Growth Equity or Banking out of Undergrad
Hi Everyone :
Current college soph thinking about where I ought to start my career. I know I am interested in growth equity as my long term career option. If I am given the opportunity to start at a top growth fund (GA or Insight), would that be a better option than doing the traditional two years of banking? Am less interested in VC and more interested in growth.
Thank you for any advice!
Pros and cons to each path:
(1) If you are certain about your long-term interest in growth equity, joining GA and Insight out of undergrad is a lower-risk higher-reward path. * Both firms promote Analysts to Associates. This will enable you to skip the hyper-competitive Associate recruiting cycle, which is an under-stated peace of mind. * You'll have two additional early years on the buyside - more time to to absorb industry knowledge and investing acumen, and more time to develop sourcing skills. * I know at least that the GA program is well-established with big classes (less familiar with Insight) so there isn't a big concern around the program being less formal than IB. * However, the undergrad roles are sourcing-heavy and you won't develop technical modeling and analysis skills as much.
(2) If you are interested in growth equity but not entirely certain (how can you really be as a sophomore in college?), IB makes more sense. * You'll develop a broad technical skillset, which you can take to growth equity or another path. There is no rush to get into growth from undergrad - many if not most people will join growth equity after 2 years in banking/consulting. Your career is so long - why not join more established technical programs and consider your options? If the IB firm is good, you'll have access to recruiting at GA, Insight, Summit, TA, TCV etc. * However, the IB years can be painful if that is not a skillset you care about as much, and the buyisde recruiting process is high-risk and uncertain. It is arguably simpler to gun for GA / Insight out of undergrad than through IB recruiting while you are working long hours. If you don't end up getting GA / Insight, you may regret it.
Overall, this website's (and to some extent, my) bias would be to recommend IB. Solve for optionality and technical training. However, GA and Insight are excellent firms, sourcing is also a difficult skill in itself and if you are confident in your passion for growth equity, that is certainly a good path too.
Which banks would you say would give someone strong opportunities to exit to one of those firms? I know GA tends to take mostly GS/MS analysts.
thinking through the same thing now, thanks to everyone providing feedback on this
Bump, also interested
bump
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