Career Dilemma - MO at IB or Research Role at MBB ??
I am facing a career dilemma right now and would really appreciate some thoughts or advice from you all:
a little background about myself
After college, I worked in a MO function supported trading at a top tier IB. Having working here for 3 years, I'm thinking of making a move elsewhere.
I currently have two offers on the table:
1) same role at a different bank: one level up and better pay. downside is the manual procedures
2) research role at a prestigious MBB: I learnt that this is a supporting role still, but is very different from what I do right now. lots of opportunities to work on cases. downside is significant pay cut.
My short term goal is to get into a prestigious MBA program in few years time and then switch into a client facing role. (If I can switch before the MBA then that'd be great too. But it's usually a hard transition to make)
Any thoughts? Thanks everyone.
What type of research? Is it Equity or Fixed income Research or something completely different?
If I get it correctly it's more general research on economic and company metrics and projections. Do you have a clearer idea about how you can work on cases? Also, would you be involved in IP work, too (e.g. McKinsey Quarterly, BCG Perspectives, Bain reports)?
Also, do you know how advanced the analytical work would be (e.g. Access)?
Here is the job description for the research role (focusing on financial market):
Work with case (and proposal) teams Partners with case teams to identify & address critical knowledge needs Provides customized knowledge for client work, prepares accurate, well developed documents and charts Delivers original analysis and insights to case team, provides thought partnership With guidance from senior KT members identifies right expert & connects him/her with requestor Liaises with Data and Research Teams to ensure that requests for expertise are addressed by KT and appropriate research is delivered With consultants, collects, synthesizes, analyzes case team learning & inputs into new knowledge products (vignettes, experience)
Work with topic/sector teams Builds & updates new topic/sector‐related customized knowledge products Reviews knowledge products and ensures they are current and relevant, provides updates when appropriate Writes abstracts & indexes projects & PA documents Collaborates on PA intellectual capital development Contributes to content development around topic/sector for PA meetings & trainings
Bump
You're saying there is a significant pay cut from your offer at an MBB? Something sounds fishy.
It's a research role (support function) and not a consulting role.
Correct, but his MO role at an IB is also a support function, so surprised to see that the support function at an MBB is "significantly" lower than the support function at an IB.
Good point, Luci123 can you clarify whether the pay cut is from your current role or only when compared with the other offer?
It is from my current role (I'm still making roughly the starting salary at MO IB as I'm still very junior) ... Did a little research on glassdoor and looks like the pay (consulting support role) is within the normal range. Personally, I was a bit surprised at the lower pay range as well. But willing to consider it if it can get me closer to my end goal => top MBA or client facing role
Makes more sense now.
I guess it would make a good story as to why you would want to do an MBA. Nevertheless I'm not sure I would take a significant pay cut without a clearer path towards client-facing roles. At least the role at the other bank is a promotion, which looks good on applications.
If I were in your position, I would not take the pay cut to go to an MBB. If you're end goal is to become a consultant/business analyst, then that would be a totally different story -- in that case, it would be a great segway.
It's actually not. The bank promotion probably even gets better chance of getting into client facing MBB. Support and consulting is very separated.
I tend to agree even though one of my first managers once insisted to get a junior guy from research over to the consulting part since he produced great work and anticipated most of the case needs.
What you could do is to take the promotion, work for some time, and apply for regular consulting at an MBB. You would probably start close to the bottom of the pyramid but it might be feasible since you are still young (assuming you are not against losing years of work experience through the transition). Then you would be in a good position to apply for MBAs, too, if that is still what you want. Nevertheless, this sounds a little far-fetched.
thanks for the comments everyone. How about learning points? I'm assuming if you are in a research role in consulting, you must learn a tremendous amount about the industry and companies strategies? vs in a MO role, you are focusing on improving the processes?
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