WallStreetOasis,
At the request of Patrick and a few users, I have agreed to start an "Ask CompBanker" thread. The purpose is to share responses to my historical and future PMs with the community while keeping the question asker anonymous. Anyone is welcome to send me a PM or post below with a question and I'll respond in this thread.
For those who are new, below are some of my other explaining my background. I'll do my best to answer any question posed, but my background is in the middle market and I've worked exclusively on M&A and Leveraged Buyouts my whole career. I've also taken the GMAT and applied to b-school, though I didn't matriculate.
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Note: Comments in this thread will be deleted after I've responded. I will attempt to answer follow-up questions by editing my original response. Please look back at the original response if you find your follow-up question deleted.
As for your MD, this is going to be tricky no matter how you look at it. Not much advice I can give you other than to try to lay low and have a good excuse ready in the event you do get caught.
One thing to note is that by staying a third year, you were effectively setting your career back by a year. The folks who get hired with 3 years of banking experience get the same level of responsibility and the same pay as the folks with 2 years of banking experience. This isn't a problem at first, but if you continually stick around longer than usual, you'll find yourself falling behind your peers. For example: I manage a pre-MBA associate who graduated from undergrad the same year I did, simply because I took an expedited path while he spent three years banking.
The good news is that there is really no limit to the extent you can work on the two categories mentioned above, so your goal should be to dedicate as much time as possible to maximizing your chances through networking and self improvement. Note that it is also important that you achieve a balance between these two. If you spend a lot of time building your profile, you won't need to spend as much time networking. Similarly, if you've got a vast and dedicated network, you won't need as strong a profile. Balance is key.
That's pretty much the best advice I can give you. Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet to breaking into finance, and now is as tough as ever before. The trick is to keep at it, because you'll never break in if you give up.
Let me clarify that while I view the MBA as a valuable degree, it doesn't make sense for every career path. For someone that works in S&T, it is very uncommon to get an MBA as this is generally not viewed as a career enhancing degree. As such, I don't recommend you pursue it unless you have plans to leave institutional sales shortly after obtaining the MBA. As for Goizueta Business school, I don't know much about it because no one I've ever interacted with professional has obtained an MBA from there. That itself may be a telling statistic. However, people obtain MBAs for different reasons, and there are many reasons why an MBA from Goizueta could be a good career move for someone.great response. booking a call with you later today.
1) You're working as an analyst at a BB investment bank. Things are good -- deals are getting done and your team likes you. Three years later you're offered a direct promote from analyst --> associate. Not wanting to forego two years of earnings nor pay for a costly MBA, you accept. A few years later, shit hits the fan. You don't get promoted to VP, or maybe you start to suffer from extreme burnout because you've been working non-stop for six years. Governmental regulation may restrict your pay, and all of a sudden the job isn't as attractive. Maybe you meet the girl of your dreams and want to start spending time with her; perhaps settle down and start a family. Whatever the reason, if you find yourself in a position where you want to start pursuing career alternatives, your options are far more limited without an MBA.
2) Say you work in a PE firm and have been absolutely crushing it. You're given an opportunity to "skip" the MBA and are promoted directly to a post-MBA role. The partners love you -- you get along great with them and do good work. Your future is looking bright. However, over the course of the next five years, the fund's investments aren't performing well. When the team goes to fundraise, they are unsuccessful (this is happening a lot these days). Even worse, maybe the partners' plane goes down and a number of key employees are lost. All of a sudden you find the fund is winding down and you're off looking for a new job. You don't have an MBA network to tap into to help find a job, and what's worse, you're searching for a Vice President / Principal job without an MBA. Hiring will be significantly more challenging. While the partners at your shop thought you were a rockstar, this isn't something that you can convey on a resume. As a result, you're going to face an uphill battle. Having an MBA in this circumstance wouldn't save you, but it would certainly start to feel like a good investment.
