Lateral to GS/MS/JPM?

Lateralling from a BB (Originally Posted: 05/02/2013)

How hard is it to lateral after one's first year at a BB to a better bank (BB or EB), in a different (better) group? Or lateral within a bank to a better group? When I say better, I mean a group with more headhunter attention and greater optionality for exit opps.

I'll be starting in a fairly good IB group at a BB in June/July but I have talked to some former members of that group on the buyside and they said that the exit opps are overhyped from what I had originally been told...I went on Linkedin and found a few recent alums of the group at fairly good upper-MM PE funds but then there were a lot of people who didn't have as impressive exits. Some had exited to other types of funds that I personally wouldn't be interested in joining, and some were doing really random stuff that I'm sure they didn't personally choose. When I Linkedin search some of the top groups on the street, in comparison, they have really different (and way cooler) outcomes, although there are a couple at the same funds as the top analysts who exited from my group.

I realize that there is a stigma against asking "douchey" questions like these (because everyone is so defensive about the reputation of their job function in this myopic, psychopathic industry) but I really do want to be in a bank/group that opens up the largest number of doors for buyside recruiting and I don't really care about how politically correct it is. And I'm willing to put in an extra year of pain and suffering in banking if I need to. I'm very determined to get into the best possible PE fund I can.

Is it possible to switch out after a year? How do you keep it hush-hush? Who should one network with? Should one use a headhunter? How hard is it to switch from one type of group to another, such as a healthcare group to a TMT group? or an M&A group to a Lev Fin group? Or a Sponsors group to an M&A group? or whatever combination? Is it hard to "trade up?" What would be seen as a "difficult" switch in terms of moving from one type of group to another? Who is usually successful at lateraling? How many slots usually are even open for laterals and are the openings mostly in the lower-preference groups? Is there a stigma amongst headhunters or amongst PE firms for people that lateraled? Like, if someone did a year at Citi or BAML or UBS or something and then did two years at Blackstone M&A, would they be at a disadvantage in recruiting with respect to people who started at BX right out of college?

Also, if one misses PE recruiting during the first year because one is spending all of one's free time trying to lateral to another IB job, then if one fails to lateral, doesn't that mean you have no buyside job at all AND no lateral exit? I'm also wondering if it's even worth it, because a few of my group's top analysts are at the same places as what I assume are the least successful (exit-ops-wise) analysts at some top groups, which means that I might end up in a similar position afterwards anyway, regardless of where I go. I also have been told by a couple former analysts that they were at least given interviews at some very very top shops, although they didn't do well in the interviews, which leads me to believe that I could potentially get into a big-name buyside shop if I do all the steps they did to get the interview, but then make sure I absolutely kill the interview.

I'd prefer answers from people who have been through the process before and are current analysts or recent analysts, because I often find erroneous information on this site from people who are obviously college students repeating what they heard in the echo chamber.