How to Break Into the Buy Side
4 unique aspects of the buy-side job search + 2 levers to focus on
You’re at your desk, knee-deep in 10-Ks, when your PM strolls by and says,
Hey, take a look at this idea—let me know what you think in three days.
That’s it. No hand-holding, no checklist—just you, a ticker, and a deadline. That’s the job.
Most companies give you onboarding, structure, and someone reviewing your work. In public investing? You’re expected to think like an investor from day one. Ever wonder how people land those seats? Let’s break down the four ways how the buy-side job search is different from other career paths —and the two key levers you need to pull to get in.
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How the buy-side job search is different
The public buy-side plays by its own rules. Sure, you can apply online, but 99% of the time, you won’t hear back. Instead, you need to find signal and most of the signals aren’t public.
They don’t want to train
On the buy-side, time is literally money. PMs are busy chasing alpha and managing risk—they don’t have time to teach. There are mentors out there, but most people are only good at making money, not explaining how they do it. So firms hire people who already have the basics: IB, PE, equity research, maybe consulting (though consulting is more strategy than finance).
If you're coming from a non-traditional background, you’ll need to teach yourself the job. The good news? It’s public markets. No private data rooms, no NDAs. Everything you need is out there—you just need to know what to read and how to go from 0 to 1 as a research analyst. That’s what I’m here to help with. Then it’s all about reps and applying what you learn.
That said, it’s encouraging to see the big multi-managers starting structured analyst training programs and hiring straight of college—which is a win if you never wanted to do IB in the first place.
They don’t post jobs
If you’re waiting around for hedge funds to post job openings, you’ll be waiting forever. These firms don’t care about resume volume—they care about quality. They already know where qualified people tend to come from (IB/PE/ER), and they tap their networks. Long-only firms might post jobs occasionally, but hedge funds? Rarely or never.
That’s why recruiters exist in this profession. Both sides of the table have specific needs. I wanted to work at a quality-growth long-only; someone else might want an event-driven hedge fund. One growth manager only wants candidates from five schools with IB experience, while an activist fund insists on PE backgrounds. But these people and firms often don’t know how to find each other. Recruiters bridge that gap.
Yes, recruiters get a bad rap but they solve a needed problem. Unfortunately, if you don’t have a stellar and typical background, recruiters won’t help you much – they are chasing the very candidates who can probably get job leads on their own: yes you know it, the Ivy League graduates with 2+2 (IB+PE) experience at top banks and PE firms or those already have elite buy-side experience.
Bottom line: if you’re just applying online and you’re not a unicorn, you’ll be ignored. You need a better strategy to generate leads and offers—we’ll get into that soon.
They are very particular
Most investors have a strong point of view shaped by their prior employers. You don’t often see someone leave a pod shop and suddenly start doing 5-year wide-moat investing. So when they hire, they look for people who already “get” their style—or at least have the right instincts.
That’s why trying to appeal to everyone doesn’t work. Chameleons don’t resonate. You need to figure out what kind of investor you are—growth, quality, special sits—and build your story and pitches around that. Target funds with similar philosophies. You’ll have better conversations and a higher conversion rate.
To help with that, I created a short course to guide you through finding your style and networking with buy-siders. And my fund primers cut through the noise so you don’t have to dig through endless filings and podcast interviews just to figure out who’s who in the hedge fund and long-only world.
No such thing as on-cycle recruiting
This isn’t IB or PE. Hedge funds don’t care when you graduate, or when your 2-year IB analyst program ends. They hire when there’s a reason to—someone leaves, new capital comes in, or a new fund launch. That’s it. There's no structured “cycle.” So if you're planning your job search around some imaginary calendar—don’t.
I see this confusion a lot from IB analysts expecting a PE-style timeline. Hedge funds don’t work that way. The only semi-predictable hiring window is post-bonus when turnover rises. But the best time to start recruiting? Always now.
Get better as an investor every day. Research ideas, write pitches, get feedback, refine them, and build real relationships. That way, when a seat opens up, you’re already top of mind.
The only two levers to focus on
And now that we’ve laid out how the process works, let’s pivot into the two key levers you need to focus on to edge closer to a buy-side seat: Product and Distribution
Product
You are the product. If there is one thing to take away from this article: it’s if you don’t already know how to do the job, no fund will hire you, no matter how much networking you do. Period.
This is the single biggest reason breaking into the buy-side is so tough: No one’s going to train you on the basics. You need to know how to analyze businesses, model and value stocks, find mis-pricings, and then convince your PM you will be right—without guidance.
If you are looking for a structured course to learn fundamental research as a hedge fund analyst, I recommend Fundamental Edge Analyst Academy. I’m a proud affiliate because I’ve seen how quickly it gets people up the curve. It’s the cleanest zero-to-one, first-principles framework I know for becoming a buy-side research analyst.