Industry knowledge, and more generally business knowledge, is completely different. Business knowledge encompasses an ever changing landscape of companies, people, interactions, trends, etc. Having someone on your team who knows an industry cold, such as who the major players are -- their go-to market strategies, their competitive advantages, their product portfolio, etc. -- is infinitely more valuable than someone who can model a make-believe projection scenario.
In terms of picking it up quickly, I believe this is mostly a matter of concentration and effort. When you're an analyst, it is easy to resort to being a "processor." This is someone who essentially goes through the minimal motions to get their work done. For example, they might create a slide in a management presentation that shows the top ten customers and the percentage of total revenue that they represent (a customer concentration slide). Some analysts assemble this without stopping to pay attention to what the data is saying. If a senior banker asks the analyst why the company has such high levels of concentration, a poor analyst will shrug their shoulders because they haven't stopped to think about it. They were only interested in slapping the data on the page and going to bed. A good analyst will have an answer that demonstrates knowledge of the company, that they "get it." Maybe the company's CEO used to work at the largest customer, and therefore he was able to obtain 100% of that customers business. Whatever the reason, the analyst won't know unless (s)he is paying attention, able to connect the dots, and takes the time to assess the "why" behind the data. In reality, few analysts are able to do this.
Once you have an MBA, your title will either be Senior Associate or Vice President. Expect compensation on the very low end (micro funds) to be ~$175-200k. I really can't comment on the high end, but I would guess it would be somewhere in the $300k-$400k range. At this point, about 50% of funds will offer some level of carry (according to a 2012 PE compensation report I have (--no, I won't share it--)). Promotion at this stage largely depends on performance, deal experience, personnel needs, and overall contributions. Expect a minimum of two years and a maximum of five.
The general organizational structure tends to be: Analyst (pre-banking, some firms don't have this position) --> Associate (post-banking, pre-MBA) --> MBA --> Senior Associate --> Vice President --> Principal --> Partner
I don't know anyone that was successful at transitioning from law school directly to PE, even with prior experience in banking. Without prior experience in banking, I'd say that there is an absolutely minimal chance. I think your best bet would be to do a dual degree MBA/JD as this offers the most flexibility. I don't think 10 credits at HBS will make a difference. Most of the senior PE professionals I've spoken with do not view the actual classroom learning as valuable, so the fact that someone has attended MBA classes is not significant. Investment Banks seem much more willing to hire law school students (in place of MBAs), so my best advice would be to return to banking after school and try to flip over to the buyside through networking.In reality, I don't know how you'll possibly survive three years at Harvard Law knowing that you don't want to practice law for a living. Law school is absolutely brutal (I've watched more than a dozen friends go through it). Like anything else in life, you won't perform well in the long term if you don't have a passion for the subject. It sounds like you don't have a passion for law school. Even though it is Harvard, I suggest you matriculate in a program that you are actually interested in.
Really difficult to say how PE firms would view a law degree from someone working as a BB IBD Associate. I suspect this sort of assessment will really come down to the individuals evaluating your profile. Some people might like the diversity of skillset, while many might ding you for taking a non-traditional approach. I suspect it will hurt you more than help you as it raises all sorts of questions. Why didn't this person get an MBA instead of a JD? They left banking to get a law degree, only to return to banking? While you may be able to address some of these questions, they will cast doubts and some firms won't even give you the chance.If you do go down that path, how long you stay will be largely dependent on you. It may sound silly, but I've heard of people lateraling out of the IBD associate role after only a few months in, while others take years to build up a network in order to successfully make the switch. Your results may vary.
