If you’ve performed well enough to survive a few years without being sent to a large spacious conference room to be laid off or fired… It’s time to check that green flashing exit sign. Assuming you haven’t burnt out by trying to be the best worker in the history of finance we should take a look at some opportunities if you believe research is no longer for you. The most common exits would be the buy-side, movement within the sell-side and industry.
Buy-Side: This exit guarantees you do not burn bridges. If you can land a job with a top buy-side firm (i.e. hedge funds, mutual funds or a large pension fund) you can expect the transition to be smooth. The catch of course is that the buy-side has no problem calling your sales team and asking them about your performance. In addition to this risk, you’re telling the bank you want to leave so you should be fairly confident that you are both an integral part of your group to prevent being laid off or paid poorly if you don’t land an offer.
Other Sell-Side: Banking and Sales and Trading will also hire employees who worked in research if they can prove that they understand the differences in the job and that they have the different skill sets needed to transfer over. The issue is that both sides will believe you’re less qualified because you’re not in the same sell-side segment so you’ll have to sell yourself on the transition more than the firm or group itself. The big plus here is that they will unlikely call anyone that works directly in your department or in the sales department without previously asking you for a reference.
Industry: After attending many analyst meetings, talking to the companies in your universe and understanding the space some Analysts/Vice Presidents/Associates decide to move into a less stressful career, which essentially asks you to cover a single stock. The motivation here is clear. Lower hours. Knowing this it is your job to explain why you really like the company and make the transition less about reducing hours and much more about really wanting to work for their firm.
The Walk Away Number: This is becoming more and more rare due to volatility in finance, but there are many people who save up to $X and simply walk away to pursue a completely different career path. We could write an entire article that surrounds how many people in the industry come up with their walk away number and what careers they do, but they range from becoming a monk to complete retirement with kids so it’s extremely difficult to give a number away. For full disclosure, we all have a walk away number and hopefully readers will see us walk that G mile. The fuck you gangster mile, nothing but “green” pastures.
Conclusion: While it is always easier to jump to different firms and continue doing research or other sell side gigs, there are still good alternative exits. The only high-level finance environment that would be more difficult to crack would be Private Equity without previous work in M&A (eg. Investment Banking) Other than that, contrary to what is out there, a strong Analyst/Associate can network into the majority of finance jobs.
