Credit rating agencies career

*How would you compare the compensation with IB? *

Glassdoor has it about right. Associate pay at a CRA is about what an analyst gets in IB. If you adjust to make it hourly, they are about the same.

*The working hours? *

CRA is way less. No weekends, you'll never work past 7 or 8...unless you have a crazy director, or you're in structured; possibly if you are in a more deal driven group, but that isn't common.

*Is is common to stay just for few years and then to switch for IB or something more business wise? *

Most people switch, but it usually isn't for IB. You'll go to internal credit group in banks. I have yet to hear of a CRA analyst moving to M&A or S&T. Some do it after business school.

How do IBs look at candidates with a background from rating?

No idea, but probably not favorably. They'll take other BB, MM and boutiques before they'll touch a CRA. Just the reality. I think structured may be a little different. The reason being is bankers usually want to do things that hurt credit ratings, and you aren't going to make any friends over there. I think debt Asset Management is a better bet. They look at things like a CRA would.

Depending on how you define debt AM, I would say they also tend to shy away from CRA. Maybe some boring IG manager would. Basically no one likes the rating agencies and thinks a robot can do their jobs.