From Big 4 Restructuring to Investment Banking: How to Make the Leap

“Help! I hate my accounting job and want to move into banking, what do I do?”

“What group should I transfer to if I want to get into finance?”

“My Big 4 salary doesn’t give me enough cash for bottles!”

If you’re at a Big 4 firm right now, you’ve had one of the thoughts above before – maybe multiple times.

We covered how to move from accounting to investment banking before, but this time around there’s a different twist - an interview with a reader who moved from a Big 4 restructuring group to investment banking.

Here’s how he made the leap, and how you can do the same:

Industry Groups vs. Product Groups: Got Exit Opps?

“Yo, M&A is the best, right?”

“Why would you ever take an industry group over M&A or Leveraged Finance? Don’t you want to buy entire countries when you move into PE?”

“If you’re not modeling you’ll get bottom-tier bonus!”

Ah, yes: the industry group vs. product group debate.

Just like the debate over cardio vs. strength training, models vs. bottles, and boutiques vs. bulge brackets, there’s so much fervor on both sides that you’d almost think war was about to break out.

Actually, I lied: it’s not quite that heated, but let’s dive right into the debate and see what the arguments for both sides are.

Investment Banking: Pakistan Edition

OK, I’ll admit it upfront: while this site has featured lots of interviews from readers in “hot” emerging markets such as China and India, I haven’t gotten too many requests for Pakistan.

But this is such a good interview and has such specific information that I wanted to publish it anyway.

Plus, the interviewee has been a long-time reader of M&I and captured the personality of the site very well. So let’s get started and learn all about banking, PE, recruiting, and the lifestyle in an emerging market that might be completely off your radar.