Folks, Wanted to get your view on this. I am trying to decide between mid market firm’s ER Associate role and an associate in a Fortune top 10 company’s internal M&A division. Your thoughts?
Depends on your career path, what you enjoy doing, and how much a work/life balance matters to you.
Work/life balance is reasonably important but I don’t mind cyclical slogging. From what I understand from both of them, there is a lot of commonality between the roles with respect to valuations, strategic planning/projections etc. And ofcourse, there is quite a bit of difference on the primary purpose of the role, exposure and exit opportunities. Assuming I don’t mind taking up either path, which one is better…monetary benefits, exit opportunities etc ?
banking you’ll almost always work longer hours although internal M&A might be more reasonable vs. BB banking. the skill sets you learn are similare across both… monetarly long term there is huge upside in research (if you’re good enough to become an analyst or go on to manage portfolios)…internal M&A i’m not sure where the cap is and what the exits are (other than back into more traditional banking which the upside is huge as well)…but remember, if you’re good at what you do, the money will be there regardless of what path you choose. i would search other threads on this post to see what peole say with regards to research vs. banking and that should give you an idea of the similarities and differences.
thanks strikershank. Appreciate your opinion.
I would say its a no-brainer. 100% take the Fortune 10 job. Nobody will be in awe of you after working three years at Jeffries in their ER dept. While say you worked at corporate GE, you would probably have a lot of options. I am surprised you are having difficulty making this decision…
i’d have to agree with DRS …
There’s a Fortune 10 now? Who decides that?
I think it was just his way of describing the company
Just be aware the internal M&A will usually pay less than typical IB M&A but you’ll still work a lot of hours. My friend worked in an internal M&A role for a large U.S. bank and said the hours sucked and his comp wasn’t what it would have been elsewhere. He’s now at Columbia bschool looking to make the move to BB M&A. That said, the M&A role sounds better than a mid-tier ER position.
M&A. You’ll be associated with a bigger firm - more prestige, etc.