jump over to IB, then I'll likely have to take a junior (Analyst) role but want to get a sense of a) how possible is this sort of a jump and b) what can I do to maximize my potential for actually landing a job?
If your goal was to go into IB, why did you go to a school that wasn't a target?
You're probably going to have to knock on the doors of regional IB shops.
Thx for the response. I didn’t have a stellar undergrad GPA and started working instead. My career, mostly, has been analytics focused specifically within financial services. I’d like to move out of a back office role and into something revenue generating - just looking for advice on how reasonable that would be and any advice on how to go about it.
How strong is the IB alumni network at your B-school?
Not very strong. I’ll have to research more to definitively know, but my suspicion is that I’m not likely to find very many alumni at bulge bracket IBs.
I feel like the thing that's weird about these roles is, it's not really about how much you want to do it. It's kind of more about what do you bring to the table. The assumption is, stellar pedigree will payoff later down the line (ie more contacts to reach out to to generate more leads).
With the great resources like WSO and other places on the internet, I guess you technically can expand a little beyond that. Maybe you can build a rolodex on the fly if they figure people will simply like you enough from a personality/background standpoint.
So, if you're hoping to just walk in willy nilly, it's not a very high chance. There's a high level of pushback once you're past milestones in your career like undergrad and your first or second year of full-time work, and then after your first year/completion of your MBA.
That's just some perspective from a guy who has been in your shoes.
Thanks for the perspective. I’ve been focusing on networking with folks in the industry that can put me in touch with folks on the inside. I realize that I’ve definitely passed the milestones you mentioned and so I’ve been going at it a different way.
Out of curiosity, what is the pushback against hiring someone experienced/further along in their career? Albeit in a career currently that isn’t heavily IB focused.
Diminishing return on being teachable.
So I guess that makes me SOL
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