2023 On-cycle is a disaster

What a crazy couple of days it has been and it's not over yet. I am hearing from a lot of folks on both the buyside and from bankers that on-cycle this year has been nothing short of a disaster for both the candidates and the funds. Model test pass rates are at all time lows and candidates are significantly weaker in quality vs prior years. The result is that funds are filling a lower % of their class with on-cycle candidates. 

Why am i getting interview requests from brand name funds where i (i) have not spoken to anyone there (ii) have not spoken with their recruiter and (iii) have not even dropped my resume in that recruiter's portal? The only explanation is that the candidates are crap and recruiters have to dig to find people who haven't even expressed interest in participating in on cycle. 

Perhaps finally this will wake up funds that the whole process is stupid. How can a group of such smart people come up with such a stupid process? On-cycle crushes retention and you have analysts making major life decisions in a 24 hour period when half the time they couldn't name one of the fund's portcos. Of course, this is something that everyone already knows, but post covid its different now.

PE is not what it used to be. Banking has gotten better. Why make less money (ex a few funds), work more hours, and be back at the bottom of the totem pole when you can make more money, work less hours, and have an analyst below you do half the work in banking? It's a serious question that's making a lot of analysts reevaluate the entire process. "What the hell am i putting myself through this for?" "why?" 

Only about a 3rd of people in my analyst class are participating in on cycle, and on top of that probably only half of those kids are actually prepared and going all in. Is anyone else seeing this trend?

 

Idk. Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but on-cycle honestly wasn't too bad.

Most of my EB analyst class is interested in PE and had been preparing for on-cycle for a while. Sure, the timing isn't known far in advance, but the process consists of pretty much the same thing every year. I'm surprised that "Model test pass rates are at all time lows and candidates are significantly weaker in quality vs prior years.", considering that on-cycle used to be much earlier in the past. If anything, I would have thought they'd be higher. Doing interviews in the AM while being sleep deprived obv isn't ideal, but personally, the adrenalin kicked in and I'm glad the entire process was done in a day, compared to SA and FT processes that can take several stressful weeks. 

Am I the only one with this view? It does help that my team has been very supportive and my analyst class has been sharing info with each other.

I do agree with you that banking is getting better, but there's no way I want to stay in banking any longer. I want to try PE for 2 years then dip into something cool

 

Personally a bit of an adrenaline junkie, and the stress and craziness of it all was kinda an energy boost. Don't think I've ever had such energy after not sleeping for 30 hours ever. I think on-cycle feeds into the uber-competitive nature of a lot of banking analysts. Definitely not ideal, but I have a hunch that part of their evaluation rationale is seeing how people handle stuff under enormous stress.

I certainly did not appreciate my Wednesday dinner being disrupted like that. However, if there was one message that analysts in the past have told me it was that 1. don't always believe everything HH's say. and 2. the process can happen at any time. Think this year was a reminder of how shit went before COVID.

 

I agree that the actual process is a shit show and interviewing all night/all day is not a great way to do things, but I disagree that “model pass rates were at an all time low” and the implication that we didn’t have time to prepare.

HHs reached out 2 weeks ago. It was obvious that OCR could kick off within 1-2 weeks, so everyone in my group who wanted PE immediately started grinding in their free time/didn’t go out last weekend. If you have any experience building models, the basic modeling test is not complicated and should only take a few run throughs on the weekend to get right.

 

+1. Agree that the process was extremely hectic, but analysts this year had 7-8 months to decide whether they wanted to do PE and to prep. The baseline expectation should be that it could've kicked off anytime 1 month after starting given that has happened historically. If you were serious about PE, you had plenty of time to network, prep, think about tradeoffs of PE vs banking, etc. That said, I also do agree with other posters who mentioned a lot of weak candidates got offers because the process was so hectic that it put PE firms in a tough place of still trying to get out offers quickly and being able to properly assess candidates 

 

This. Three or four years ago, OCR was ~2 months after banks hit the desks (Halloween weekend) - super early, but people still made it work. Two or three years ago, OCR was ~2 weeks after most banks hit the desk (one or two were literally days out of training) - now THAT was a disaster, and a number of funds sat that out in addition to many candidates. 