Once you are on the job, you are there to learn your firm’s philosophy, what your PM likes, and gain more pattern recognition and how to ask the right questions at management meetings. You are not there to learn accounting, basic modeling, how to read a financial statement.
Every conversation I’ve had—real interview or just informational—has involved one constant: someone asking me what stock I like right now. That’ll happen to you too. There is no better way to show your passion for investing by proving you’re already doing the job—because generating money-making ideas independently is ultimately what the role is all about.
The buy-side is actually pretty simple. There are only two roles: one is the Analyst who is the independent idea generator, and the other is the Portfolio Manager who decides how much capital to wager behind those ideas.
So take action. Learn your craft. If you’re an absolute beginner, it’s fine to binge-read investing books at first. I’ve already curated the ones worth your time by leveraging my access to thousands of practitioners. But as you get more reps, shift your time toward analyzing individual companies and industries. Reading more investing books or investor letters has a very low marginal return on time once you’re past the basics—they all start to say the same thing in slightly different words. And overconsumption of theories is a sign you are not stepping out of your comfort zone.
And book knowledge alone isn’t enough. The job isn’t to sound smart—it’s to make money. You prove your ability through stock pitches, not by quoting “margin of safety” or referencing “Mr. Market.”
One compelling long idea is the bare minimum for a long-only interview. For hedge funds, you’ll need at least one strong long and a strong short. But this industry doesn’t operate on bare minimums. People rarely leave good seats, headcount growth is limited, and demand far exceeds supply. You’re competing against candidates with years of buy-side experience—or at least sell-side training from banking or equity research.
So, how hard are you willing to outwork them? You need to overprepare with more ideas than your peers. That said, quality trumps quantity. A few great ideas will take you much further than a stack of mediocre ones.
Finally, having money-making ideas isn’t enough if you can’t get your PM to act on them. Your ability to sell your ideas matters a lot. I’ve seen many pitches through my job-matching initiative. Even when the ideas are solid, some candidates blow it on delivery—they can’t get to the point and lose their audience fast. You’ve got to tighten up. Strong communication—especially writing—is critical. My #1 tip? Always ask yourself: How can I say this with fewer words?
If you want tips on how to pitch and communicate more effectively, read my commentary.
Bottom line: learn the craft, generate real ideas, and know how to pitch them. That’s your product.
Distribution
Once you’ve gone from knowing nothing about stock research to pitching ideas with conviction, the next step is sourcing job leads and landing the role—because it won’t be handed to you.
During my own job search, leads came from everywhere: PMs forwarding my resume, recruiters sliding into my inbox, equity salespeople flagging openings, and even Twitter. Your goal is to build genuine relationships with people who hear about unposted roles and can vouch for you. These folks can also help you avoid toxic shops—PMs who take credit when things go right, blame you when they don’t, screw you on comp, or mentally drain their juniors.
Long-onlys do post jobs on their career website, you should absolutely go for those. But most of your efforts will need to be things that don’t scale (Paul Graham fans, raise your hand). That means doing a lot of 1-on-1 networking. If you don’t know how to network, I created the buy-side networking course, a step-by-step guide to help you systematize outreach and build real relationships with buy-siders. The rest just comes with reps.
Cast a wide net in your marketing channels, here are some examples:
Digital:
LinkedIn
Firm websites (mostly long-onlys)
eFinancialCareers, GoBuySide, etc.
Idea platforms like VIC and SumZero (SumZero has a job board for contributing members; VIC has secret meetups)
Bloomberg Terminal → JOBS function (some smaller funds post here)
Human:
Equity sales and prime broker teams (if you’re on the sell-side)
Recruiters (less helpful if you don’t have a traditional background)
Contacts inside and outside firms—basically anyone who interfaces with the buy-side can be your watch tower for job leads. Don’t overlook data vendors—your Tegus or YipitData reps are talking to the same people you’re trying to work for.
Internal (at firms):
Junior analysts
PMs
Non-investment staff (IR, CFOs, ops, etc.)
Think creatively and invest in deep relationships, rather than going for quantity.
One thing I haven’t touched on yet: leverage. Using social media to amplify your reach can be incredibly powerful. It takes a different skill set, and no—you don’t need to do what I do full-time. But if you have valuable insights on an industry or a stock, sharing it publicly can compound your reach. You create once, and distribute infinitely. So many unexpectedly good things can happen to you if you earn respect of the right audience with a consistent personal brand regardless of which social media platform you choose to share your takes.
Conclusion
If you keep improving both your product and your distribution, the stars will align. It’s a numbers game. You only need one job. And once you get that first buy-side seat, breaking into your second gig gets 100x easier.
I hope this helps. Please share tricks that have worked in your buy-side job search in the comment section. Thanks for reading.
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