Did I fuck up my life from a Target?
To preface this post, I am a rising junior at a target with an SA 2025 in BB Equity Research.
I've always liked markets and research, and my goal is to spend two years in ER before transitioning to HF, LO AM, or another form of buyside research. However, reading some of the posts about ER on this site has me worried. It seems that my exit options are, for the most part, limited only to pods. My fear is that I'll spend two years in ER, exit to a mid-bad pod, and get churned around for a few years before finding myself out of the industry.
Are my worries at all justified? I'm very passionate about investing and I consider myself to be pretty smart, but I don't want to end up being out of the buyside in 4-5 years. I'd love to exit to a Select Equity type place or a SM HF but it seems like it's very difficult to do so from ER...
I think some of this is really just being still in school where everyone is hyperfocused on prestige.. you will have plenty of exit options and you don't need to figure it out 2 years before you even start.
ER to LO AM can be done, you may just need to be a bit patient for something to open up. ER is not like IB where you are under pressure to sign a job within your first few months on the desk, so just learn and take a breath.
HF is a volatile industry and most people get laid off several times - not saying that to scare you, but more that there is a lot of churn and lots of opportunities to get in. People tend to get shuffled around more than shuffled out altogether. And it's not like the exits from HF are that bad either.
If you have the option to start at the HF you want to for FT, of course do that, but you will be fine if you start in ER
This is a great point. The reality is that your interests are probably going to change a bit over the next few years so it's not the most productive to stress about hypotheticals so far down the line. But, I definitely get the college pressure at a target to map everything out in a prestigious way. At the end of the day, you have a great internship lined up for next summer and are doing far better than the majority of people.
Thanks, very helpful advice. To be honest though, I don't see myself working in ER for more than ~2 years, my goal is to become an investor and ER seems like a glorified sales role. I think I'd be happy in LO, but my top preference is an SM or a LO HF (something like Select Equity as I mentioned). I'm open to MMs too but the churn is kind of scaring me off from them (along w/ the limited, non-transferrable skillset)
you still have time to just… not do ER though. you’d have to pursue analyst positions and explain well why you want to do IB instead of ER with your internship on your resume, but it is definitely feasible from a target
I thought about IB over ER but I don't see the upside since I don't want to do private equity. I heard some SM HFs do recruit from IB, but I was under the assumption that it was only from the top top IB groups (which I don't think I'll get into for FT).
oh that’s my bad I lost focus reading that last section of your post - not my personal area of expertise but I don’t see why starting in ER would be a bad thing for your career interests. To be honest - your first job doesn’t matter, and if you’re at ER at a BB you’re in a great spot no matter what you want to do down the line.
Appreciate it, thanks!
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