Why you need to be careful while choosing equity research roles?
Keep on reading to know whether you’re well-suited for the Equity Research role.
1️⃣ The workload is heavy. You’ll need to dedicate about 60-hour weeks with some weekends.
2️⃣ Avoid burnout. While equity research provides a lot of skills for future career development, the challenge is to manage the workload.
3️⃣ Team dynamics because the hours are so long and teams tend to be smaller. The direct relationship with your immediate supervisor and team members needs to be constructive.
4️⃣ No separation of work and personal time. Events can happen anytime in the day and result announcements can come out after 7pm or even later, so the analyst has to produce a report before market opens next day.
5️⃣ If you want work life balance and personal time then this department is not for you. For the time you are in equity research, you must be prepared to work the hours and make sacrifices.
Q: Is it true that there will be less office politics in research though since people are responsible for their own areas/ industries/ sectors, hence there’s less need to compete?
💡Yes, but it depends on the company culture
Q: Some people think that working in research makes it difficult to move to other roles but some say it’s easier to move from ER to asset management or fund management. What’s your view?
💡Research can be quite easy to move as it gives u basic skills to understand companies’ balance sheet, financial health, profits, and projections. So it’s easy, but involves long hours
Q: And why does research recruit so few fresh graduates and interns as compared to IBD or S&T or PB- no high demand for fresh blood ?
💡Cos normally, they have more stable teams
Q: So mobility is not that high? Coz they don’t leave… why do so many sales always move around but not research, is that about personality ?
💡The value add for Sales people works differently and if they get a good offer they should go. However, the Research desk is more team oriented. If the team is good and successful, it can be a team move.
During the firing spate, many sales staff got fired and they had to change careers. One who had poor EQ, left work daily on time, kept her personal life separate from work with no socialising. When the downturn came she was number one to go even though her job performance was good.
Both sell-side and buy-side hire analysts and associates for their ER division to evaluate investment opportunities in the market. The bullish or bearish markets can also influence the focus of equity research and the types of analysis reports that companies publish.
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