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June 30, 2024
9 Free Financial Modeling Lessons
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+Bonus: Get 27 financial modeling templates in swipe file
It is quite difficult but more than feasible (not sure how COVID has changed hiring practices at LO AM shops). The interviews are more or less a split between behavioral questions and then your stock pitch. While the quality of your pitch matters a lot, your story and motivation behind wanting asset management as a career is also very important. It also helps if you have alumni at the firm you're recruiting at to help put in a good word. Networking is key.
If you're behind on the learning curve it would be very useful to spend time prior to the MBA to get up to speed. I would recommend reading through investment pitches on websites like sumzero or valueinvestorsclub to get an idea of the work/knowledge required. Also, go to YouTube and look up "2019 Pershing Square Challenge" - the pitches have an activist slant because Ackman puts on the event but these are good work examples. All of that should help you gauge where you are on the learning curve. There are also some good discussions on WSO about breaking into the buy side, I'd suggest reading through the forum more deeply.
Lastly, AM and IB recruiting sort of overlap. Investment pitch competitions (most of them) are held during the month your classmates are doing coffee chats for IB. They usually give you a week to prepare your pitches for the competition. Some of the prep work required for AM and IB is similar. Personally, I would sign up to do at least one stock pitch competition to test the waters and see how you stack up. If you do recruit IB, the trade off is that you wasted a week of valuable time you could have been doing coffee chats.
Great, thanks so much.
Yes, you are at a disadvantage. No, you are not wasting your time. No, there is no guarantee that you can land a role at a LO, as you said how competitive it is. You are basically aiming for the highest tier of exits from top b-school (along with PE/VC if you don't go the entrepreneur route). Just out hustle and outwork - no secret.
The good thing is you sound laser focused, which is the only way to do this path. You definitely should immerse in everything buy-side related on campus - pitch comp, student fund, investment fund, other school's investment conference (hopefully in-person post COVID), in-semester internships etc.
I discourage you from pursuing IB if your goal is AM (I have seen my MBA classmates with AM talent end up in IB and then escape to buy-side anyways after a year or two in IB, so wtf was the point of schmoozing for a job you didn't want?). Worst case, "settle" (well not really) for a hedge fund (that's hopefully not multi-manager). With your pedigree, I can assure you at the very least you will end up at a hedge fund if you put in the work. You are absolutely right on getting a head-start on building the technical skills.
PM me if you want a reading list. Congrats and I wish you success.
Attaching my article on buy-side search: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/qa-and-yet-another-post-on-how-t…
Really appreciate this. +SB
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