From what I've seen, getting a post-MBA job in PE is extremely difficult even with an MBA and with prior PE experience. I know of two recent HBS grads who had banking/PE experience before attending HBS and upon graduation, they didn't have PE jobs lined up, despite heavy interviewing. They eventually found them, but it took a mental toll and a couple months of unemployment. If you have neither of these, you'll be facing a very uphill battle and will have to rely heavily on your banking experience, interview skills, and network. Yes, that is currently my plan. It isn't required, in fact, the Partners at my shop would even prefer I didn't leave for 18 months. However, for the reasons I mentioned in a post above, I think it is worth it.To the HLS matriculant: look into distressed debt/ turn-around investing. I think they actually need lawyers there, and it's pretty close to PE
Furthermore, there are far fewer openings at the VP/Principal level than there are at the junior levels. Junior levels have a high level of churn due to how the pre-MBA experience is structured. Turnover from folks leaving to get their MBA or burning out creates a lot of openings. Once someone has attained VP/Principal level, they are a "career investor." Spots tend to only open up when someone gets promoted, fired, or leaves and there is no internal candidate to promote into their position. This all compounds with the fact that many PE firms run extremely lean at the mid ranks (hourglass organizational structure), making it extremely difficult to lateral at the VP/Principal level.
As for partners, they certainly aren't immune to layoffs. Partners are ultimately responsible for deals that they back and essentially have a set of deals associated with them. If that partner's deals aren't performing relative to other partners, it wouldn't be uncommon to see the under-performing partner essentially "voted off the island." This is most likely to occur at or near fundraising.
It's hard to compare two sets of highly variable datapoints. Once you get to the mid/high level ranks in PE, a lot of your upside comes in the form of carried interest. As a result, if your fund crushes it, you can easily be making millions while in your 30s. Your fund could also crumble and you could be living off your base/bonus (which is still hundreds of thousands of dollars). BB IBD is largely the same way, except they rely on revenue generated rather than fund performance. If I were to guess, I'd say that the MM PE is a comfortable 20-50% higher than BB IBD in light of the recent compensation changes at investment banks.I'd say the main difference is stability. In PE, your base and bonus is typically paid by the 2% management fee as well as transaction/monitoring fees charged to portfolio companies. Even in bad economies, these fees are stable. As a result, you see a lot fewer layoffs in PE during the down cycles. At banks, the motto seems to be "overhire and overfire."
I know of one guy who went from a lower MM PE fund to a megafund as a pre-MBA associate. This is extremely rare though and I wouldn't count on it as a possibility. In reality, the skills gained/required in the MM are quite different than the ones gained/required at megafunds, so it is unlikely that someone will be highly successful in both areas.First, networking works best when you start networking early. If you're looking for immediate results, it is likely too late. You want to build a network in anticipation of your needs. As an undergrad, this means you shouldn't wait until the spring of your senior year to start picking up the phone. Build the relationship in advance so that when you do want someone to pass along your resume or support your candidacy, it isn't someone that you introduced yourself to that afternoon.
Second, find something in common with the person. This is why networking with alumni is so easy/successful -- because you instantly have a connection. When I go on marketing trips to meet with bankers and attempt to establish a business relationship, I never start the conversation with "what deals do you have that you can show me?" I start off by talking about the city I'm visiting, sports, deals that they completed, anything possible to establish that connection and ease into the relationship. People want to do business / help people that they LIKE and share common interests with. After the connection is established, then you get down to business.
You've identified one of the hardest parts of networking -- how to keep the relationship going. This is where the common interest is important. Every few months, you need to find a reason to interact with the person, even if it is an extremely brief interaction. Try to build upon your prior conversation. Things like: "Hey Jim, a few months ago when we chatted you mentioned you were working on closing a big deal. Thought I'd check in and see how it ended up." It doesn't need to be major, but the intent is to remain top of mind with the person and not always be approaching them when you need something. These brief check-ins tend to work best if they don't require a mammoth response. Two to three sentences would be best. It may even be helpful to immediately write down a summary of what you talked to the person about after a conversation. Jot down some "follow-up items" so that you'll have them at the ready a few months down the road.