With the timing this year, there's no reason candidates shouldn't be able to build a basic LBO in a modeling test that hasn't changed much in the last 5-10 years, especially if candidates with two months of experience handled it okay a few years back. I sympathize a bit with wanting as much experience as possible before you feel confident articulating your desired career path, but aside from the Covid-delayed process in 2021, this is the most normal timing candidates have had in 5+ years so candidates should have had time to get perspectives from various people, think about style/stage, etc.

The process was definitely a shit show, because it always is, but I haven't heard of funds struggling to fill classes any more than they typically do (it's not abnormal for funds to still have a few spots and fill them off-cycle). And candidates not prepared at this point should've held off for off-cycle, just as every other cohort of analysts has ever done. Aside from Wednesday night being a less-than-ideal time for it to kick, this was a pretty reasonable year. 

 

Couldn't have summarized this clusterf*ck of a situation any better. At a strong group and over half our analyst class chose not to recruit. While I definitely felt some concern about missing out during the 24 hours (especially on a few MF opportunities I'd been eyeing), I don't regret it. 

It's not worth participating until you 1) can sell your specific interest/fit for the fund, 2) actually believe you'd like it there (i.e. you've talked to people and know they're not jerks), and 3) you can handle the techs/behaviorals that come along. The lack of recruiter conversations, coffee chat/networking/info session opportunities, and little-to-no lag period between initial HH reachout to interviews made satisfying those criteria very difficult. I'd say the majority of those who went in were taking a big gamble. Great for those who made it out with an offer but unfortunate for those who let the FOMO get to them and now are out of the running at their first choices.

I'd like to think that the reduced participation this year will help firms learn, but the same thing will probably happen next year.

 

Why does it seem like everyone was so unprepared? Most of my colleagues also chose to skip because they weren't ready. Honestly kind of surprising given it is a bunch of smart and motivated people. Like all you need to do for prep is just grind out modeling practice for a few weekends, do some fund level research, and be likeable in an interview. Personally, felt like PE recruiting overall required way less hours vs IB recruitment in college (no months of networking, took me a lot less time to get good at technicals), so just interesting that a bunch of people who did well in IB recruiting are generally unprepared. I get balancing prep with work is tough but if you're at a group with protected saturdays, just spend a few hours prepping every weekend and you won't be super behind when the time comes. 

 

Everyone in my group was pretty prepared. We've had almost a year to prep and were just waiting for when on-cycle would hit. 

Remember that this kind of thread gets posted every year

 

Would echo this sentiment.  Compared to undergrad IB recruiting, the process was way less taxing.  You're looking at 24-48 hours of extreme output with a couple evenings of LBO model practice / fund research versus months of consistent networking outreach and technical guide prep.  One of the big factors pushing me to do on-cycle was that it would be less time invasive than off-cycle recruiting.

 

Wonder if more underprepared people snuck great offers or if MFs held back spots for off cycle. I definitely would if candidates weren’t up to par.

 

There were definitely still a lot of well-prepared candidates

 

MFs typically will hold back maybe a few spots, but will try to lock up candidates quick, given how similar the model is to banking (on average), like being at a BB or well-established boutique. It's the MMs / UMMs that tend to be a bit more picky in terms of fit, etc., as these are smaller firms and Partners want to be more sure that they know what they're getting. Imagine having an Associate class size of 3-5 people for a MM where Associates are more involved in all aspects of a process and getting a dud. Have heard some firms holding back up to 50% of their class size and continuing off-cycle because they haven't found a candidate they liked.

 

As someone that participated in both on cycle and lateral recruiting processes, I can tell you that the off cycle processes were much harder. Interview processes that last a month+ vs. one quick day. There are much higher expectations so people will always find a reason to complain.

 

maybe its because analyst have realized

1. doing interviews at 1am is disrespectful AF

2. doing banking 2.0 work for less pay is not appealing

3. being told after 2 years to spend 200k to attend business school is not appealing

so they either havent prepared and are kicking tires, or simply the top people have decided to go down other paths (and you are not even getting to interview them).

 

I think you underestimate the time it takes for someone who is "bad" at modeling to use notes and other resources to crank out a fully functional LBO in 1-1.5 hrs and make a brief write-up, and cater it to the particular case study. For instance, even if you copy and paste all the formulas (which hardly take any time to type in the first place), you still need to make sure your references are all correct, everything flows correctly, and you're not accidentally doing something dumb. Inherently, to do well on the case, you would at least have a decent grasp of how to do the LBO and likely are looking up very small things. 

