Hi - hope that somebody can give me some advice
I've been looking to break into the front office for a while (over here in Asia) - been working odd jobs here there for the past four years.
I recently got an offer as an associate at a corporate development gig at a sizable insurance company - the pay is okay but not great (60k/year, minimal bonus). The work will be mainly focused on in-house M&A, with some strategy work. The team head told me the firm would be doing DD on at least 10 potential deals in the upcoming year, which should give me some decent exposure.
I'm currently in a boutique investment firm, where the firm is starting giving me some opportunities in the investment team after toiling in operations for the past few years. The only problem is that I'm being given little to no guidance, and it looks like they will stick me back in operations if I don't perform within a couple of months (and I've been given some companies to cover on my own, but I'm quite lost and don't really know what I'm doing). The pay is better than the corporate development gig (better bonus, better base even in the operations team).
Should I stay or should I make the jump? The corporate development gig is the only half-decent offer I have been able to land despite interviewing for every available front-office position for the past 4 years. My only worry is that if I am unable to make the grade at my current firm, it will be hard to find another junior "front-office type" role (given that I'm nearing 30, I don't speak the local language, etc.). The PM that I'm close to (in a different team) has told me not to take the corporate development gig because its hard to move to into a decent buy-side role coming out of an insurance company. I really don't care about work-life balance at this point, just care about my future career path (hoping to move to a decent buy-side firm).
Any advice would be much appreciated.
