Is pursuing an IR Associate role a good move?
I am in the process and tbh the interviews are quite easy. I understand the nature of the work itself can be very procedural and largely relationship management/communication based which I think I would like.
Seems like it pays not far off from a deal associate while naturally being less stressful given there aren't constant fire drills / moving deadlines (at least from the networking I've done), and the fund I'm looking at is not raising often (like once every 5+ years with a recently closed one)
Don’t do it. Try to do deal work on buyside first then decide if you want to try IR. Be careful getting oversold during interviews. Many IR people will oversell you. Associate role will have almost zero LP interactions and you will have ton of fire drills.
What are the ton of fire drills?
No fire drills, said no one ever. Will be very busy during q. end, building decks for last min LP meetings, misc presentations etc.
Have a friend who works in IR and he regrets moving over, very mundane repetitive work that doesn't require you to think. He was promised LP meetings, but you won't be meeting LPs/building relationships until at least VP+ at most funds. Also very hard for him to move back to the sell side in this market.
Is your friend still working IB hours and always on?
Also what size shop is he at? MF, UMM, MM?
“Last min” is included in response and you’re asking if the friend is always on? Maybe IR is for you….
Fwiw, I’m not in IR now but am interviewing for many of the reasons you mentioned (nature of the work, comp, wlb, etc.). There’s definitely something to be said about it being a different career path from investing and that it’s hard to switch over but I’m honestly not looking to go into PE investing anyways so am fine with that. I’m also coming from an ECM background so it would be an uphill battle for investing since I’m no modeling expert vs. coverage group/M&A bankers but also generally prefer and am better at process oriented work (said differently, I prefer and am better at stuff doing vs analysis paralysis and I don’t find it that intellectually stimulating either tbh). There were a few other threads on this forum that were informative as I was considering this path if you want to do more reading on this topic. Welcome any thoughts but I think it would be better path for me and anyone with a similar mindset overall.
Similarly I'm not interested in PE investing - I'm personally in an M&A group but I am looking to move away from the modeling heavy work, I don't really enjoy it and value the soft skill side of the job more at the end of the day within the PE/VC/IB world. I find endless tweaking minor assumptions to appease your VP then your Director then your MD to be frustrating and low value add to processes and can't imagine doing that for several more years.
I would perhaps instead consider moving out the PE/IB ecosystem entirely however and look more at growth/strategy type roles for a startup or corporate and maybe IR would be the wrong move if that is the path I want to go down.
You have several negative responses from people who have done IR and a more positive response from someone who has only interviewed for IR. Use your judgement
Not liking modeling and tweaking assumptions all the time and preferring the communication side of the job are pretty telling imo. You are probably correct that it wouldn’t be a great role if you’re looking for strategy/growth jobs - I bet you could go straight to those anyways so might as well focus on that for your next move. Based on my research/conversations, IR does seem like a nice career in finance but as the comment above mentioned, I haven’t worked a day in it so what do I know.
You will go from tweaking a few cells (once you know how to model) to answering how your firm monitors “virtual slavery” (real example) for the 15th time in a bespoke format from each LP/prospect because the person asking knows you’ll do it and doesn’t want to spend any time converting your stock format to their DRL before nobody ever reads it. You’ll turn that proposed response with legal at least 2 times before they allow you to send it or worse they’ll water it down so that you really aren’t even answering the question the LP asked. Both outcomes will bother you and neither can be removed. You’ll eventually stop wondering why the legal team isn’t commercial and become apathetic. You’ll realize you won’t actually have meaningful LP relationships because your lead IR partner hordes them to defend their place in the carry pool. If you push too hard, they’ll just get rid of you. So you basically need to decide if you want to turn your brain off for 12 years and do DRL requests, hope you can somehow make partner. You are being way way oversold on LP interactions. I’ve seen this movie many times before.
