With or without recruiters?

Are you speaking in terms of moving to PE, or between banks? Also, headhunters are not "on retainer" with you - you are not their client. Their clients are the firms they serve (whether it be banks or buyside firms). You are just a potential candidate to their clients. Think of headhunters as a first screen HR service for firms. Not speaking to you personally, but recruiting firms tend to get annoyed when analysts think the firms work for them (i.e. if buyside firm XYZ hires me, the recruiting firm will get $XX) - they don't.

I guess I meant like, can I apply to one (or whatever the process is) and get their emails and see which ones are worth applying for?

I mean moving to PE.

along with this topic which are generally the big ones, ive headrd glocap, CPI, and dynamic from friends. any other good ones?

for HFs, not P/E.

Thanks for the info, Gametheory.

For Glocap, it is EXTREMELY slow until you get that first contact. You should expect to sit in limbo for at least 3 weeks-month until they flag you for a position and you get to talk to a real person. Once that contact is made however, I think they are somewhat responsive.

In general, the people there are alternately arrogant and annoying. The tipping point is when you get that first offer, after that they start sending you emails about all sorts of junk positions. Overall, a very bad experience. I'd also suggest you look at the recruiter ratings on bankersball.

Yeah. Well GloCap's model is like McDonalds drive-thru: What's the most efficient way we can reach the most amount of potential candidates/applicants for any given position? They use the website almost like a job-posting website, not a recruiter service. It's a cattle-call for finance professionals (and not-so professionals). The reason nobody reputable retains GloCap as a recruiter is because GloCap probably sends them 100 terrible candidates for every 1 open position, which defeats the purpose of hiring a recruiter to do initial screenings.

Oxbridge can email a little more than you'd like, and it's not tailored to you specifically (my cube-mate and I were looking for two distinctly different types of opportunities, and kept getting the same emails), but at least they screen qualified candidates into their pool, and all their jobs are pretty good. I made the mistake of signing up for GloCap's distribution list at one point - all I got was fund-of-funds opportunities 8 times a day. Not that fund-of-funds is terrible, but it's definitely not what I signed up for (they consider FoF "PE" and I don't, really). And if they ever did have a halfway decent front-office PE position, you'd get 6 emails a day about it.

Huh, funny about people's experience with Glocap. I got 3 interviews with 3 great PE funds - $1.3B fund, $2B fund and $4B fund - and landed a job. Interestingly, one of the jobs that they were retained for and called me about was specifically not posted on their website so maybe they have two recruiting models?? What I thought set them apart was ironically their knowledge of the PE world. I don't know all the recruiters there, but at least the team that placed me came out of industry and really knew what they were talking about. I was actually pretty surprised at how well they understood some of the deals I had worked on previously. I'm beyond my MBA though so I'm not sure if that may mean I worked with a different set of recruiters.

I have a somewhat sanguine view of headhunters.

They can be helpful for introducing you to opportunities you would not otherwise have access to, but I find that most junior bankers have a distorted view of what a headhunter can do for them.

My first piece of advice is that you should never forget that the ehadhunter is not your friend. You are not his/her client. You are inventory, product. You do not pay them. The banks do, and so that's where their loyalty is.

As with most people paid on commission, they have a laser-like focus on where their bread is buttered, and that the name of the game is to get paid. In many ways, they are far more ruthless and mercenary than any banker I know.

If selling you down the river is what it takes to make a buck, they will do it. (Do you really think I'm the one saying that we can't take a lateral from a small shop without making them take a year rollback? No way, that's YOUR headhunter, trying to sell me on how low risk you'll be - "she'll even take a year back, no problem!")

If they think they've got a better shot at a placement with your classmate, say bye-bye to your interview slot. If you confide in them, that's great ammunition for them to use to show their client what a great amount of value they add.

Moreover, it's a tough market. Nobody (other than a few boutiques) is hiring. That means there's only one person in the world more likely to lose his job than you - and that's your headhunter. And like all ruthless mercenaries, when he/she gets cornered, he/she gets meaner, more desperate, and more dangerous.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Genghis, as always, your views are appreciated. Thanks!

I've been doing some of my own 'reaching out' to MD's and principals at PE shops (alums mostly). I'm not necessarily to move right now, but I figure it'd be good to develop a rapport.

If i get really desperate a few months down the road, I might take a different route.

front-paged. WSO, where do you find these pictures? lol

Speechless!

do the headhunters mentioned above (oxbridge, SG Partners, CPI) even look at your resume if you're coming from a middle market bank? im not interested in landing a spot at a bain cap/carlyle/Blackstone, but rather at a good middle market PE shop. Any thoughts on the best way to pursue this?

