Career Advice - Associate at major investment firm

so i am currently an associate at a major investment firm. internally, my department isnt known to be extremely reputuable (lack of investment focus) i have been given an opportunity to join another department that has significantly more respect internally.

the problem is that in my current group, if i stay for another 1-2 years i could easily become a senior associate and potentially leave the firm with a higher title. if i join the other group, most likely it would take 4-5 years to reach the a senior associate title.

both department names sound relatively alike (xxxx associate) because they are both somewhat generic and in some way, on paper i could spin my current role to sound somewhat like what the other role would be like without lying or exaggerating too much.

pros to staying with my current role: - reach senior title faster cons staying with my current role: - not really learning anything new - potentially be pegged as always being less investment capable - will have to leave firm in order to advance into anything else afterwards

pros to new role: - learn a lot more - more respectable in company cons to new role: - long time to move up - doesn't necessarily have any direct opportunities. will potentially have to leave firm regardless

i guess this suggest some questions that i am hoping you all can help with 1) how well do other firms know the intricacies of organization within their competitor firms?

2)how important are titles when it comes to joining other companies?

thanks for everyones input

6 Comments
 

Leave w/ the higher title if either way you're gonna have to leave to move up - 4-5 yrs to just make sr. assoc seems like quite a long tim. Unless people at the next company are familiar w/ the structure of yours - either because they worked there, know someone who did, or the firm is big enough to be common knowledge - higher title makes more sense as long as you can pitch your experience well.

 

Suck it up for 2 years. I would say that senior associate at a lower age from a group with less perceived respect > spending 5 years in more respectable group IMO.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford
 

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