J4Gently posted:

I can speak to the small firm opportunity ( I work at a 50 person PE firm) .
You can think of the huge well know firms (Blackstone, Goldman etc..) as the Harvards and Whartons of the world. Working at one of those places will open doors, you will get interviews and people will give you the benefit of the doubt as far as being a finance badass.

Small firms however have their own benefits:
Work in multiple areas
Work on deals sooner
Greater exposure to executives
Opportunity to rise quickly
Work life balance is a little better after a few years... maybe
Pay is still great
Better chance to get points on the deals

Small firms negatives:
Less prestige transfer to different industries
Less stability of dealflow can be a feast of famine of activity
Cap on compensation due to smaller asset base (Massive shops have a much bigger pie to cut up)
Excel models only smell slightly of cedar, not mahogany

Either way you are going to be worked hard large or small firm, you will not be wasting two years, you can use that time to get some real deal experience which will give you experience and a track record to use in consulting or that start-up you want. Also you will have some great connections

Swingline posted:

J4Gently posted:

Well to be honest the H bomb is what is probably helping you get those interviews, I wouldn't worry so much about prestige it's not like you are going from Harvard to work at the Gap for two years. Prestige is about transferred perception and is second to work history as time goes on. In the long run as you move up the ranks that Harvard degree isn't going to mean anything if you haven't gone in and kicked rear end and shown that YOU are elite in the real world.

So worry a little less about perception and more about where you will get opportunities to shine, where will you learn the most, where you will get opportunity and where you will kick the most rear end.

And just for reference PE/IB firms big and small tend to attract elite school people. The small(~50) firm I work at has 4 HBS folks and is about 50% top tier elite schools.

bam thwok posted:

They make you earn it. This is why you have to love this poo poo more than your family and friends.

shensterz posted:

Class of 2014 FT coming in. Anyone else going to be starting in NYC next summer?

Bobx66 posted:

Anyone know of recruiting firms that focus on private equity?

tolerabletariff posted:

There are a ton, there's a spreadsheet floating around (just ask other analysts) called "buyside headhunters" or something that has maybe 40 listed with notes on what shops use them, how good, contact info, etc.haven't seen it in a few months but it's somewhere.

Ravarek posted:

I have a rather silly question:

So I've been out of school for a few years now (undergrad finance major) and currently working at a financial regulatory institution. I'm thinking I want to explore the wonderful world of i-banking and all the stress that comes with it. Given that I'm already in the workforce and not from a particularly prestigious school, would it be crazy of me to gun for an Analyst position at an i-bank?

crazypeltast52 posted:

This thread has been quiet for a while.

How about that Cerberus and Safeway deal?

Hypation posted:

I have a problem calling that part of investment banking at all. That is trading. And the traders (prop-traders) hosed up the reputations of investment banks and it was they who blew them up as well. ...

Hypation posted:

Investment banking is purely advisory in its nature. This means M&A advice and advice in relation to and arranging to deal in securities. This amounts to 1% to 5% of an investment bank's revenues. I used to have this mapped out on a slide but its out of date now.

Inside the "Investment banking division" is non investment banking activities such as securities dealing from activities such as book-running (which is sell side trading) and underwriting (which is proprietary trading) but these are not investment banking activities.

What happens is that since bookrunning and underwriting is way more profitable than M&A or capital markets' advisory work the investment bankers offer these latter trading services because the skillsets to do them are essentially the same. Also the relationship is with the same corporate "client". So investment banking is the loss leader used to provide free / discounted advice to secure mandates for underwriting / bookrunning / other trading services.

Hypation posted:

Ah OK. Advising someone to do X when you already have a prop trading position that benefits from X. Yes. that happens all the time. Banks have the conflicts of interest and most of the time they are 'managed' but there is very substantial amounts of steerage in terms of advising one capital structure over another or distribution structure over another based on their trading abilities.

In these sorts of derived benefits there always is a net benefit to trading - you can always show the link to how trading benefited. The catch is showing that the advice provided would have been any different had the benefit not been there. This is made harder by the fact that IB engagement letter expressly require the IB client to acknowledge conflicts of interest exist and require them to provide liability waivers against them.

I am still amazed that anyone would hire an investment bank to provide advice.

tbp posted:

The Michael Lewis book is harshing my buzz. I haven't read it yet but I feel I've heard all the arguments against hft before, anyone read it?

I find it quite rich that GS is condemning HFT rules as well

I'd love to get a crack working on algorithmic trading myself it seems really interesting

crazypeltast52 posted:

Do we have the change our Snapchat prices to Beats prices now?

Original name guy posted:

Does anyone have any advice for trying to break into this field as a community college student? I was in the military and got out but had poo poo grades in high school so i knew i couldn't go straight to a good school. I'm worried that going to a community college is a death sentence since i most likely cant get an internship anywhere while im at one, and i believe a lot of top schools look unfavorably on CC student transfers. The only thing i feel like i have going for me on an app is that i mentor old people on how to manage their finances through a community outreach thing.

Also wondering if what is the best degree for this business out of finance/EE/CS. I imagine finance is but i just feel like EE/CS might actually be better for analytic stuff even if you have less excel experience as a baseline.

TLDR; will a 4.0 at CC and some community service be enough to have a good shot at making a path to IB somehow?