Furthermore, if you ask someone for help on a very specific topic, make sure you follow-up with them to let them know the results. If Jim passes your resume to his buddy Mike and Mike grants you an interview, be sure to thank Jim for his help and let him know whether or not you got the job. I get frustrated when I spend a lot of time helping someone and then they fall off the face of the planet, never letting me know how their interviews went. A one paragraph follow-up email is an easy way to avoid annoying your support network. If they don't want to read it -- they'll just delete it or archive it.
While things worked out for me, I certainly didn't have an appreciation for how the first job out of college essentially positions someone on certain career paths. By working in MM M&A, I learned a very particular set of skills and processes that are applicable to MM PE. In MM PE, I further developed those very same skills, and perhaps built some new ones as well. Now, just five years out of school, I have progressed in such a linear fashion that it would be incredibly difficult to change career paths without a major event such as an MBA or starting at the bottom of the food chain. No company is going to hire me as a marketing professional or a software developer. I can't go work in real estate or manage a manufacturing plant. My career is pretty much limited to working on M&A transactions or in finance functions. This is okay for me because I'm very pleased with my job, but not all of my peers feel the same way. I have friends who did IBD/PE, burned out, and are struggling to find employment that makes them happy because they didn't pursue a career in an area that makes them happy.
Fortunately, an MBA offers the opportunity to start over in another business field without moving your career backwards. Also, there is always the opportunity to branch off and establish your own venture, no matter how pigeonholed you feel. Even so, it is incredibly important that you pursue a job out of school that interests you and that you're passionate about because at some point there is no turning back. That point is surprisingly early in your career and many people hit it before they are even aware of their situation.
My experience is extremely similar to CompBanker's, albeit I'm a year behind him since I did a third year as an analyst, but I am definitely more in the boat of one of his disaffected peers than I am in his boat of being extremely satisfied.
I've said this several times on this site, but it is worth saying again. PE is a deal-driven profession and one should only get into it, particularly for the long haul, if they enjoy doing deals. Furthermore, even in the middle market, it is highly process oriented. If you are of a creative mind, you will likely get bored very quickly. If you are passionate about doing deals, finance, and learning about businesses in varying industries, PE is an excellent career path for you.
To add, while the hours are better for me in my MM PE firm than they were in my MM IBD group, I actually miss some of the work I used to do there. While neither are particularly creative jobs, I found myself have more freedom creatively in banking because, at it's heart, it is a high-end, sophisticated sales/marketing career. Private Equity is not, it is a hardcore deal-oriented industry, where financial engineering, understanding of legal documentation, and deep due diligence are the name of the game.
I am not trying to be a wet blanket, rather I want to make it clear that CompBanker's experience is not necessarily the experience of everyone who follows the track, so to speak. I've been considering and may start a thread on my experience one of these days to lay out this point of view and take questions, assuming people are interested.
That said, the majority of the lenders I deal with are either dedicated funds (such as a Caltius Capital), or mid-market commercial banks (such as Bank of Montreal). It is rare that we issue high yield debt or anything that would attract the hedge fund market. Working with lenders we know well is extremely important to us and therefore we have a small selection of 5-10 groups that we show almost every transaction opportunity.
Personally, I am quite pleased with my current position. Based on my limited exposure to hedge funds, the type of work they do is extremely different than my day to day responsibilities. I hate the public markets (data overload, short term outlook, no exposure to management, no ability to manage or improve the company as an investor). I can certainly see why it may be appealing, but it just isn't for me. Fundamentally, the junior levels of PE require knowledge/skill in a few broad categories:The first category is knowing the deal process. This means understanding the documents involved and having the ability to navigate and interpret them. Someone that has been focused on providing debt for LBOs can easily make this transition even if they've never worked on the equity side a day in their life. Someone coming from the public markets would be starting from square one.
The second category is business acumen. This boils down to identifying what makes a business attractive and knowing how a business operates. An LBO lender would likely do well here, as long as he was able to make the mental leap between evaluating companies from a credit perspective (risk profile) to an equity perspective (growth potential). My personal belief is that someone who has been working at a hedge fund or in the public markets is probably not as advanced in this category as they may believe they are.