Yea I have the same interests Zip. I'm curious too.

As others have said, I also generally have a less-than-idealistic view of headhunters.

Yes, they can help you in terms of introductions.... but they can also mislead you and try to force you into things you don't want.

True story: I once had a headhunter tell me that "everyone" should do 2 years of banking and 2 years of PE and that any other path would result in less money/success in the future.

I'm not making this up, this is how insane these people are. So use them for INTRODUCTIONS but do NOT rely on them for decision-making or whether it's in your best interest to take an offer.

They work for the FIRM, NOT for you.

As far as some other questions here: Zip, yes they will look at your resume if you're coming from a MM firm, but as you already alluded to, they'll look at it more in the context of moving to a MM PE firm, for example.

If you want to "trade up," best to do it via a connection or reaching out directly, as headhunters tend to filter based on size of firm/perceived "prestige."

HerSerendipity - your approach is probably good, but getting in touch with a few headhunters may help you if you're at a BB and want a wider range of opportunities.

thanks alot for your response dosk...are there certain headhunters I should focus or avoid if I am only interested in MM PE?

Some of them like CPI will focus almost exclusively on larger places, but it's worth at least meeting with all the major ones.

So here's another question. What if you get 'in' with these recruiters and then botch the interview with whatever PE shop they set you up with? Will the headhunter just drop you if they get bad feedback?

All this talk of PE recruiting, and I'm doing way too much thinking for my own good.

It depends- if you REALLY screw up the interview (e.g. tell them that you have a drug problem) then obviously I don't think you will get much help from them. However if it is an issue that you didn't really sell you wanted to do PE or something like that, the recruiter will still try and push you onto someone else.

Recruiters basically treat you like a car- brand name = bank name, years of work exp is inverse to number of miles, extracurriculars = options, etc. etc. If one buyer doesn't want you, the recruiter will try and package you to someone else.

I guess I meant more along the lines of the technical side. My technical skills are really not typical of the normal coverage/M&A banker. I feel like it would be something I need to learn on my own (how do the basics) and I just wouldn't want to go into an interview and get completely confused.

Thanks, Numi. Appreciate the advice. I feel like the worst feeling would be to sit there and just completely blank.

Yeah, sorry the PM was pretty heavily loaded. =)

Depending on the fund you go to, not all of them will ask tons of technical questions. For growth equity and VCs for example, you won't find too many hardcore technical questions.

But for the larger PEs you will have to worry about these and may get some modeling tests.

My suggestion: practice constructing simple lbo models until you can do them very quickly.

If you're working in a mediocre group at a BB, will you get contacted by a decent number of quality headhunters still, or will you have to network to get yourself in front of the top headhunters?

It never hurts to have a good headhunter. Make us your friend, we want to help you (to help ourselves). Very advantageous on both sides.

I have to say, recruitment agents are exactly like estate agents... useless, cunning and LinkedIn will be replacing them!

Why not do both?

I'm a big proponent of the power of networking, but in that particular situation, I can't see how headhunters could possibly hurt you. They don't cost anything to you but 30 minutes of your time (more with travel) out of the week. Also, the good recruiting firms usually help keep the process organized and simple (one funnel for all applicants) for the firm so they have less to worry about (firms are often too small to have dedicated HR departments to handle this function, evem some mega-funds). The best way, in my opinion, to land top PE jobs (aside from the obvious - working hard, getting top tier, etc.), is to leverage your relationships with MD's and D's that have relationships with the sponsors you are targeting, and coupling that with the support of a recruiting firm on retainer.

You can ask to approve each contact.

It depends, how much experience do you have?

Hard to find associate jobs using headhunters b/c banks won't pay for it (why pay a headhunter $50k+ when they can recruit from schools for free...

What's considered mid-tier? UBS/CS/ML? If so you definitely have a case for it assuming you have an offer in hand from the current bank.

However GS/MS isn't gonna give full credit to a guy from nonbulge. I've seen people give up two years at Wachovia to come to MS.

My group has hired two laterals to associate positions through headhunters. Note that this wasn't for the first-year associate class but for a second-year status.

They are good to help you through the process, and so you have a little better idea of the group/firm. I know a bunch of people who moved from the 2nd/3rd year analyst position, who used headhunters and they had good experiences.

HE sstole yo money fooooooooo

Anybody else? I'd like to hear from someone who doesn't have 128 pieces of monkey shit thrown at them.

To be honest, i think you should do it yourself, rather than get a head hunter it doesnt look good on your part. Thats just my own opinion. I contacted up to 50 firms looking for an internship and got a 30-40%. Landing your self in IB is all about persistence.