Even if you have more time, say 3 hours to do a model + brief IC memo write-up, lots of firms will say "use whatever resource you want." It's not really a deal-breaker, since when you're on the job you always have reference templates. More of a test of quick and clean excel execution, with some amount of thought put into the underlying assumptions.

 

PE just isn't as desirable anymore. The audacity that PE funds have thinking we're going to be ready on short notice at any time to drop everything and interview is hilarious

 

Got the offer I wanted Wednesday at 1am and stopped my process there. It was a really stressful process and it takes quite a bit of desperation to go through it. Don't know if PE is for me, it's not what I thought it was in college but just grateful I have something lined up. It's a mess but if you are prepared, when it hits, on-cycle is much less of a painful process than off-cycle. You can be done within a few hours. You just have to be targeted - know exactly what you want and drop everything to get it. I just wouldn't recommend relying that on-cycle is the same time every year. Some people in my group were preparing since hitting the desk and aimed to be ready for it to kick off right after 2022 on-cycle, and some were banking that it would be in Fall. Those who were banking that on-cycle would be in Fall again just weren't prepared. Don't think it is rocket science. It is a pretty simple playbook to get an offer - know the fund / its strategy and portcos, read the news a bit, know your deals and LBO technicals - that is pretty much it. They are not looking for geniuses (those people likely aren't in banking), just people who are prepared.

 

Gotta go anon cuz this is an unpopular opinion - I was floored when I heard which of our analysts (EB) got which offers. Literally analysts who i've had to take over modeling from - I'm an MBA Aso2 - because they couldn't deal with any wrinkle that the template didn't address, even after 9 months experience and only being staffed on 2 deals. An example - model spits out IRR in the thousands and the analyst sends it out because they filled out the inputs.

I'm not bagging on anyone for not being a modeling wizard - these kids have less than a year experience and it's my job to make sure the work gets done, whether the analyst can do it or not. What is surprising to me is the same analyst I can't trust right now just landed a job at a household name MF

You know what tho? Fucking good for them. If they could land this awesome job on pure chutzpah and Apollo/Bx/Carlyle want them? Fuck yea - we'll get a table at Acme  to celebrate and they can call me next year when they are trying to figure out a plug.

 

Is it due to diversity? Other than that it could just be that people who do well attribute their success to preparation. While I think that helps, it really needs to be said that decisions that are made over the course of a few hours on an odd hour of the night are more likely than not going to be driven by a lot of… luck. Looking at how our first year class is performing, it doesn’t seem like job performance / analyst ranking are good indicators of outcomes during recruiting

 

maybe they just dont care about the work product they send to you(not checking it) because well....by all accounts and purposes you seem to be a huge insecure dick (just wait till they need to call me figure out a plug!...ok guy.....)

modeling isn't that big of a deal

 

yikes - I mean that kid asked me for a reference (which I gave glowingly), would suck if he actually hated me but I guess you can't win 'em all. The point here was more, between me and the fence post, I didn't think he'd get through the technical portion. That last part was more, I'll buy them beers and always be there if they need help - I really try to have a good relationship with these analysts and want the best for them. They get so ground down and some don't have the support they need, so I try and jump in when I can. 

 

Not sure if this is fair. By the same logic, there are a number of MBA Associates in banking that probably shouldn’t have gotten the job. There is a reason why MBA Associates in banking have a certain stigma around them. At the end of the day, there will always be people that make it through the interview process for both banking and private equity because they “look” well polished. 

 

I couldn’t agree more. Analysts that have been literally de-staffed from my deals for incompetence got huge MF offers and I was totally shocked. I think some of these funds who did their recruiting in a single night and used Ivy League UG as a proxy for ability are in for a RUDE surprise in a year lol. (Btw not hating, I did the ivy UG thing too)

The thing that really surprised me was the 2 analysts who I think are like absolute superstars - the absolute best of the best, sharp and humble people, got totally snubbed. They didn’t have the undergrad brand names (just the GS/EVR/CVP level brand name, lol) so they got passed over. In a way I’m grateful because now I get to try and drag these two analysts wherever I go next, but still you’d think these funds would do just like a little bit more diligence on who they spend 350k on next year.

 

Associate 2 in IB-M&A

Gotta go anon cuz this is an unpopular opinion - I was floored when I heard which of our analysts (EB) got which offers. Literally analysts who i've had to take over modeling from - I'm an MBA Aso2 - because they couldn't deal with any wrinkle that the template didn't address, even after 9 months experience and only being staffed on 2 deals. An example - model spits out IRR in the thousands and the analyst sends it out because they filled out the inputs.

