“Inquisitor, I’m at Lehman’s TMT Group currently but I heard that Goldman TMT is way better and that everyone who works there aces their private equity interviews and gets offers at KKR and Blackstone. How can I transition over to a much better group/bank?”

Every week I get questions like the one above. And my reply is usually the same: don’t bother. In most cases, lateraling is simply a waste of time and effort. Around this time of year, though, young investment banking analysts everywhere think about making the move.

Career Change, Recruiting | 4 Comments »

“Before I became so fervent about Private Equity, I thoroughly considered all my other career options: hedge funds and VC.”
-Hicks Musings, The Leveraged Sellout
One common question I’ve been getting lately goes something like this:
“Inquisitor, I just started as a freshman at Harvard.  I am majoring in economics and finance and I’m in the stock market [...]

Corporate Development, Hedge Funds, Investment Banking Lifestyle, Investment Banking Salaries, Private Equity, Recruiting, Venture Capital | 12 Comments »

“I work for a boutique investment bank,” responded Todd cockily, smirking and now pulling up his pants over his temporarily retreated beer-gut, illustrating that this was one of those hardcore New York male-anorexia and exercise weeks. He would be spilling out of pants next week no problem after this weekend’s depression-gorge.
Todd paused and collected himself. [...]

Boutiques, Bulge Brackets, Doing The Work, Investment Banking Lifestyle | 8 Comments »