How to decide career banker vs. PE / other exits early on?
As an someone towards the end of their undergrad who is seeing on cycle and exit opportunity interviews get earlier and earlier, it's important to at least consider whether you want to exit or be a career banker early on. So, for those who had to make this choice of staying vs. leaving, what type of things did you consider? I understand it seems self explanatory sometimes to just choose what you like the most or what pays the highest, but I'm sure there's more things to consider. What type of qualities / interests would make someone more successful as a career investment banker vs. a popular exit like PE?
For background, I did 2 years of BB IBD, am now 10+ years into a career in PE.
The biggest driver was about people for me, and figuring out who I wanted to be 15+ years into my career, when senior enough where the daily grind decreases. As an analyst, the vast majority of senior bankers I worked with lead lifestyles I felt incongruous with my long term goals. They were on the road every week, they talked negatively about their clients, colleagues, and families, and didn't seem to have much of a life outside of work.
My experience with senior PE partners has been more postiive. Of course there are times / people that approach PE the same way, but many partners have good family lives, genuinely enjoy the companies / management teams they work with, and are able to manage work around having a non-work life.
Now I was in a particularly grind-y banking group, and I work for a relatively good culture PE firm, so its anecdotal. But did / do feel it was a good filter on moving away from IB.
I wouldn't focus on lifetime earnings potential as an analyst - the funnel is too steep in both career tracks to know at 22 if you are going to be successful in either industry at 30, 40, 50.
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