Getting modelling experience

Hi all, 

Long-time reader, first-time poster from Singapore. Quick summary of my background: Graduated in 2018, and started working for the Infrastructure Advisory team of a Big 4 firm in 2019. It piqued my interest in the infrastructure financing space, but growing in the role was tough, as our team handed off the modelling work on our mandates to the Valuation guys, so there wasn't a whole lot of skill development (especially in modelling).

It's proven to be a significant setback when interviewing for other positions, as employers already expect me to have decent modelling capabilities, leaving me in a bit of a catch-22 (need modelling experience to land a position where I can get such experience). I've done a project finance modelling course on my own, but that hasn't been enough to convince interviewers.

I'm now moving to a general PE firm, a hail mary to get some kind of deal exposure, but I wanted to ask if anyone here has dealt with such a situation before and/or has any advice on how to handle it? Specifically, how to resolve the catch-22, and get the transaction modelling track record that hiring managers already require candidates to have.  If there's an existing thread that I should have a look at, please feel free to mention it in the comments. 

Thanks in advance, hope everyone's holding up in these weird times. 

6 Comments
 

Hi someofmysubscriptions, no, I never sleep and so I can respond to any lonely threads (like this one) at all hours of the night. Impressive, I know ;-)

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Should've been clearer on that. It's a contract role for 9 months, no guaranteed conversion to a perm role at the end. And while I'm confident there'll be modelling exposure, long run I'd like to work in an infrastructure financing role (haven't decided on debt/equity side yet), and I suspect that modelling for consumer/healthcare/business services is going to be quite different from infra modelling. Assuming that to be true, there's still an infra modelling skill gap that needs to be closed. 

I've done an online project finance modelling course and I've managed to get a few interviews with decent infra names like MUFG and SocGen. But on each occasion, the firm's gone with another candidate, citing their experience modelling for a live deal vs my coursework, and I need to find a way to get past that. 

 

Hi it has been some months now, were there any updates to your situation? I am entering in these types of teams where I think they pass the modelling on the mandates to the core valuation or fin. modelling guys?

 

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