The third category is financial knowledge. This is the least important outside of the junior levels and includes everything from modeling to interpreting financial statements. Someone from a non PE background can easily demonstrate this.
Returning to your question, I think someone who could demonstrate a strong aptitude in categories 2 and 3 could successfully make the transition. This could be a struggle for many people, and you'll often be overlooked for someone with 2+3 and relevant process experience, but I think it is achievable.
Great thread. I actually cannot think of a better degree than a HLS degree supplemented with a few standard business courses from HBS. Legal, tax and structure drive so much of PE deal-making and being able to control documents is a very powerful skill within PE. Plenty of people have demonstrated an ability to leverage a law degree into a finance role especially with the right internships, coursework and networking.
Leonidas, I dont want to highjack the thread on this issue but understand that coming from a non-traditional background will be an uphill battle. Getting into PE post MBA (even with pre-MBA PE experience) is extremely difficult and highly competitive as PE shops generally run very lean and the applicant pool is generally very talented and pedigreed. With that said, if you applied to my shop with a degree from HLS, did a banking or PE internship and took the relevant coursework at HBS I would absolutely interview you and am confident based on past experiences that plenty of other shops would as well. A top law school like Yale or Harvard is far more academically rigorous thank b-school (generally speaking) and requires a greater deal of critical thinking, reading ability, and communicative abilities (written and oral). These skills are integral in PE as we spend most of our time reading documents, drafting documents/presentations, updating models and thinking critically about investment opportunities. Best of luck to you and thanks to Comp banker for taking questions.
While everyone will treat your prior experience differently, I think in general people will disregard it entirely and you won't get any credit. Unless the skills you learned are relevant to the job you're interviewing for, an extra few years of employment really won't count for anything. Your interviewers will focus very heavily on your banking experience to the exclusion of most everything else. The good news is that if the skills you learned are relevant, it will likely position you to do better in your interviews.
That said, there is always the opportunity for someone with industry experience to become an Operating Partner very late in their career. Lots of ex-General Electric managers have become PE operating partners at PE firms looking to differentiate themselves with "operating experience." These people tend to be very successful in Fortune 100 companies though -- it isn't exactly an easy alternative to sneak in the backdoor to PE.
This I am not too familiar with. From the job postings I've seen for Corp Dev positions at F100s, they tend to like to hire bankers/PE guys. I could be wrong, but the difficulty see is that the equivalent Corp Dev position pays substantially less than banking, so at any given point in your career you'll likely need to take a pay cut to make the transition. This is even more pronounced in PE. I've never heard of a PE guy leaving PE to be a mid-level guy in F100 Corp Dev group. Sure. I once worked with a guy who went Wharton --> ME PE, did this for five years and then left to go become CEO of a small manufacturing plant. Many talented early 30s people take prominent financial positions (controller, CFO) at small businesses. Some use their business acumen to start their own companies. Another thing I've noticed is that sometimes people leave PE to join a portfolio company that they own/owned. This is sometimes temporary and sometimes permanent. Not a bad choice if you can get a handful of equity and are looking for a chance. There are a number of options overall, but usually they all revolve around business (particularly finance) to some degree.To add to that: Even without a anti-poaching policy, heads of departments (especially within F100-500 companies) talk to each other. Hell, people talk in general especially on the topics of one employee looking to transition into a different group/role. Let you manager know, he will either hear from you or through someone else.
On top of that, I notice very little time seems to be spent networking with your fellow MBAs. You're either working on a group project with them or you're catching a flight back to your home city. To me, this eliminates one of the central reasons to get an MBA in the first place. Odds are most of the people are weekend commuters too -- I believe the stats are posted on the program's website.