I'm not bagging on anyone for not being a modeling wizard - these kids have less than a year experience and it's my job to make sure the work gets done, whether the analyst can do it or not. What is surprising to me is the same analyst I can't trust right now just landed a job at a household name MF

You know what tho? Fucking good for them. If they could land this awesome job on pure chutzpah and Apollo/Bx/Carlyle want them? Fuck yea - we'll get a table at Acme  to celebrate and they can call me next year when they are trying to figure out a plug.

Can you please PM me?

 
Most Helpful

A few takes here from someone further in my career. I thought this years ago when I was considering recruiting and my opinion is unchanged:

  • on-cycle is always intentionally a mess. The firms are looking for kids that will sacrifice everything for the role. They want the absolute hardest of hardos who are willing to stay up till 3am doing a modeling test. These are the people that are willing to WORK to get that 320k+ offer. It is intentionally done this way to weed out the people who aren’t fully bought in to the system.
  • It could be less of a mess and more normal, and it is for more normal funds, but not funds that are looking for the above. This often correlates with prestige and size of AUM.
  • it is an undeniable truth, no fund that respects its workers would provide offers and ask you to make a decision in 24 hours. Any place with respectful reasonable managers would say it’s a big decision to move or commit to a place for 2 years, please take a week to decide. The lack of respect for a candidates life choices should be an indication the firm isn’t going to respect your personal life because already in the interview/ offers stage they aren’t treating you with respect. Again, a reasonable adult would want you to be certain and provide time to decide—these firms aren’t behaving reasonably or with respect. You are an absolute idiot if you think you aren’t signing up for a firm that will treat you like garbage if in the offer stage they are behaving without consideration.
  • On cycle and PE recruiting just isn’t the best way to be wealthy or happy. Many of you are recruiting for large PE funds in the hope that they will provide answers to the world or a path to as the first poster put it, “do something cool”. You are going to work banking hours for another 2 years and while this will give you a very valuable skill set, you still will lack the personal understanding to know what drives you because you will spend all your time working rather than reflecting. After 2 years where you get kicked out, you will recruit for MBA programs (only Stanford or Harvard because everything else would be a waste/ failure) and attend otherwise you will join a hedge fund because that’s the next path. Assuming b school, you will attend lost as ever and your “something cool” will be joining a PE firm because that is the most esteemed among your colleagues and what you know. If you join a hedge fund, you might find you aren’t that great at the role and you decide PE was actually better for you anyway. 

I don’t mean to be cynical, but I have watched my friends do this path and it doesn’t end up well. Banking -> PE -> HBS/ GSB is a well worn path, but the irony is someone with an investment bank and a private equity firm on their resume is likely the least likely to benefit from another name brand on their resume. Similarly, joining a megafund after Goldman Sachs to me begs the question of wtf are you trying to show/ demonstrate to the world. You already received elite finance/ corporate training, what more are you trying to prove? From my view I see only 2 legitimate reasons—you plan to stay a long time and start your own fund (good luck with the competition and with working 90 hours a week until you are 50) 2) you plan to gain a skill set to use somewhere else (where are you going to go?)

Not to throw a wrench in your plans guys, but if you are going to take one of these roles have a plan. To others point as well, this is why off-cycle candidates are often better. If you recruit off-cycle, you likely spent time to decide why/where you really want to go and the skill set you are aiming for. 
 

Life has lots of choices and trade-offs, keep in mind—sometimes the best decisions are the ones that let you know you made a bad decision and doing something just because everyone else is doing it or living your life on a relative basis comparing yourself to everyone is a path to misery and unhappiness.

 

