IB Alternatives
I'm a freshman at a west coast target. For the last few years, I was set on pursuing IB, but after starting college and realizing how competitive the process is, not to mention the schedule once you actually get the job, I am starting to reconsider. I am still open to IB, but don't want to put all my eggs in one basket. What are the typical jobs that people go into that don't make it to IB or who want a career that doesn't require as many hours? Also, what are the pay and career paths like? May end up staying with IB, as it seems to provide the best opportunities for the future, but I want to at least explore other options. thanks
Corporate banking is a pretty decent alternative
hahahahaha. No prestige.
Lol we got a hardo over here
Consulting, Corp finance, Corp strat, Corp Dev, and top PM rotational programs all come to mind.
My personal $.02, if you know you don’t want to do the PE route, it doesn’t make much sense to do banking after ugrad. There’s many other 6 fig jobs where you’ll learn a lot, gain a great network, and have an accelerated/rewarding career
Fwiw , I didn’t do banking, but have colleagues who did, and they mostly took the same exits that consultants and Corp strat guys take if they didn’t do PE. So it was a lot of time spent in the office for not much difference in opportunity 2-3 years down the road
1st year analyst - completely agree with this. Recruiting PE from IB is much much easier, but for corporate jobs I'd give consulting an edge. There are a lot of cool rotational programs (look at LinkedIn's Strategy & Analytics) that give you good comp, trajectory and a solid work/life balance.
if corporate/entrepreneurship was my end goal, what would you suggest out of upgrad? My plan was always IB/MC -> M7 -> Corp, but now you’ve got me thinking... any suggestions on careers/companies? Advice for M7 application job prestige?
Not just general corp jobs. I mean even if you wish to be in RE etc, I would say until and unless you wish to go to PE, no point doing IB. Hell, REPE is the only one where you can enter through various routes (brokerage, developer etc). Maybe Infra is the only other one? Lots of people from project finance, consulting arms of engineering firms, some from lending.
Thank you for the advice, but from what I've heard, isn't it even more difficult to get into corp dev or corp strat straight out of undergrad, as there's not much OCR for these positions? Wouldn't these be things you would go into AFTER IB?
Depends, when you say west coast target, I’m thinking UCLA, Berkeley, USC, Cal tech. At those schools, Corp strat is very doable out of ugrad with the right internships. Corp dev is also doable depending on your major, network, and internships
What if you want to do PE/ family office with PE but don't get into IB first. Are there other ways to get there besides IB?
Apply to a boutique IB. Work in consulting focused in M&A or a boutique consulting firm focused on MM M&A. If the consulting route focus on pre-deal and restructuring. Points if you can get ops experience. If you still can’t get in after 2-3 years of that, do an MBA, recruit for banking, and try again after 2-3 years of banking
There’s other ways too, I’m just giving an example
Yup, finally. IB as a job only really makes sense if you are set on PE. Otherwise, go to corporate, consulting, corpfin or junior product/portfolio manager roles. The good thing is that there is literally no shortage of options! You can go straight into commercial roles in tech/RE and carve out a good career trajectory for yourself. I have just mentioned some examples above, this is not an exhaustive list.
Would private wealth management count as portfolio management?
Capital Markets might be an interesting field for you to check out, whether its equity or debt. CM gets a lot of hate on here because it doesn't give you exit opps to buy-side positions, but people that go into CM seem to make a career out of it or hustle their way into another IB group internally. At the junior level, salary appears to be similar to regular IB with lower bonuses, but the work-life balance is supposed to be better. It's definitely a field worth looking into at the very least.
Does private credit count as capital markets experience or are you saying start out strictly sell side CM?
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