The PT MBA obviously serves a purpose and is a good fit for the right people. If you have limited finance knowledge and want to get deep into the technicals, a PT MBA is a great way to do that. Furthermore, when you're laying out your biography on a slide for a potential investor, they aren't digging in to whether or not your got your MBA PT / FT (and I don't think they care). The pedigree is just a check the box / cover your ass thing for them.
In terms of the cost -- I try not to let this factor too much into my decision making. First and foremost, I want to make the right decisions for my career and if it sets me back a hundred grand I'm okay with that. At these levels of compensation, $100K - $150K is easily recovered. Besides, if I don't spend it on my education, what else am I going to spend it on? More prestigious car? Extra 200sq ft in my apartment? A bigger diamond engagement ring? I'd like to think that even if I didn't stay in PE, I'd be able to find a way to make enough money to keep me satisfied through entrepreneurship or another well-compensation position.
Finally -- and not something you can really control -- but try to get as much client interaction as possible. I mentioned in my Q&A (link is above) that I always ask banking analyst the question: "If I were to call up the senior management team of the client listed on your resume, would he know your name?" Most BB analysts say no and pretty much all MM analysts say yes. Try to get this exposure because client interaction will be critical to your success in PE.
In terms of telling companies about it on your resume, you could address it in your interviews or on your cover letter. If that isn't satisfactory, once you've been accepted you can put it on your resume and put "Expected Graduation: May 2013" (or whatever the date is). Obviously you won't have started the program yet, but I view this as an acceptable resume tactic if you're 100% sure you'll be matriculating in the fall after your internship.
Also, one of the benefits of PE is that it is truly a Partnership (with numerous owners). Once you've worked your way up through the ranks and make Partner, it is very similar to owning your own company (with numerous others). You get to start calling the shots, just as you would in a normal company. This is a pretty attractive light at the end of the tunnel for those of us with some degree of entrepreneurial spirit.
As for the MBA, I wouldn't let the fact that you had really bad grades deter you from at least applying. Applying takes a lot of time and effort, but it doesn't stall your career. A high GMAT can help compensate for low grades, so you aren't totally lost yet. Even if you elect not to matriculate, you'll at least have created the option for yourself. I would imagine that for someone who had a poor undergrad experience (grade wise) and is unsure where they want to take their career, the MBA could be a great tool for you to find direction and plug any holes in your resume. At least give it some serious thought before writing it off as a viable alternative.
While there is nothing really special about the above, two little things that I think make a big difference are getting a good night sleep and using an official practice pad when you're studying to get used to taking notes on a dry erase pad. You can buy the pad really cheap on Amazon and it eliminates the "on the fly" adjustment of taking the test with a marker. Finally, I think a good night sleep can easily make a 50 point difference on the test. Take a sleeping pill if you have to.
http://www.amazon.com/Manhattan-GMAT-Simulation-Booklet-Marker/dp/0979017580/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330217533&sr=8-1
Sleeping pill seems like absolute last resort. I prefer a 60-90 minutes cardio session at 90% effort. Always get me an awesome night sleep.
I was an M&A analyst at the height of the boom period in 2007/2008. We were working at absolutely capacity, and the bank often turned away live deals because it was executing as many as it could handle. This meant that 100 hour weeks were common and all-nighters happened once a week. Not a day went by where I didn’t get a serious urge to quit. Looking back, I couldn’t be happier that I stuck it out. While sticking it out for two years may not be the best choice for everyone, I encourage analysts to put in a good-faith effort before quitting. It is almost impossible to realize the profound career and personal benefits of the analyst program while going through it.
Probably not exactly the kind of advice you were looking for, but you'll understand once you're deep into the throws of your analyst program.
For some of the more sizable MMs such as Robert Baird, I think you'd have an improved shot, but would still face an uphill battle. You sign up for a two year stint -- what benefit do they have sending you to a different office, with new people, for such a short period? The reality is very little. If you're convinced that it is what you want to do, I would bring it up at your six month review or at your annual review. Offer to stay for a 3rd year if they are willing to let you relocate. This would obviously be incredibly painful if you planned on exiting after two years, but it may greatly improve your chances.
