Breaking into AM / HF
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Learn from other AM/HF to see how they do fundamental research and draft some stock pitch reports and models yourself. Also, building your portfolio focusing on the emerging market and constructing your own investment thesis might prove your motivation and help you with your interviews once you are shortlisted. But maybe an MBA degree is much more useful in terms of career switching (some big AMs only offer MBA summer internships).
Best of luck.
So I had a similar career path as you before eventually breaking into the buyside. From my experience at least being at a very large AM the CFA is definitely valued. I think having 2 down signals you are both serious and competent. Definitely continue down that path.
I would not go back for an MBA unless you need to. I thought about this same path but was told by numerous people grad school recruiting for buyside roles is very challenging too as there are usually people with pre-existing buyside experience vying for these roles. My biggest advice to you would be to network as much as you can. Look at school alumni on LinkedIn who are currently in seats that you may covet and ask them about their career path. I also wouldn’t be opposed to entry level analyst type positions. It may be demoralizing at first if your on the older side and working with people right out of college, but hopefully you can separate yourself from them quickly and then in 5-10 years it shouldn’t matter if you got a late start.
Thanks for the insight - this is encouraging. Out of curiosity, did you break in on the credit or equities side of things? Do you have a recommendation on which might be easier to get my foot in the door given my background?
I broke into the credit side. I’m not sure which side would be easier as I only looked at the credit side of things. This was driven by a few strong connections I made who all happened to be on this side. Regardless, I think if your passionate about the markets and it really is something of intellectual interest to you than you would enjoy either side.
Just one way of many to do it but I was in similar boat and networked while in the consulting role. Found a firm that ACTUALLY supports move to front office and took a middle office role there. I had built a good rapport by asking good questions, showing interest and generally liked the people I faced off with on DD calls. Two years of doing whatever they asked me to, I passed CFA and a junior PM role opened up. It’s not a guaranteed path by any means. Your biggest risk of the opportunity doesn’t open up before you’ve been in the seat too long and your comp outgrows the lateral opportunity.
What was the middle office role? I know I could pretty easily get an FP&A or Investor Relations role at a fund, but not an ideal next step for me (unless it could work out similar to your path).
It was a portfolio analyst role which turned out to be mostly reporting and trade operations but I worked on ad-hoc stuff for research and PMs.
I've gone from a non target to a small hedge fund, to a BB, and now will be starting at top 10 HF, you can PM me if you'd like happy to help
Ooof, the moment you said "top 10 HF",![]()
you gonna be flooded with DMs now.
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