A lot of this is purely based on opinion or “what your friends have done”. I work at a MF and I’ve felt like my team generally cares about personal development and improving WLB. Sure, there are terrible people in the industry that don’t care at all about junior team members but you have to realize, at the end of the day, this is a people’s business. Everyone likes to say there are thousands of qualified candidates, but you guys are underestimating the difficulty of ramping new employees, loss of institutional knowledge, transition of portco deal teams, etc. From what I could tell, the senior folks at my fund, genuinely care about all of the above and are trying their best to make life sustainable. Similarly, do you really think the partners at a MF sit around a table and make the call to launch the on cycle process to screw kids over at midnight? It’s very often driven by HR or one firm that actually doesn’t care and all of the others have to follow along because there is SOME truth in getting the best candidates first. The average kid at GS / PJT / MS / EVR is going to be better than the average kid at DB / Citi / RBC. There will always be outliers and interviews are an imperfect measure of a candidate’s potential on the job, but what can you do at that stage? Having been at a number of institutions (1 man M&A shops, BB banks, MF PE), I’ve felt like the PE job had the best people. It pays off for them to train junior folks because there are often enough spots for everyone to move up whereas in LMM firms, people above you need to leave for upward mobility. Just thought I would share because the majority of posts on WSO seem to paint a very bad picture about life at a MF (I’m sure a lot are bad places), but It’s not accurate to generalize. Don’t get me wrong, we work hard and you should expect to if you get paid $350K+ straight out of banking, but I’m not spreading comps or doing random analyses that go nowhere. I think what people said about MF PE may have been true pre-COVID and during COVID, but like banks, MF PE firms have made a conscious effort to improve WLB these days. All this is to say, do you own due diligence and if you’re not smart enough to figure out if the people interviewing you seem normal or not, you’re out of luck. Interviewers personalities come out in interviews as well so it’s your job to tell the difference between complete hardos with no lives and hard working individuals that enjoy private equity investing. 

I actually agree with your last point. I don’t think happiness should come from comparing yourself to others on a relative basis, but from what you genuinely enjoy doing. That being said, there are happy people coming out of the 2+2+2 path. I don’t know why you all automatically assume these people are miserable. Contrary to popular belief, I’ve heard surrounding yourself with intelligent, smart, and driven people actually does make you happier. We aren’t rocket scientists or doctors, but I’ve personally liked working at some of the top institutions because of the people. I think you actually have a higher probability of people at smaller shops that have massive chips on their shoulders trying to overcompensate and wasting the time if junior teams vs. doing it themselves (just check out the IB forum with direct sources from junior employees). 

 

Let’s be clear, it’s not a megafund problem and even so it actually still can be immensely rewarding and or worth it much in the way a banking stint can be. It also doesn’t mean the culture will always be horrible, but there’s a pretty strong correlation to exploding 15 minute offers at 3am and a firm not treating you well. I def was overly critical just because for most people I know it hasn’t been a great experience. I made a few points, but I do think most the people I see and saw recruit did so for the wrong reasons. I also have been pretty unimpressed by ex-megafund individuals in the same way ex-HBS individuals are almost comically and consistently over-confident (don’t see the same with GSB). Also, not all firms are giving exploding 15 minute offers at 3am. Further, to say that is an HR driven decision is absurd. There’s a level of accountability and culture setting that someone can come over the top and say, “stop this shit right now”. But many firms don’t do that, some actually do. 
 

It’s a lot like banking, there could be massive industry improvements in the way things are done, but there’s a culture that doesn’t allow for it. Ultimately many of these firms are intentionally off because the leadership wants it that way—culture starts from the top, blaming HR is true for many employees, but not the leadership.

 

A few takes here from someone further in my career. I thought this years ago when I was considering recruiting and my opinion is unchanged:

  • on-cycle is always intentionally a mess. The firms are looking for kids that will sacrifice everything for the role. They want the absolute hardest of hardos who are willing to stay up till 3am doing a modeling test. These are the people that are willing to WORK to get that 320k+ offer. It is intentionally done this way to weed out the people who aren't fully bought in to the system.
  • It could be less of a mess and more normal, and it is for more normal funds, but not funds that are looking for the above. This often correlates with prestige and size of AUM.
  • it is an undeniable truth, no fund that respects its workers would provide offers and ask you to make a decision in 24 hours. Any place with respectful reasonable managers would say it's a big decision to move or commit to a place for 2 years, please take a week to decide. The lack of respect for a candidates life choices should be an indication the firm isn't going to respect your personal life because already in the interview/ offers stage they aren't treating you with respect. Again, a reasonable adult would want you to be certain and provide time to decide-these firms aren't behaving reasonably or with respect. You are an absolute idiot if you think you aren't signing up for a firm that will treat you like garbage if in the offer stage they are behaving without consideration.
  • On cycle and PE recruiting just isn't the best way to be wealthy or happy. Many of you are recruiting for large PE funds in the hope that they will provide answers to the world or a path to as the first poster put it, "do something cool". You are going to work banking hours for another 2 years and while this will give you a very valuable skill set, you still will lack the personal understanding to know what drives you because you will spend all your time working rather than reflecting. After 2 years where you get kicked out, you will recruit for MBA programs (only Stanford or Harvard because everything else would be a waste/ failure) and attend otherwise you will join a hedge fund because that's the next path. Assuming b school, you will attend lost as ever and your "something cool" will be joining a PE firm because that is the most esteemed among your colleagues and what you know. If you join a hedge fund, you might find you aren't that great at the role and you decide PE was actually better for you anyway. 