As for targeting MMs or megafunds, I'd say go for both. They certainly aren't mutually exclusive and the list of megafunds just isn't that long. I'd reckon that you've got a much stronger shot of moving to an MM given sheer numbers, but I don't see a reason to limit yourself.
For making the switch -- you ought to do so ASAP. The longer you stay in banking the most difficult it becomes to transition to PE. As a post MBA with banking experience, I'm guessing that most shops will want to hire you into the same role that they hire their direct MBA students. Basically, you won't get the same amount of "credit" for your years in banking as you would if you had been hired directly into the PE firm from your MBA.
Sounds like you did an internship at a PE firm while in school. This doesn't hurt and different shops will have different viewpoints on it, but I don't think it is tremendously helpful. You can't seen an entire deal cycle in three months. In fact, PE is much longer term than banking and has many more elements to it. Here is what I mean:
In PE (at least the leveraged buyouts world), I put transaction experience into four different groups. 1) Acquisition of a Platform Company 2) Acquisition + Integration of an Add-on Company 3) Refinance of a Platform Company 4) Sale of a Platform Company
Each of these are unique experiences, and this doesn't even include anything related to company monitoring (such as board meetings, strategic planning meetings, etc.). In my opinion, the "holy grail" of PE experience includes having exposure to all four of these events. You'll never get that experience through an internship -- and some people won't even see all four events during their 2/3 year pre-MBA stint.
That said, cold-calling is considered "legitimate" PE experience by most PE shops. If you work at the likes of Summit Partners, TA Associates, or other growth equity oriented cold-calling shops, you can generally exit to the top B-Schools or other strong PE shops. As a result, I think it ends up being a personal determination if working at a cold-calling shop is an attractive way to spend your pre-MBA PE years.
At the PE shops that I've mentioned, cold-calling is considered a function that is performed by investment professionals. The analysts/associates who do the cold-calling are also typically doing the investment work, so they are one and the same. As a result, this experience would immediately qualify you for a position where you were no longer cold-calling and started doing exclusively investing. People interviewing for cold-calling roles need to ask themselves: Is the job exclusively cold-calling, or are you the one who executes the transactions that you source? If it is the latter, you will be in a position to lateral to an investing role. If it is the former, you'll have a much greater challenge, although certainly not impossible.
Regarding the case interviews, expect to be given a theoretical investment opportunity to analyze. Basically, you'll want to do a SWOT analysis or something similar. I don't know many PE firms that utilize the consulting case study method of "How many ping pong balls will fit inside a 747," which is more of a marketing sizing exercise than a test of strategic thinking.
As for a PE technical interview guide -- I believe WSO may have one in process.
There are a few reasons why it can make sense to do a third year:
1) Insufficient deal experience. In the long run, you only get credit for work you've done on transactions that closed. Through the course of your analyst stint, you may get very unlucky and have all the deals that you got staffed on blow up for reasons completely beyond your control. If you're approaching the two year mark and don't have any closed transactions, you may want to consider sticking around for a third year to ensure you get a few on your resume. 2) If you were unsuccessful in recruiting, sticking around a third year for another shot can make a difference. You'll likely have plenty of additional experience during recruiting, which will make you a more attractive candidate. Also, it will give you a chance to apply to a broader set of jobs if your initial search didn't end up working out for you. While many people who struggle the first go-around also struggle the second go-around, some people are able to successfully do it. 3) Other. There are a thousand of other, situation-specific reasons to stick out a third year. Maybe your girlfriend has one more year of college left and you don't want to move to a new city without her. Maybe you actually enjoy the work (okay .. unlikely here). Maybe you need the cash from an extra year of banking to pay off student loans or to start your own business. I've seen all of the above and more...
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