MBB --> MBA --> Equity research
I've been at MBB for three years and am heading to Stanford for an MBA this year. How reasonable is it for me to recruit for equity research roles at some of the large asset managers (ex: Fidelity), despite having minimal experience with finance/accounting/modeling?
Am I correct in thinking ER allows you do a lot of the research that HF's do, but without the stress of actually buying the equities you research?
Sorry that I'm so clueless here, but would appreciate any guidance as I start exploring the next phase of my career!
ER at a large asset manager like Fidelity is buy-side, so you do have the stress of buying the equities you research (though your job in the beginning is to convince your Portfolio Manager to buy the stock.)
You have MBB experience, so you are not a complete blank slate. You do need to get good with accounting / modeling ASAP. A modeling course should do the trick.
Big misconception about MBA for research job search is there is time to learn everything: THERE IS NO TIME. Structured recruiting is probably done by November - January of your first year and you need to hammer out very strong stock pitches for those interviews. And there are very few shots on goal (eg. Fidelity is hiring 2-3 MBA research interns per year.)
So you should start now.
Very helpful, thank you! Is the role meaningfully different in expectations and comp at sell side (which I guess would be at places like bulge bracket banks)?
Yes, comp is higher, but it's more stressful. Typical long only mutual like Fidelity pay MBA grads 150k+150k bonus.
My website has sell-side salary (someone been suggesting I do a buy-side poll, but frankly this forum at the hedge fund section has equally comp data points on hedge funds specifically): salary poll, bonus poll
Expectation is different: on the buy-side, your sole job is to source, analyze, convince your portfolio manager to buy alpha-generating ideas. On the sell-side, it's very different. I am not going into it because it sounds like you are going for buy-side.
Got it, thank you!
np
Dick, just checked your salary poll. Thank you so much for putting that all together — super helpful.
Was curious to see if you had any accurate figures for MD compensation on the sell-side. Director pay looks pretty low and I’m wondering how much better it gets at the top.
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