I don't mean to be cynical, but I have watched my friends do this path and it doesn't end up well. Banking -> PE -> HBS/ GSB is a well worn path, but the irony is someone with an investment bank and a private equity firm on their resume is likely the least likely to benefit from another name brand on their resume. Similarly, joining a megafund after Goldman Sachs to me begs the question of wtf are you trying to show/ demonstrate to the world. You already received elite finance/ corporate training, what more are you trying to prove? From my view I see only 2 legitimate reasons-you plan to stay a long time and start your own fund (good luck with the competition and with working 90 hours a week until you are 50) 2) you plan to gain a skill set to use somewhere else (where are you going to go?)

Not to throw a wrench in your plans guys, but if you are going to take one of these roles have a plan. To others point as well, this is why off-cycle candidates are often better. If you recruit off-cycle, you likely spent time to decide why/where you really want to go and the skill set you are aiming for. 
 

Life has lots of choices and trade-offs, keep in mind-sometimes the best decisions are the ones that let you know you made a bad decision and doing something just because everyone else is doing it or living your life on a relative basis comparing yourself to everyone is a path to misery and unhappiness.

Disagree I don’t work anywhere near 90 hours a week and have economics in our fund and will in our next. Thank god I did banking Pe b school Pe. Low risk sure fire way to the top 0.5%+. B school was a joke and I traveled to 25+ countries and met some of my closest friends. I can buy/do whatever I want now, buying a sick pad next year (duplex/the works). Life is good. Totally totally worth it

 

A few takes here from someone further in my career. I thought this years ago when I was considering recruiting and my opinion is unchanged:

  • on-cycle is always intentionally a mess. The firms are looking for kids that will sacrifice everything for the role. They want the absolute hardest of hardos who are willing to stay up till 3am doing a modeling test. These are the people that are willing to WORK to get that 320k+ offer. It is intentionally done this way to weed out the people who aren't fully bought in to the system.
  • It could be less of a mess and more normal, and it is for more normal funds, but not funds that are looking for the above. This often correlates with prestige and size of AUM.
  • it is an undeniable truth, no fund that respects its workers would provide offers and ask you to make a decision in 24 hours. Any place with respectful reasonable managers would say it's a big decision to move or commit to a place for 2 years, please take a week to decide. The lack of respect for a candidates life choices should be an indication the firm isn't going to respect your personal life because already in the interview/ offers stage they aren't treating you with respect. Again, a reasonable adult would want you to be certain and provide time to decide-these firms aren't behaving reasonably or with respect. You are an absolute idiot if you think you aren't signing up for a firm that will treat you like garbage if in the offer stage they are behaving without consideration.
  • On cycle and PE recruiting just isn't the best way to be wealthy or happy. Many of you are recruiting for large PE funds in the hope that they will provide answers to the world or a path to as the first poster put it, "do something cool". You are going to work banking hours for another 2 years and while this will give you a very valuable skill set, you still will lack the personal understanding to know what drives you because you will spend all your time working rather than reflecting. After 2 years where you get kicked out, you will recruit for MBA programs (only Stanford or Harvard because everything else would be a waste/ failure) and attend otherwise you will join a hedge fund because that's the next path. Assuming b school, you will attend lost as ever and your "something cool" will be joining a PE firm because that is the most esteemed among your colleagues and what you know. If you join a hedge fund, you might find you aren't that great at the role and you decide PE was actually better for you anyway. 

I don't mean to be cynical, but I have watched my friends do this path and it doesn't end up well. Banking -> PE -> HBS/ GSB is a well worn path, but the irony is someone with an investment bank and a private equity firm on their resume is likely the least likely to benefit from another name brand on their resume. Similarly, joining a megafund after Goldman Sachs to me begs the question of wtf are you trying to show/ demonstrate to the world. You already received elite finance/ corporate training, what more are you trying to prove? From my view I see only 2 legitimate reasons-you plan to stay a long time and start your own fund (good luck with the competition and with working 90 hours a week until you are 50) 2) you plan to gain a skill set to use somewhere else (where are you going to go?)

