Private Debt Recruitment

Hi all,

I am looking for some advice and experiences of people who have gone into different forms of private debt.

My situation is as follows. I am a first year analyst working in FIG corporate banking in a BB where IB and corporate banking are one division. I have been getting good exposure on deals, where I have done substantial credit risk modelling. Given the way my firm is organized I have been getting some exposure to DCM and M&A transactions, but most has been with typical corporate banking lending products (pretty much all forms of senior debt). I have had practically no exposure yet to anything in the high yield space.

Currently I am contemplating what I want to do for my next move. I am in no particular rush to leave banking and I like the team and work I am currently on. A lot of the transactions I work on are for credit funds, firms specializing in (IG) private debt and insurance firms. I find these clients very interesting and I am considering applying for some of the larger credit and private debt funds. Given my background so far I am thinking mostly of firms active in direct lending and perhaps mezzanine. My main question is, do you guys reckon this is realistic given my corporate banking background? A different opportunity I have is to move into a DCM role in my second year. Do you reckon it would be worth it to switch to DCM to gain a broader exposure? I am mostly just looking for people who have gone to credit firms and learn more about their backgrounds, and how you broke into credit funds etcetera. I know my description of what I want exactly is still a bit vague, I've only starting working a couple months ago, but I am really looking for some guidance and figured the sooner the better.

Cheers!