I’ve been working hard on a new article on Mergers & Inquisitions, which is my first article in a couple years. It is entitled “Multi-Manager vs. Single-Manager Hedge Funds: Recruiting, Investing, and Climbing the Ladder.” It compares and contrasts two of the major long/short equity strategies, and also details the success factors and differences in investment philosophy that are important to each strategy.
Hedge fund success is all performance driven, and at multi manager funds they generally run tight risk exposure. That is to say, it largely comes down to the experience of your portfolio manager and also how lucky you get - these things are more important than sectors themselves. Having said that, higher risk/higher reward opportunities tend to come with sectors that have higher beta vs. the market, so those would generally be healthcare and technology.
My general advice to most is to go to a hedge fund that espouses a similar investment philosophy as yourself, and also work the best investors that you can find. You can make a lot of money in both places if performance is good and you have a strong asset base / buying power.