Recruiters

never used them but heard they are very good for PE

recruiter interviews are laid back, they just wanna get a sense to your presence and ability to carry yourself/what you are looking to do. your goal should be to impress the recruiter/get him/her to like you. if they think they can find a job for you, they will work hard to do so.

thx Iambateman - Do you know of others that might be good for PE?

How long are these interviews generally? And a stupid question - do these headhunters do any sort of background check? Basically, I am a little worried if they would call the HR of my current company, prev company etc.

As you can probably tell - I have never used recruiters so I am pretty unsure about how they work in general. :)

CPI, Oxbridge and SG are good. I used all three.

The CPI girls are cute, too. They may do background checks but nothing that would impede on your time at the bank.

some of the older ones are total milfs...

i used the same ones as GameTheory. i think the screening by recruiters was basically just to see that you are a normal person and that you have thoughtful cogent reasons for wanting to make a transition to PE (as opposed to saying stuff like more horizontal firm structure, smaller groups, and relatively mundane things like that). basically, i prepared for these interviews as i would a normal interview, but it has much more to do with knowing your "story" and less preoccupation with technical stuff (although one person at SG Partners did ask me what i thought would be a good LBO investment, so i just talked about a public company that had been rumored to be a buyout candidate and what key characteristics made it attractive)

Horrible experience with CPI. I got signed up with them because they were representing a PE group that I had already gotten myself an interview with. Never got a single email from them on potential opportunities. Oxbridge I had much more success with.