I'm so curious - how big does a deal have to be for it to get double takes from headhunters and PE recruiters? Is $100m enough? $500m? $1bn+? Also what even matters during PE recruiting, the size of the deals on your resume? How complicated it was? What industry it was in? What are these guys looking for in terms of deal experience from first year analysts?
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I think deal size is only important to some extent and for the following:
In general and there are always going to be exceptions, the better analysts in a group get staffed on the higher profile deals (which is often measured by deal size)
Any deal involving companies that people outside of that industry are familiar with will be helpful, and these also tend to be larger deals (or at least deals involving a larger client)
In a number of sectors you simply don’t have that many deals happening in a given year that are over $1-2bn (excluding financings). I think if you have good transaction experience across different types of transactions (buyside advisor, sell side advisor, spin off, etc) you should be fine, assuming that you know how to speak about them in substantial detail, understand them and have a view on the merits of the transaction.
Appreciate it! So for example if I were to have some sell-side, buy-side and restructuring deals, I should highlight one of each ideally?
I doubt you'll be able to have RX deals if you're going the M&A route.
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