Throwaway account - I am a first year associate in capital markets at a BB in a satellite office. Our firm hasn't been great at keeping salaries for the satellite offices on par with NY/SF etc, even after adjusting for COL - so I looked around and got a pretty good offer at a financial startup at a major city. My manager did not think leaving for a startup at this point in my career was a great idea, and moving geographies within divisions is difficult at our firm, so he made a couple phone calls and got me a position in IB coverage in NY.
The only issue is that the role is as a first year analyst.
At this point, I am 25 years old, three years out of college, and starting to get cold feet about whether I want to be an IB analyst. I can swallow my pride about giving up my associate title, what I'm worried about is whether it's worth it to spend another couple years in the grind as a junior in order to have a BB NY brand name on my resume and the potential for buy side recruiting/career progression in banking.
Compensation at the startup is pretty comparable to an IB Analyst in NY, lifestyle is much better, there is significant upside potential if the firm grows, and I am continuing to build on my skillset. On the other hand, if the startup fails, I don't have the brand name of a working at a BB in NY on my resume to fall back on and it may be more difficult to get my career started again.
The industry group is the same as what I cover currently in DCM, so I may learn a little faster, and I think I can handle the hours - I just don't know if it's worth the sacrifice to reset my career in IB or if I should just walk and go the startup route.
So my two questions are:
1) What is buy side recruiting like for analysts who are not straight out of college? is it a hindrance?
2) What is the perception of IB Analysts who are in their mid-to late twenties (Especially having worked in a different area of the IB)? Would that be viewed negatively by recruiters for corp/dev or other non-buy side roles?
