Bit of a Friday rant after a longer week of equity earnings, but after several yrs in this biz I wanted to share some musings and understandings based on some experiences with headhunters; I'll preface this is largely specific to the HF community I'd imagine.
I've dealt with a handful of HH/recruiters over the course of the last 5-6 years, all with varying roles across both L/S and LO opportunities in differing sectors and strategies, locations, etc... yo name it. I'd say over 50% of the time the role wasn't really a good fit, either from a sector perspective or just a sheer skill-set view; I had mentioned we ran a bit more of a "value" strategy and I'd be considered for growth roles. I'd mention I'd be helping trade & manage our portfolio and be considered for junior associate pod roles (with > 5 years experience in L/S). I'd share details on my comp structure and immediately be told I'm underpaid (I'm not). I've found recruiters in public equities to be rude, pushy, and lacking any understanding of the structure of the public equity community from a career perspective. Yes, I understand their entire job and incentive is to fill seats and execute mandates, but how can this possibly be successful if you're reaching out to all the wrong candidates for all the wrong roles? To add insult to injury, I've had 2 different recruiters suggest that I was "cheap" or underpaid as their opportunities presented better comp upside (I know this not to be true considering I have friends at said funds). It just seems desperate and unnecessary.
I got this job by pitching a handful of both L/S and LO funds coming out of college, with a handful of internships completed prior and legitimately no clue what made a good stock pitch. While headhunters open doors to jobs you may not know were otherwise available at funds you might not have known were looking, these "obstacles" can be overcome with a little bit of effort. If you can come up with 2-3 thorough ideas and put them in a small research report or presentation, send them over to an analyst or PM, you may find yourself expediting your way through a process.
If I plan to move gigs at any point in the future I fully intend to try and sneak by the recruiter route and come up with a pitch myself targeted to a fund & team that it makes sense for, ideally showcasing I'd be a good candidate to begin with rather than interviewing for the wrong jobs.
Before any PE/IB guys get on my case here I know the landscape is very different over there and recruiters tend to fully gatekeep those opportunities (it's the only way to get the IB jump), but in publics I am betting that the priorities in terms of new hire characteristics are vastly different - they want to see you can come up with good ideas from the get-go.
This is more me rambling, but curious if any other HF professionals or people with public mkts exposure have the same sort of feeling for recruiters specific to the industry.
I agree for the most part. A lot of HH are just focused on quantity (be the first to get as many resumes in front of the HF in hopes of getting that commission) and not quality/fit of candidates.
At this point I know all the BD people at the big MM pods so no need to talk to Any HH going forward. I usually just ignore their LinkedIn requests.
Yeah if you are looking for MM no reason to use them. All of the HF HHs all push MM roles now as they are the majority of hiring volume. A lot of times they try luring you on the phone with “A top Multi Billion Dollar HF” and once you talk to them its just a MM and they pass you off to BD. Ive even had HH say it was a SM then once on the phone said “Oh this team runs like a SM” or “The PM was at a SM.” So i guess were just straight up lying now too.
I'd be curious to hear your argument against the "Devil's advocate" - i.e. that HH typically have the bulk of pod/platform seats to fill so therefore if you're aiming for those sorts of jobs it can be actually made easier to land interviews there via HH.
But yes largely I'd agree that most HH don't really understand the teams/structures of what seats they're attempting to fill...
I work in a small L/S based in Europe and have about 3 YOE (all on the buyside).
I talked to about 50 HH this year. Max 5 were professional, knowing what they were pushing, understanding my role and posing the right questions.
The others were mostly HH with no relationships trying to get my data without having anything to offer (and never called back). Most of those conversations were with people with very little understanding of the differences between strategies. Several HH were just pushing MM roles I could have applied by myself.
The interviews I'm getting come from me contacting directly people at the funds.
Super helpful color. Would be curious to hear your views on how the landscape differs in Europe between the multi/pod (MM) structure versus SM. Obviously it's evolving quite interestingly over here in the U.S...
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