Since I have no experience on the buy side, I appreciate if anyone can shed light on the life as a research associate at investment management. William blair? Thanks in advance…
william blair equity research is sell-side, unless you’re referring to something different. my experience in buy-side equity research was during a summer internship at a large buy-side institution, that had a focus on fundamental investing. best way to describe my experience is that there’s a lot more focus on breadth vs. depth, i.e. covering more companies using a higher level approach, as opposed to really drilling into the companies in-depth. we did build models internally but i wouldn’t say that any of them were nearly as in-depth as some bulge-bracket sell-side models, though we did use analyst models as a basis for some of the companies we were looking at (again, because sell-side tends to dive further into each company). we also spent a lot of time speaking with company management teams, sell-side analysts, and doing our own channel checks – not too different from what you’d be doing on the sell-side, except that there’s more of a focus on translating investment recommendations into actionable ideas, and less so on putting elaborate research notes (since whatever we wrote about a company was kept internally). in fact, the internal memos tended to be shorter and to the point as compared to sell-side notes, as portfolio managers want to cut to the chase and don’t have time to read prose. i think you’ll find that the research experience on the buy-side will vary materially from firm to firm, depending on its investment approach and strategy…but from speaking to my contacts at the larger asset management firms, i think the approach to modeling, writing, and communicating with the PM’s seems to be pretty similar at least at a high level. anyway, it’s actually been a really long time since i wrote about my experience on the buy-side, but hopefully this helps. (i figure most people here probably don’t realize i had worked on the buy-side before, but again, it was only for a short stint and i would be curious to hear perspectives from people who have been there longer)
Thanks for the insight Numi. Unless I misheard, the HR told me that this is a buy-side position. I posted the job description below: Research Associate - Investment Management ~Assist buy side research analysts in building financial models on companies or industries; participating in conference calls; performing due diligence including contacting company managements, industry contacts, and research vendors (brokers and analysts); monitoring news about owned-companies and industry trends; and other primary research. Clearly and concisely communicate with analysts and portfolio managers on the research sector team(s) to which they are assigned. Provide administrative support to the research sector team leader(s) including: 1) scheduling meetings for the sector team and related meetings; 2) producing useful reports for the sector team meetings (e.g. sector universe, IM holdings, valuation, new ideas, benchmarks, etc.); and 3) producing quarterly Portfolio Manager Workshop presentations. Assist in other projects for the research team as requested.
Yeah, this sounds like a pretty entry-level buy-side research role. I really don’t know what salaries are like these days, but at least a few years ago, larger firms were offering something on the order of $50-60K base and up to 25% for year-end bonus. I don’t think compensation will have changed much since that time, except maybe some upward revision to the base. As for hours, maybe 55 hours a week? Should be pretty chill…
Numi, I really appreciate your timely response. I’ll give this a shot so as to find out more background information on this position and career track at large from the HR. The tough part is getting the offer, but the tougher part for me would be to decide whether to take a decent hair cut on my paycheck and a comfortable job in order to pursue this