Top Hedge Fund BO

No one can say with certainty because it depends on the fund and the people involved, but it's close to a zero probability event. FO jobs like the one you describe are hard to come by anyway (and getting harder these days), and the demand far outstrips the supply. You will be competing with people with significantly better credentials, and you will not be improving your skill set in a BO role. It's also hard to get into a top b-school out of the back office, so basically it's a waste of time.

Near impossible. I asked one of my mentors this question. I got an offer for back office at a top 5 hedge fund. base salary was triple my all in comp, with a 100% bonus on top. Basically, my life would have change forever. Turned it down.

• I have posted my mentors response from his email below. redacted of course

"sounds like you're on top of it Cookies. Back office to front office is always tricky since it involves two training commitments from the firm. In larger shop you have many more options simply because of turnover. I've seen many guys with cpas get priority on front office positions when they open up. In fact even though I don't hve an accounting backround my finance one helpe me immensely at Citi when you know your way around a balance sheet it keeps the back office on their toes. what you're describing at BALLER FUND sounds like acute specialization and you may not be ready for that yet. Pleasure to help Cheers THE FUCKING MAN.

P.S. mentor is a retired wall street fucking CAKE boss. greenwich crib, florida crib, hamptons crib, cars, kids, horses whatever. balling.

Hope this helps dude.

Agree with Kenny's post -- a smaller fund is a better bet. I work with someone who doesn't even have a college degree but managed to get into a junior research position after several years with the fund. He started as an admin, moved to trade support / back office stuff, and has gradually worked into more of a research role. I don't know how common that is, but if you bust your ass and keep improving your skill set, it would be stupid for a PM not to utilize someone like that for increasing responsibility (obviously varies by fund though).

Yeah Flake, going out of my way to make that post was an effort to swing my e-peen around. You caught me.

Not everyone wants a finance job for money alone. I want to work somewhere where I have to bust my ass every single day and never feel comfortable.

I currently work in public accounting; there is no way to differentiate who is the best. Either you did the work or you didn't. It's correct or it's wrong. To me, that is a miserable fucking existence.

So if someone offered you a job at burger king that paid what the fund was willing to pay me you would take it? You would throw away your chance to take another shot at what you really want and just settle? You would trade in challenge for comfort?

You speak out of fear. You are not a Swanson.

Why don't you get a horse and live in the mountains someplace and don't bother anybody.

Appreciate all of your comments.. Say I choose this route just to see the opportunities and it turns out as impossible as we know it, then am I putting a negative stigma on my resume because I "downgraded" myself from research to accounting and therefore I would never be able to get back to where I am from or even better positions? Situation is kinda tough, no offer from BB IB this past recruiting season and I have been working in sell-side equity research at a boutique where they have no plan to promote me given how firm is doing. I feel like IB to buyside suits me much better. Even considering applying to summer analyst positions but its another long shot since I have been out of school. So I guess staying put is the best option for now?

Wait. Fuck? What?

You currently work in a front office capacity and want to dip out to a larger shops back office and try to worm your way back into front office? My mind is so full of fuck. Why don't you just dominate at work, network, show your research to PMs at larger shops and say you'll work for bread and water. That's like being a Canadian Football League player, transferring to the NYG weight training staff and hope that someone recognizes your greatness and puts you on the field. No sir, don't do that.

BO transition to front office at the same fund, especially a brand-name fund that has a set heirarchy, is very difficult. I have seen it happen but it is a very long process and odds are long. However, moving from a big-name fund in the back-office to a smaller one in the front-office is very doable if you are good enuff to sell yourself. I worked in ops at a hedge fund that while not big was very well known for a couple of years due to good performance and a well-publicized regulatory issue and I am convinced that the name recognition caused some people to say "well, we should at least talk to this guy and we can get some insight into what that fund is like" and so i got some interviews for front office jobs.

Yeah don't do summer analyst. I went into interview season with PWM internships and didn't have any accounting internships under my belt. Asked the dean if I should go for a an internship instead of a job. He said no. Landed the full time gig and got staffed on the largest client. Don't sell yourself short.

Since you're at a small shop you won't move up until someone else moves out. That can happen one of two ways. They leave or you take their spot from them. Get on it.

echoing what others said. it will be tough because you are not doing all the finance stuff like the FO guys are doing. I honestly don't think my fund is open to BO guys transferring unless you really show initiative and know your stuff about investing (which is rare since you don't have the banking experience in the first place to know anything about modeling or finance in general)

Is Treasury Department considered MO or BO? Could someone explain? Thanks.

Back office. Middle office is largely something that was made up to make certain classes of back office employees feel better about themselves. Kidding aside, middle office in my mind means you directly assist the front office in some fashion-for example valuation, risk management, certain programming functions, etc. Treasury at a large corporation actually has the potential to be pretty cool-you manage the currency and interest rate exposure for the company, invest excess liquidity, and depending on the structure of the company you may manage capital markets activities as well. The thing is a hedge fund has no need of someone to do those things so "treasury" is really mostly a matter of transferring balances between various accounts and prime brokers, managing cash inflows and distributions, etc and reporting on the same.

Thanks for the reply. Why does a large multi-strat hedge fund not have a need for the type of treasury work you described in large corporations? Don't they need to manage their uninvested cash, etc in much the same way?

Sorry for the noob question,

but would the FSO Business Advisor Program at EY lead to a front office job?

I can only speak from my experience at a top 10 HF, but I successfully moved from potentially the worst possible BO role imaginable (read: compliance) to an institutional sales role. Admittedly, most people seem more interested in moving to a more investment oriented position, i.e. trading or analyst type roles, but you may be wise to consider trying to move to a sales role as well.

In fact, just thinking about my shop, we have an ops analyst who is trying to knock down the doors to get in our group as recently as Friday. It would be much easier for an operations position to get the opportunity to move to a sales role considering the interaction that you have with the sales force. You'll be working with them fairly often in making sure they have client, trade, asset, etc. for proposals, client calls or otherwise. If you can show that you're personable and worth anything at all as far as being able to get the information they need to them in a timely manner and correctly, you're likely to be considered for a position.

Thinking about my own transition, one of the associates on the team went to bat for me during the interview because i had befriended him before I made my way to the interview table. Making the transition within an organization is much easier in my opinion because you can show that you know how to navigate the political landscape at the shop you work for. In my experience, in HF land this in invaluable.

If you are in ops/risk mgmt, you have a slim chance to move to a S&T capacity, but not research If you are in accounting, you have virtually zero shot.