Investment Banking vs Private Equity vs Hedge Funds. What is the difference? What do they do? What is the Best?

Hello all,

I am currently at a target school, and I am looking very seriously into a finance career. I'm looking for my niche, and I am trying to learn more about the finance industry at a broad level. I understand this is probably one of those questions that doesn't garner simple and short answers...

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Best Response

there are books written about this sort of thing...

But honestly if i'm sitting where you are i'd probably want to think hard about what mix of qualities I want out of a career. How important is leisure time to you today? In 5 years? 10 years? How analytical are you? Are you happy working undisturbed in a hyper-focused manner for long periods of time or do you prefer regular interactions? How much training/mentoring/guidance do you think you'll need? What is your 'risk tolerance'? (e.g. how devastated would you be if you got fired in 18 months?) How long of a career do you want? Do you plan to go to b-school? Do you have a view on whether you think markets are efficient or not? Do you like to spend long periods (e.g. 6 months+) on a narrow set of 2-3 ideas, or do you like to have plenty of 'water through the gills'? Where do you hope to live long-term? Does prestige matter to you? Do you care about how your friends/family perceive what you do (whether or not their perception is accurate)?

I would try to answer these types of questions first, and then you should have a better idea of which track suits you.

 

welcome to WSO. my recommendation: change your avatar to a fake picture (not an actual picture of yourself), change your username and signature (you have your initials), and do what I said in your other thread. I'm not trying to be mean, but the reason there are FAQs is because these are extremely common questions that Patrick has taken a lot of time answering. Make use of those resources, but in case you forgot what I wrote:

  1. read the first 30 threads on the first page of the top threads all time in their entirety (http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/hot-topics/all-time)
  2. read the WSO FAQs (http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/frequently-asked-qu...)
  3. take time to think about what questions you STILL have, because as you can see we don't take kindly to someone who posts 5 threads asking questions that have been answered before
  4. post 1 thread at a time, and mention what you don't understand (possibly referencing prior threads)
 

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