Choosing a group - Investment Banking

Background: tech/implementation consultant for PE firms at big4. At a top MBA program and trying to decide what group makes sense for recruiting. I understand that it's a combination of fit, competition/number of seats, and personal interest in the group. 

It seems like a lot of students go the coverage route based on their prior experience, but mine doesn't really point towards anything. I'm wondering if this bars me from certain groups or leaves me with broader ones like Industrials (which would be great), or FIG. Being realistic, I'm not looking to try to recruit for the most competitive groups e.g., TMT, M&A.

The only other group that I find to be particularly interesting is Rx, but I understand that's a highly specific and difficult seat to prep for and spots are limited.

Any thoughts or pushback against this mindset? Would love to hear from analysts/associates/etc. on how often they see MBA associates coming into their group if it's one I've mentioned.

5 Comments
 

tfgf:

I’ll take a shot in the dark, if you’re experience is broad working in a product group with a lot of different industries might make sense, but mostly just trying to get the ball rolling in this topic as I’m curious too


I have experience working in neurological research and tech consulting, and am trying to pivot to IB. Do you think I should target a group like HC or tech to leverage my otherwise unrelated experience?

 

I think what helped me really figure out what I was interested in was just reading about deals in specific sectors or even deals in specific products (complex M&A, distressed transactions, LMEs, etc.).

Like for me insurance groups or oil and gas groups were never in my options cause I could not stand reading about them longer than a few minutes. However I really enjoyed reading about complex transactions or specific RX case studies (J Crew, FTX, JC Penney, etc.).

 
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