Seems like a lot of negative reaction here on buyside IR. Not exactly consistent with some of the other threads I’ve seen interesting enough. I’m from a coverage background but never did an insane amount of modeling. Did you ever give thought to perhaps if corporate finance IR is better? There is virtually zero discussion of it on this board. Feel like I’ve seen more ECM folk there than buyside IR which is typically more M&A.
PM me if you want to learn about the associate role, can offer my exp
IR associate roles can suck and you're often more in the background. Unless you know for sure that 1) IR is where you want to be long-term and 2) this is a high conviction shop for you, IMO it would be better to try to find an LP seat somewhere, get a better lay of the land and build your own relationships and then potentially go in-house (or not) down the line. Think it's valuable to be in an investing seat at least for a bit and better optionality this way.
When you say “LP seat” isn’t that implying just an allocator role? I thought that’s not really considered “investing” or at least is not a traditionally modeling intensive role. If anything wouldn’t an IR person be doing more modeling than an allocator?
Yes, allocator role. As an allocator if you co-invest then you'll do some modeling there and some allocators will do their own direct or secondaries deals as well. Way more than what IR people do and certainly far more of a true investing function than IR - you have the $ and have discretion over what firms / deals to invest in. Still investing, just with a different lens.
Are you an expectant mom? It’s a great career for pregnant ladies.
I’m baffled by how unthoughtful WSO posters are re: compensation.
The value of the seat is not in the cash comp as an associate. That is peanuts. The value is the opportunity to have a career track as an investment professional, which literally pays 8- possibly 9-digits across the span of your career.
Stop making decisions based on $10-20k today at the expense of 10s of millions of dollars tomorrow.
8 and 9 figure comp in PE is never happening for 99.9% of folks entering PE, especially today. 20 years ago was a different story. Agree choosing a role with nice base salary without thinking about longer trajectory is not the best move but this PE is the path to millions story is behind us
Wrong. Do some basic arithmetic.
Not at all a stretch to get to 8-digit career earnings. If you spend your career in any part of front office finance and DONT get to 8 digit career earnings, you’re a failure.
Easiest way to think about this is if youre no longer interested in investing, IR is your next best thing on a comp perspective. If u are, then dont do it cuz you’ll never be able to move back to investing unless u get an MBA.
All junior sales ppl do shit work, no matter what type of fund youre at. You’ll make a little less vs ur investing counterparts but also work way less. Ur job also won’t be replaced by AI in a couple years cuz it’s a relationship job. That said, don’t do it if u aren’t good at building relationships and don’t have a sales mentality, it’s a very diff skill set.
what if i have 0 interest in investing but want to get an MBA later and maybe do MBB
Frankly, I don’t think it really matters what job u have as u try to get into a top MBA school. I’ve seen back office people at big banks land MBAs at Columbia and equivalent. Most of this comes down to networking, relationships, how well u sell yourself, and luck that u can choose to create for urself
It's not a relationship job tho, are arguably most likely to be replaced with AI at the junior levels. There's so much room for automating DDQ's and Q. reports, LP requests etc.
Seen too many people get oversold on the relationship side of things, firstly, it's reserved for very seniors and secondly its extremely political/protected.
You’re a recent grad with zero experience. Ure supposed to be doing grunt work lol I don’t care what gig u have or what fancy school u went to, u gotta grind. It becomes a relationship job once u hit VP or higher and navigate ur career correctly. Once ure there, its a 600k+ gig plus carry if you’re good
Cupiditate adipisci assumenda consectetur dolore animi quia. Delectus sint debitis vel inventore. Odio id ipsum vero.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Ratione corrupti amet velit porro. Autem quaerat ipsum quo et optio voluptate aspernatur asperiores. Ut fugiat unde asperiores eos quod. Quis ratione repellat et voluptas rerum.
Eius provident sed et voluptate assumenda sunt deserunt. Nemo id neque dolorem dolorum quaerat optio. Commodi fuga sunt omnis dolor illum ducimus nulla. Et corrupti natus illum. Odio qui odit impedit numquam qui ratione. Nam esse aut vitae rerum voluptatem nulla.