Big City vs. Smaller Town REPE shop
Looking for some career advice. I’m a senior at a non-target and have an offer at a small REPE shop in a small town in the Midwest ($1 billion in total transactions). My plan was to land a job in Chicago but nothing has come of my recruiting efforts. I’m tempted to accept this offer from the smaller shop but wanted to get the opinions of other professionals with a bit of experience before I took the leap. So, what are the disadvantages of joining a REPE shop that’s not in a big city? What are the advantages, if any? Will this hurt my chances of landing a job in Chicago later on in my career? Any and all opinions are welcomed.
A bird in hand is better than three in the bush, I think that’s the saying.
We are in a pretty shitty time right now, and having an offer for repe at all is awesome. You could take the offer you have and continue to network for repe in Chicago, those jobs aren’t going anywhere. Don’t forget there are other paths too, you could do brokerage and then repe in your target market, there are many roads. But if you must do repe, you already have an offer so go from there. Also you could gain some valuable insights at a small shop, so that’s not to be discounted. Perhaps since it’s not a big city you may do less deals depending on the market, deals will be smaller. Still if it’s a good shop, you’ll gain good experience.
I'm a year behind you, so I’ll leave the specifics to more seasoned users on here, but that’s what I know. Also bring from a non target and gunning for dev roles in nyc I may have the same problem soon lol.
So, one of favorite things to post on a comment on WSO is.... The best job is the one you get offered!
As long as this job and firm are legit, I don't think your career is at risk of being defined by it. For most people, the first job is never the best, and frankly for a lot of people they actually can and do "trade up". If are you doing legit deals, seeing decent dealflow, and are being well trained and mentored..... it is a good job.
If you are dead set on Chicago, you need to make a forceful effort to network with people and firms in that market. If all else fails, you can always go to grad school to level yourself up (frankly, it's a strategy many have used to escape smaller markets).
In sum, this is not likely your last job, so don't think your whole career is on the line, it's not. Just evaluate the job for itself. If it pays competitively for a smaller market, then maybe you can save more money to help fund a future move and/or grad school.
Saw a guy transfer from a Columbus Ohio REPE fund to NYC Megafund. Being in REPE is the best move you can do regardless of city
Probably been commented before on other threads but at a smaller shop you might have the opportunity to touch a lot more things vs. a larger shop where you might be a cog in the wheel. I find that to be a huge advantage if you're working on solid deal flow and see a lot of reps across the spectrum of responsibilities. You didn't really comment on deal size but I feel working on 10 deals worth $100M a piece is better than working on one deal worth $1B. Others may comment differently below but that's my opinion.
$100MM/deal is not a small shop deal lol
Fair, I don't want this to detract from OPs question - I was using example numbers to get the point across about sustained deal volume with true hands-on experience vs. working on 1 bigger deal as a member of a larger deal team.
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