I think you will probably be too experienced for traditional IB Analyst roles. Even if you try to hide or downplay your experience, you’re going to come across differently than fresh grads with no full-time experience. But there are other options, such as other fields in finance/professional services, real estate, asset management, finance at a tech company, etc. Another option might be to do a top MBA in the future and get in like that. There are some more tips here:

https://mergersandinquisitions.com/age-investment-banking/

I’m not sure I understand your question. The exit opportunities don’t really change just because you move to a large city and then plan to move back to a smaller one… assuming you plan to exit into something else in the larger city. The main difference if you want to work in a smaller town is that there will be many fewer PE/HF opportunities, and the firms will be smaller (if they exist in the region at all). So the opportunities will be more slanted toward normal companies (such as finance or corp dev roles at them).

Yes.

An RE internship is more specialized, but if it’s just an internship, you won’t really be “stuck” there. And it’s much better to have that internship vs. nothing or a much less relevant one.

Potentially, yes, but it will be a challenge to move from FIG to non-FIG PE firms. It’s possible at one of the top few banks but difficult otherwise.

You’ll have an advantage at the bigger firms, but not a big enough one to justify a huge amount of additional effort recruiting if that’s what it will take. If you already have leads/connections at those firms, go ahead and interview there, but if not, I’m not sure it’s worth the amount of outreach it will take to improve your chances and win interviews.

I currently have an offer for Barclays IBD and am trying to figure out if I should continue recruiting for MS/GS/JPM. My end goal is the SM/Tiger Cub HF space and am not sure if Barclays is a “good enough” place to start.

Thanks for your insight.