Does GPA matter for Private Equity?
I am currently a senior in college at a top 15 university, and will be working in a coverage group at a BB bank full-time after interning there this past summer. I was wondering how much GPA matters when recruiting for PE or even business school? Essentially, do PE firms care about the difference between say a 3.5 vs 3.6 vs a 3.7 GPA? Or has enough time elapsed since school that GPA doesn't matter nearly as much as deal experience and recommendations and the like?
From what I've heard it does, but also interested to hear other perspective with those who've gone through the process. Currently in the same position as OP
Well on-cycle PE recruiting now happens in early January, which is essentially 6 months after you graduate school, so I would say your school record and GPA is still pretty fresh. At my EB, the analysts who departed this summer for Upper MM and MF PE all had very solid pedigrees (3.75+ GPA, semi-target or target school, usually some honors like summa cum laude or phi beta kappa) in addition to being top analysts with strong recs from staffers.
Put yourself in the position of PE professional tasked with leading associate recruiting. A headhunter sends you a stack of 75 CVs with a recommendation of the 12 they think you should interview. What do you do? How do you decide who you should interview? If you just listen to the headhunter it feels like you aren't doing your job. If you interview people who have the same hobbies as you, you aren't going to get a diverse associate class. The reality is most people flip through the stack and see "who jumps out to them". There are a lot of ways to jump out, but a great GPA is definitely one. In other words, a higher GPA is definitely better than a lower one.
“If you listen to the headhunters it feels like you’re not doing your job”
That just sounds silly. How insecure are you? If the HH is a recruiting professional, given your firm uses a competent and reputable one, why wouldn’t you like to listen to HHs? Isn’t that why you pay them lol
I would say in general it doesn't matter that much. When you see people with a 4 GPA getting into MF it is because they are usually the most driven individuals
If you tick the boxes of a typical MF candidate (your work at a top BB in a top group) then they won't look at your GPA but if your profile is not top then they might look it and having a high GPA might help you differentiate
How much do HHs evaluate GPA within the context of your GPA? I'm guessing not much, but a 3.7 in Math is much more difficult than a 3.7 in finance/economics in my opinion.
GPA (but school more than GPA) matters certainly more than deal experience and even more so than recs for PE recruiting as someone who went through it. This is because PE recruiting has been pushed so early than when you are interviewing 6 months in it is tough to have deal experience and headhunters (who are the real gatekeepers here) filter out based on school, GPA and bank/group. Deal experience is a net neutral (since the busier you are the less time you have to interview and that might offset a slightly stronger experience) and recs are usually a check the box at the end of the process and if you are in a good group they will pretty much say you are amazing to get you a job (EXCEPTION is if you have MDs or directors who push your resume to bypass the headhunter, in which case that is much more valuable).
Above is spot on. School / GPA are a factor, especially if recruiting in the on-cycle recruiting of your first year as an analyst. Your bank / group, school and gpa kind of determine your base credentials, with importance in that order in my opinion. In addition to this you have your meetings with headhunters, deal experience, recs, etc. which all play a role as well. Ultimately all of these are boxes to be checked, and the more boxes you check the more solid interviews you can expect to receive. Looking at checking the GPA box, I think what school you are coming from is important, as the threshold at a top target school is going to be lower than that of a semi-target, which will be lower than that of a non-target.
Frankly, I think GPA matters a lot more to the gatekeepers (ie. headhunters) than it does to PE professionals. As many have mentioned, recruiting kicks off quite early where most analysts don't have that much relevant experience so their resumes tend to look very similar. So school and GPA tend to get used by headhunters to slim resume books down (headhunters cost a fortune and need to justify their existence). In my experience, once the interview process kicks off, GPA become a loss less relevant.
Good to know +SB
My guess is that there is a difference b/n 3.5 and 3.7, but it's probably more of a wholistic thing - taking into account deal experience and school and major, etc. Curious to hear from current associates on their view
I don't pretend I know how it works for every single PE in Europe, but here is my experience.
Both my GF and I have been recruited at the (Senior) Associate level by mega funds (Think for her BKK, EQT, CVC, etc.). In her case, because she was not European, they did not pay that much attention to her degrees - they simply made sure she graduated from the best schools in her country.
In my case, because they are very familiar with the schools I graduated from, they checked all the transcripts and made sure I graduated with a 1st. Not sure how relevant it is to this conversation, but they also made sure I passed with High Honours the equivalent of my A level...
Not saying that in all the funds would check your grades, but at least in the most prestigious institutions they want to be able to boast about their ability to hire the very best candidates. It's a shame because they tend to exclude from the selection extremely good candidates, but that's the way it works. No doubt the process is more relaxed for MM funds and some VCs.
If any question, drop me a PM.
Camondo
May I ask what school you graduated from? Currently in college at a european target and would be super interesting to know.
2nd year associate at a MF here. I think wso_user and JoeyJ are pretty on point. For a MF, bank/group and school definitely come before GPA, but it could be the swing factor if you were picking between two similar backgrounds. Based on my experience going through recruiting, I think GPA might matter more for middle-market funds. Since they don't have first pick of the Harvard/Goldman TMT crowd (generalizing here), GPA would be one of the first things to check.
I'll paste below my own post from a pretty stale thread a couple years back (http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/how-much-does-gpa-matter-once-it-…).
mtnmmnn is correct in that it largely serves as a filter for the first step in the process, which is getting past the headhunters. That shouldn't be minimized, however. The process has become such an arms-race that firms are going earlier and earlier each year, which means there's less of an emphasis on deal experience (because analysts today have less of a runway to accrue deal experience as analysts ten years ago did) and more on what I call 'headline' items: school, grades, bank, and group. Headhunters are the ones who are invariably the first step in this even more of a whirlwind process, and beyond that, some of the senior PE guys will even provide a certain GPA as one criterion to the headhunter.
Once you're recruiting for your summer banking gig (which you now do as a first-semester sophomore for a summer internship between junior and senior year -- blows my mind) you can't change the school you're at. That means you can really only control your grades and placement.
I think a smart kid today gets his summer internship lined up, then proceeds to pad his academic transcript with easy courses for the final four semesters of school. If you're going into recruiting with a 3.6 and then your final five or four semesters are 3.9+, you should be walking out of school with a 3.8+.
That will serve you very well for the better part of the first decade of your career: your first buy-side job, your MBA application, and your post-MBA job. See my post below for more.
+1 SB! So in short what youre saying is a PE professionals, Adcoms, or even bankers might want to take a listen to if its worth while. What do you think?
Advice for PE internship interview. Crap GPA at strong target (Originally Posted: 10/25/2016)
I've manged to secure an interview with a well known MM PE firm for an internship. This place has traditionally taken on interns and these guys went on to work in BB IBD, so that's pretty cool and could potentially set me up nicely.
As for me. Coming from a strong target with a very crap GPA (think 3.0) but very strong work experience (venture capital internship, boutique IB internship, founded a startup business etc).
I've put my GPA on my resume as a 3.0 and I've landed the interview. I know the issue is going to come up, so what's the best way to answer the question they'll ask about my GPA? Also, any other general tips and stuff I should know for the interview? They focus on growth equity, not LBOs, and primarily invest in the healthcare space.
Thanks!
Can you put a higher major-specific GPA, or point to any major life events which caused the 3.0?
I'm double majoring in finance and mathematics, and they're both pretty much on par with each other (yeah I actually get the same on both, weird isn't it?)
Was thinking of spinning it into a story of me running my business while studying. Dunno how that's gonna fly though.
Bump
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