Trying for lower tier bank. Bad move?

I want to end up in BB eventually. Is it stupid to try to go for a lower tier bank and then lateral my way up? I'm willing to be set back a year or two to get there. And here's why:

A family friend runs a PE shop. He told me that I'm hired as long as I have a couple years of IB experience. I currently work in Corporate Credit Risk Management at CapitalOne/Amex/WF (FT 3 mos. in). I've read all there is to read about breaking into BB from here and it looks grim.

Another route is going to CRMA at a BB and then network into the FO but from what I've seen, most BB are partitioning their MO and BO away making it more difficult to network into.

I know it's not common; I really just want to know what's possible.

  1. Is it a waste of time to go from here to lower tier IB and then lateral up to a better bank?

  2. Still possible to network into FO from CRMA at BB?

 
Most Helpful

You're limiting yourself, why so many people on here have this mentality is beyond me. Getting into BB is hard so I'm just not even going to try and just shoot for lower tier banks and go from there, this makes no sense. Apply to the BB but at the same time apply to the other "lower tier" banks as well. There is a good chance you'll get shot down from the BB but it could also work out but if it doesn't you have other irons in the fire as back ups. Also, some firms have rules (general understandings really) against moving internally (happened at my firm when we kept taking people from one of the more technical departments) so you might shoot yourself in the foot going that route.

 

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