Working at one of the top three rating agencies (salary, hours, responsibilities, reputation, exit opps)

Ovechkin08Pay: sub standard and below average. Bonuses are also small and nothing like those in IB or the buy-side.

Hours: very good, can be 9-5 if you want. No weekends required.

Learning curve: depends on your background. Generally a very relaxed environment where people will help you to learn and will encourage you. Also, CFA sponsorship is usually provided and with the relaxed working hours you should be able to walk through the exams.

Exit ops: if you become a sector specialist, get your CFA and leave whilst your salary is still low you will get offers to move to the buy side. Can be either HY or IG depending on your background. Also possible to do sell-side credit research or even more into the treasury department of an issuer you cover. Guys with HY/leverage backgrounds, if they are very good might, with networking, be able to get in a distressed debt or special situations credit fund.

Working Environment: as said, very relaxed. Ratings agencies are like a barbell, full of very young guys desperate to get out to a bank/buy-side and older guys leaving banking looking for easier hours due to wife/kids/already made money elsewhere. Great places to learn about bottom up fundamental credit. Only downside post crisis is the new regulatory environment sucks. Case in point, corporate credit analysts can no longer own stock in any companies rated by the agency....

thank you very much, that was helpful!

There was a post here a few months ago about somebody who went from S&P ER to GS London ER. The ratings agencies have taken a reputation hit, but laterals were definetly common. In fact it was one of the things that regulators complained about recently. Ratings analysts would give favorable ratings, and then a year later jump ship to the bank whose issues they were rating.

I would think that moving from a ratings agency to ER will be easier than switching over to IBD. So perhaphs give some thought to what you would like to do down the line. Either way working at at ratings agency will still be a good stepping stone, perhaps only high level management consulting would be better if you goal is a top-flight finance job.

Do you think I would have to go for an MBA before making a jump anywhere?

Anyone?....

If you do ER at a ratings agency and plan to continue in the ER career track, a CFA will be just as good. The hours at ratings agencies are not arduous, so you should be able to pick up the CFA. As for switching to IBD, I think it would make sense to get an MBA and start as an associate.