Leaving banking early?
Hi all,
I am doing IB at a BB and I received a private equity offer for 2019 during on cycle recruiting, and they gave me the option to start earlier in 2019 (January/Feb). I was wondering how leaving banking early (instead of staying my full two years until the summer of 2019) is viewed? Down the road would that be questioned?
Thanks!
Not a big deal - you'll likely have some senior guys and bosses say stuff like "well you signed on for x years and we expect you to finish your term" but it's your career so you get to make the call. Just know that you may burn some bridges, but it may not even really matter in the long run.
Depending on your bonus cycle, you may just wanna stay the extra 6 months and get that cash though. The other good thing is that you can kind of coast, and usually analysts get 1-2 months or so to dick around between IB and PE, which you may not get if you start early.
As someone who left their IB analyst program early, I will tell you that there were no repercussions. MDs were obviously not too happy about leaving as I "signed on" for a 2 year commitment, which is true...but after having me pull multiple all-nighters to build bullshit decks for meetings weeks in advanced, they can go fuck themselves.
In all seriousness though, you need to make the appropriate decision for your future career and not to care much about what other people think. If you want to do private equity, then do private equity.