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I think hiring has slowed down a good bit (in accordance with deal flow) but at the Analyst level it's not at all difficult to lateral up-market to a reputable MM firm. At the end of the day the fundamentals and processes are all the same regardless of how many zero's the calculations in your spreadsheet have. I would try and do it as an Analyst though - my assumption is you're mostly working on private market M&A deals with companies of that size. Once you get to the Associate level, firms may want you to have some public market or capital markets reps.
Helpful! You’re accurate in your assessment. Assuming I don’t move up market then something like LMM PE is probably off limits, correct?
I don't think so at all. I came from a similar background doing sell-side M&A for private companies in the $25-75mm range and although I ultimately stuck with banking and joined a MM firm, various alumni of my firm went to PE shops managing $500M-$2.5B in capital. I interviewed for one with about $1.5B AUM, investing out of their second fund that closed at roughly $600M of equity. Also interviewed for two others that were between $500M-$1B AUM. Didn't get the job at the larger one because I botched the LBO case study and declined final rounds with the two others for other reasons but didn't feel that my background was the reason for the one I got dinged on.
Going straight to UMM or MF would be unlikely but I think if you look hard enough and constantly apply to new gigs you could find a very solid LMM or MM PE firm that would consider you. Especially if there is sector overlap in what you cover and what the PE firm invests in.
Shit, I even got an interview request from a >$10B hedge fund, but they took so long to respond to my LinkedIn app I had already committed elsewhere. That one kinda hurt haha. I do believe that it helps that I was covering SaaS and had worked with a lot of clients in "hot" sectors for PE. Also definitely helped that I was recruiting during one of the biggest recruiting bonanzas of all time, mid-2021.
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