Not to throw a wrench in your plans guys, but if you are going to take one of these roles have a plan. To others point as well, this is why off-cycle candidates are often better. If you recruit off-cycle, you likely spent time to decide why/where you really want to go and the skill set you are aiming for. 
 

Life has lots of choices and trade-offs, keep in mind-sometimes the best decisions are the ones that let you know you made a bad decision and doing something just because everyone else is doing it or living your life on a relative basis comparing yourself to everyone is a path to misery and unhappiness.

This is what has been on my mind for a really long time…thank you for putting it into words!

 

Warning: bitchy first year vent incoming. Feel free to skip.

I’m personally done with this whole process. I used to be sold on 2+2+2, but my short banking stint has completely ruined my view on that. I thought I could handle it, but it seems like this rat race never ends. I look at all the PE partners and career bankers that I once aspired to be and realize these guys are still on that same brutal course. I grinded all throughout school and interviewing thinking greener pastures were ahead, but I’m constantly reminded how I can’t settle for more than a few months.

Got into a good college? You better learn about banking right away because you’re already behind if you don’t know within the first 3 months of your freshman year. So you learned about banking? Start prepping and networking like crazy for interviews that start >2 years out from FT. Got the summer offer? Prep for your role now so you can secure FT. Got the FT offer? Start studying for GMAT now because you won’t have that much time in banking/PE. Started FT, have 0 deal experience and you’re still learning your role? Great, push that all to the side and start recruiting 2 years out for PE. You used to be the driven one in your friend group back in high school but now you’re surrounded by peers willing to spend the one day they have off networking and studying for a job they barely know anything about. PE is basically a buzzword for half of them, but it doesn’t matter because they still make you feel like a failure if you aren’t prepping now.

I gave up on that last step. Why? Because it just doesn’t end. The rat race keeps going. Once I get the PE offer, I’ll need to network and prep my ass off to get into a top 3 business school. And then 3 months into business school, I’ll have to immediately prep for summer internships. Then I’ll have to try to get FT from that internship. Now I’m 30, have a nearly empty bank account, still work a shit load, and might finally stay in one place for more than 2 years. Worst part is, none of the above is guaranteed and it can all go to shit with one misstep. Congrats to all of you who can keep going down this path. I envy you and your never-ending stamina. But for me personally, fuck this rat race and this ridiculous on-cycle recruiting process.

 

That’s a great question that I’m still struggling to answer. This constant marathon hasn’t given me a break to really sit down and think what I want to do / what interests me. Sometimes I really do consider suffering just a few more years in banking purely to get a nice nest egg going and then bouncing. Other times I think of leaving straight to a strategy / corp dev role after my 2 years. Plan on solving this mystery in the next 6 months.

 
BBK1234

Warning: bitchy first year vent incoming. Feel free to skip.

I'm personally done with this whole process. I used to be sold on 2+2+2, but my short banking stint has completely ruined my view on that. I thought I could handle it, but it seems like this rat race never ends. I look at all the PE partners and career bankers that I once aspired to be and realize these guys are still on that same brutal course. I grinded all throughout school and interviewing thinking greener pastures were ahead, but I'm constantly reminded how I can't settle for more than a few months.

Got into a good college? You better learn about banking right away because you're already behind if you don't know within the first 3 months of your freshman year. So you learned about banking? Start prepping and networking like crazy for interviews that start >2 years out from FT. Got the summer offer? Prep for your role now so you can secure FT. Got the FT offer? Start studying for GMAT now because you won't have that much time in banking/PE. Started FT, have 0 deal experience and you're still learning your role? Great, push that all to the side and start recruiting 2 years out for PE. You used to be the driven one in your friend group back in high school but now you're surrounded by peers willing to spend the one day they have off networking and studying for a job they barely know anything about. PE is basically a buzzword for half of them, but it doesn't matter because they still make you feel like a failure if you aren't prepping now.

I gave up on that last step. Why? Because it just doesn't end. The rat race keeps going. Once I get the PE offer, I'll need to network and prep my ass off to get into a top 3 business school. And then 3 months into business school, I'll have to immediately prep for summer internships. Then I'll have to try to get FT from that internship. Now I'm 30, have a nearly empty bank account, still work a shit load, and might finally stay in one place for more than 2 years. Worst part is, none of the above is guaranteed and it can all go to shit with one misstep. Congrats to all of you who can keep going down this path. I envy you and your never-ending stamina. But for me personally, fuck this rat race and this ridiculous on-cycle recruiting process.

