I am an MC with 6 years experience in IDM and emerging technologies strategies; and considering a change of scene. My back ground is research and I hold a Phd in Physics, maths based but not necessarily quant level. I was thinking about joining the IB area as an analyst/researcher finding the companies to invest in.Is this a good area to join at present and what are the prospects like? Any comments would be appreciated.ThanksLex

Read a newspaper in the last year?

Same opinion as anon.You confuse things there anyways. IB= Investment Banking. These people do M&A and IPO activities. If you 'want to find companies to invest in', you dont want to work in IB but rather AM = Asset Management! These people ARE the investors and evaluate investment opportunities.If you want to do research (or portfolio management), try one of the fund managers (Fidelity, Schoders, Templeton). They will probably be interested.

I guess the answer is no - why what do the newspapers say - and what's your interpretation of that

newspapers currently talk about stagnation of the economy, and Banks had to write off several billions and thousands lost their jobs in the finance industry.Hope this helps. Btw. If I was your boss, I'd fire you

You don't even need to read a newspaper - just reading this messageboard (e.g. thread 45376) should give you an inkling of "what's up".By the way, please don't refer to yourself as an MC with 6 years experience in IDM, unless you really are a frequent host of events featuring Boards of Canada.Also, don't pretend to be a Management Consultant - nobody's fooled.

I love this forum - all the things that people are afraid to write else where!So, you guys think it is a bad time to move to AM... but the consultantcy work is sooo boring at the moment. I need excititment in my life and if I can't get it at work I may as well try and get a WELL paid job so that I can do it on the weekend. I already do 8am - 10pm 3 days a week so a couple more long days won't matter. At least it'll be in one location rather than the exotic delights of some of Britain's lesser known cities and towns. OR, what other jobs pay well (min £70K/year), a few years in and I can pay off the mortgage, and move to the country and find a nice lad to join me.

I quote 'My back ground is research' - you obviously either cannot do any (incapable) or won't do any (lazy).Either way stick to your current job; if you go anywhere else they might find you out.

Hi Alex.Have you thought about just moving away from IBM? Try working for another consultancy, maybe you'll get paid more & enjoy it more.

Hi Mars!A good point to raise and and can of worms that only someone of your experience and knowledge would be comfortable in opening. i don't claim to be in your league of course but I shall take a pander (There used to a panda soda when I was young...)Ah the old lazy versus incompentent argument, its a useful analysis of course and one that is dicussed in a great depth in a philosophy paper I once read (long fogotten reference I'm afraid). But the gist is that Research is the act of looking for previously discovered information and not discovery - which the act of looking for new [information]. Further - the best way to research is to use as many methods as possible, these should inlclude all possible methodsand should include book research and interaction with those who hold the knowledge, either having perfromed an act of discovery or research. Therefore, I thought I should use the collective wisdom of this forum, and do so without placing my pre-concieved ideas. the results so far have been very useful and I hope they continue to grow!thxsLex

I have indeed considered a move from my current consultancy - but why move from the frying pan to the fire. Unless, there are people who genuinely believe that their work is soooo exciting that their socks could literaly shoot off at any minute I'm not sure its the way to go thou. I'm good at my job and get client and internal recommendations. I just need more, more excitiment or a readon to continue in the same field. Can't be the only one - can I? May be I did enter the wrong field...

The point about research vrs discovery is pointless; not least because they are the same at a phenomenological level anyway, and if the information is known (to you) then it is not research at all, and if it is known (to others not you) then it is not discovery it is research. Elementary epistemology like Nietzsche whole the stone is not in itself hard, it is hard for us as we experience it and we label that sensation of imperviousness as hard etc.Anyway, laziness is laziness.

Lex, one other thing, which might cheer you up; there still IS a Panda soda, made by Mssrs Hall & Woodhouse, a brewers based in Dorset.

Hi Mars ! You're such a sweety, helping to frame the form. However, as I said, I'm clearly not in your league when it comes to epistemology, but as stating anything else would be not be true there seems to be no point in making this statement in teh first place, I think...Oh Oh, Panda Pop still exists!? I shall be buying a case of dandy and burdock as soon as the work day draws to a close, which at the current space-time rate could be sometime next year.But, that said and drawing on your excellent advice and guidance, correct me if I mis-interpret:the test of truth, is said to be, the comparison between the thought and fact: is the fact the same as the thought that thinks it? because if it is, I think work is boring and so it is... So... should I be beliveing that work is sock poppingly, knicker twistingly exciting - and therefore making it so..? I'm not sure that this would work, as I've tried before to get dizzy over work issues and its not worked. However, as I am already excited by a number of jobs I've looked into - would this mean that by they would be exciting jobs -Heli-ski instructor, oil-rig fire fighter, test pilot, tomb raider, or just possibly... an AM analyst?please send your suggestions for exciting but wel paid jobs through...thxsLeX

Lex epistemology and phenomenology (at least in the pure ontological sense, as opposed to existentialism) has little to say on boredom etc so not sure I see the relevance. An ontological phenomenologist would argue truth is simply interpreted experience, framed in our context of understanding through extension, weight, etc. An existentialist would argue there is no truth as a universal, only truth for you, truth for me (that is if you acknowledge me in the first place, and I you, and consequently we momentarily negate the existence of the other).But there is no where objectively exciting job, it is what is exciting for you. Fireman? Fighter Pilot? Both likely to be more stressful than exciting. Being a Marine sounds exciting, until you see your mates vapourised by a roadside IED I suspect. But lets get back to basics - as it were. This is not a good time to look at research in IB; if anything researchers are feeling enormous pain in the sector. And if you can remember Dandelion and Burdock (admitedly it is shockingly disgusting so the memory is probably burned into your brain anyway), you are I guess too old to make the move - 35 would be the upper limit really.I think I really have driven all the MCs on here to the limits of boredom now so I'll sign off this academic nonsense and get back to recruitment issues etc.

Just when this board seemed to be running out of steam, a scintillating exchange!O, who can hold a fire in his hand By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite By bare imagination of a feast? Or wallow naked in December snow By thinking on fantastic summer's heat? O, no! the apprehension of the good Gives but the greater feeling to the worse. Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.

Odd, i have exactly the same as my ringtone.

"IB= Investment Banking. These people do M&A and IPO activities......" I worked in IB for 15+ years trading Fixed Income securities.....so it was all a sham then, I really ought to have been doing M&A and IPOs. I can't believe that they didn't tell me. You'll find that IBs have their own research teams that they pass on to their sales teams and clients (such as Asset Managers et alia) who then base a lot of their trade based on the IB research/sales ideas. Suer some of the buy side do their own research but it's well expensive to do.In the current climate I think you may find it tough to get in at the moment but if you're confident go for it. Alternatively you might want to approach an independant research firm who sell their research to IBs