Silverlake / Tech PE placement

You have no idea if you even like banking yet or if you are even good at it yet. The best way you can tangibly expect to improve your chances of getting into a shop like that isn't by interning at a start up now, it will be by getting into your role as an analyst and learning everything about everything. I don't see how you even know that you want to work at Silverlake without working in banking or PE, but I'm assuming it's just because of how impressive the name is, which is fine... we all aspire to things and many of us set our sights on the best there is. Just know that your interests dramatically change one you start getting the shit kicked out of you.

But if you know deep down in your heart of hearts that you will not be happy until you get a job at Silverlake, then the formula for getting there is actually fairly simple (at least in theory). When you get to your job in banking you are there earlier than everyone else gets there and you leave later than everyone else leaves, 7 days a week for the entirety of your first year (minus one week of vacation because you are human). Any spare time at the office you spend continuously learning how to build LBO models of all types and structures. Reach out to all the second years in your group and ask them if they know anyone who got a Mega Fund offer, when you get those names, reach out to those analysts to get their prep materials. Find the case studies they did, many groups will have whole folders of prep material and even old modeling tests that were used in Mega Fund processes in years past. Build these until you are sick of looking at them and can sit down and build one without looking at anything and can do so under time pressure.

Become an expert in your field and learn nuances of valuation that are specific to your industry and build the trust of your senior bankers so that you are the first choice analyst for on marquee transactions. Get lucky and have one close, or the next best thing - do all the work for a process that fails. Once you have all the knowledge of your industry and all the modeling experience, all that is left to do is network and learn as much about Silverlake as you can. Understand and be able to verbalize their core investing philosophy, and know their entire portfolio. Get to know that transactions they have recently done.

The main point here (as you can tell I got very granular and a bit overboard) is that getting a Mega Fund job is in theory is not that difficult, you just have to be better than pretty much everyone. You also need a good deal of luck which is uncontrollable. The issue in being better than everyone all the time is motivation. You will find out once you start whether you have that motivation or not, but it is very difficult to fake if you are not truly passionate. You have to be the guy who will jump on grenades, volunteer to take on the staffings that are going to be atrocious 8 month behemoths and you have to be on top of things all the time. If you are of the caliber that these types of funds want to hire, this has to be your life. You don't even think about how to model things, you just do it because it's second nature.

That's why getting these jobs is so difficult. It isn't because inherently building an LBO and discussing it in 2 hours is earth shatteringly difficult in and of itself, it's because the level of dedication needed to get to the point where you don't think is enormous. Most people don't have that dedication...