Dude this is just not true. 2nd year banking post Pe offer is a joke. Last 6 months of Pe are kind of a joke since you’re good at the job and leaving to b school (if you choose). B school is the biggest joke of all time. Your summer internship doesn’t matter I just worked at an ngo in Southeast Asia for fun and traveled a ton. There’s 2 months of “work” while you’re interviewing then it’s a joke again. Once you’re 30 and are a senior vp with 1-2 layers below you, life is more predictable (outside deals)

 

Gotta agree with the user above in that on-cycle really isn't too bad if you've prepared. Of course, it's absolutely chaotic and I completely agree that the inherent nature of this process is pretty insane. Lots of luck involved too. More detail is below, but really the only part that is truly difficult is the fact that there is SO much more to prepare for than banking interviews. An almost overwhelming amount. But I've found that every single one of my colleagues that actually put in a lot of time to prepare for the process ended up with an offer, even if it took a few tries / interviews. You'll get to interview at a lot of different funds during on-cycle, so it really just comes down to your ability to get the job done. On the actual interviews...

  • Modeling / LBOs: You know to a tee what you're going to get here. Sure, some funds may throw some curveballs (dividend recaps, add-ons, convertible securities, etc.), but 90% of the time you know what exactly is being asked. And if you're doing great in interviews, you won't get dinged for your model having slight errors as long as the structure is solid and you're directionally correct. Not to sound too harsh, but not being prepared for this is like going into a banking interview not knowing how $10 depreciation flows through the statements...Should be able to do this with minimal sleep / high stress and should require 0 mental energy.
  • Behaviorals: nothing should throw you off guard here. Walk me through your resume, why did you choose your bank, why did you choose your group, what do you like about your industry, what do you like to do for fun, tell me about a time when, why PE
  • Fund-specific questions: I actually think this sometimes is the most challenging part of the process. It is very helpful to do research beforehand on each fund, but lot of the times you're getting interview requests from funds you didn't expect and have little to no time to familiarize yourself with their strategy. Obviously, for your top "tier" of funds you should have researched this beforehand, but you should definitely know how to answer questions such as "Why X fund, why X industry that we invest in, what's our thesis, tell me about one of our portfolio companies"
  • Deal-experience: Surprisingly took me the most time to prepare for and you'll get a lot of questions asked about this. Would go much deeper than just knowing basic facts / stats / investment merits, really try to know EVERYTHING about it
  • Business-model evaluation / qualitative case: Admittedly difficult, but if you take some time to come up with a solid framework and practice out loud applying it, should help you quite a lot. Found that interviewers have a surprisingly low bar for these questions - they just wanted to see that you can tackle a problem step by step and have a clear thought process (e.g. don't just start spitting out every thought you have, use a concise framework so that even if you don't know much about said company / industry, you know what's the right questions to ask). 
  • KNOWING WHAT YOU WANT: don't be the kid who says "ill go to any MF in any industry group / strategy". Don't just chase the clout. Not only because it's stupid, but it also makes you visibly less qualified during your interviews. The ones who know exactly what they want (whether it be an industry focus, or the type of investments that a fund makes, etc.) really shine through during interviews and are able to ask more nuanced questions well (maybe that's a question about the fund's investment strategy, or a portco, or just "Why X fund")
 

Pretty solid overall. Knew from last year that the time from HH outreach to kick-off would be fairly short, so got all my HH calls in (besides Amity) by Wednesday afternoon. Helped get me a LOT of looks once things kicked off Wednesday evening. Know that people who didn't get all their calls in got far less looks. 

Ended up getting one of my top 5 funds (in Tech IBD coverage and find this space interesting, so went for tech buy-side roles as well)...Got the offer around 2am Wednesday evening!

 

For me, it comes to a realization that it does not matter whether the HHs reach out to me with the funds I want to work for, it is the funds’ decision to move forward with the candidates.

I am not with a BB or EB so that can be a preliminary factor which stops me from the first round.

Some days, these HHs send me their recruiting emails, and I just ignore them completely. Just a waste of my energy to aim for something that is out of my capacity 😅

 

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