<p>Vc's and private equity almost never recruit at the UG level. And in fact, they hardly ever recruit even at the MBA level. They barely ever recruit at all. You basically have to go out and find them. They usually tend to hire through a network of personal contacts, which is why obtaining work experience in the finance industry and building a networking are so crucial. </p>
<p>We also have to do be careful to define our terms carefully. Many people (including myself) have casually flung around the term 'investment banking' when we actually mean high-finance jobs in general, as opposed to commercial banking jobs which are far lower paying. However, the term investment banking, strictly speaking, is a well-defined job that only has to do with advising and executions of large securitizations and capitalization deals, i.e. IPO's, M&A, bond issuances, and so forth. Other functions that have fallen into the loose and casual definition of 'investment banking', such as sales&trading, asset management, and risk arbitrage, do not strictly belong to the field of true investment banking. </p>
<p>Investment banking (the strict definition) has historically been, and still is, the most prestigious of all of the fields. However, many reports indicate that the big money is now made in sales & trading. People can move around functions when they start in their career, but generally somebody will find something that they really like and just stay there. </p>
<p>However, I would also point out that most of the money in any of these banking functions are made by the stars. Most people will not be stars, and while they will still make very good money, it clearly pales in comparison to the kind of money that the stars will make. The pay scale is akin to professional sports where the superstars make gargantuan pay but the bench players make comparatively far less. For example, you may, as a novice banker, be working, on a daily basis, with people who are making 10, or even 100 times more money than you are making. This almost never happens at a normal company. For example, if you are a regular worker making say, 40k at a normal company, you will probably never even see the guys in the company who are making $4 million (if these guys even exist). This is a big reason why the banking industry tends to breed people with such large egos and casualness towards money.</p>