Recently laid off junior (confirmed non-performance related), actively seeing ops for PE through recruiters but not sure how/if to engage given situation
I’m sure others have been in a similar circumstance in the past two years, what is the right playbook here?
| +120 | New Article: Dramatic Slide as UBS #22 (US) & New Leadership Desperately Needed | 25 | 21m |
| +96 | Americas M&A League Table Q2 Updated | 47 | 1h |
| +72 | Wealthy Parents / Jaded | 24 | 19h |
| +56 | How are hours rn for SA (interns) | 31 | 7h |
| +49 | Venezuela Debt Restructuring - LAZ vs CVP | 22 | 1d |
| +47 | A COMPLETE GUIDE TO SUMMER INTERNSHIP RECRUITING | 11 | 14h |
| +38 | Boutique firm wants access to my LinkedIn? | 34 | 12h |
| +31 | Investment Banking in Mexico | 9 | 16h |
| +26 | MM bottom bucket bonus | 9 | 4d |
| +25 | UBS GIG, LevFin, FSG Interns working Sundays and 85 hour weeks their first week? | 14 | 19h |
Career Resources
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
On the same boat, but hoping to stay in IB for a bit longer.
Any help is appreciated
Following. Good luck all.
Currently in this situation. It’s been about 4 months. All I can say is try your best on interviews try not to allow the anxiousness to impact your state of mind; it’s hard to obviously interview when you know you need that job versus having a job that you can fall back to in case it doesn’t work out.
It’s a really tough market out there. Really tough which will require a lot of luck. Good luck my friend.
Would you mind sharing any details on your process so far? Did you continue to interview for PE or only banking? If PE through normal recruiters or LMM cold outreach? Understand if it was just banking then its a horrible market and need a lot of luck but feel PE is somehow surprisingly hiring more
Thanks dude. Hope everything works out for us!
Also - do you straight up disclose you were laid off? Do you find that interviewers stigmatize you because of it?
Do whatever you can to find a colleague at your last shop who will really vouch for you to potential future employers. Not just "be a reference" but someone who will fight for you if asked about your performance.
Right now, hiring managers are meeting a lot of folks who are recently separated from their last shop. Naturally every one of those candidates has a story about how it wasn't performance related. The hiring manager doesn't know who to believe, so he's going to (at least in some cases) lean on those references to help him sort out who's really good.
He's also going to trust his own instincts about who he likes, so don't let the layoff scrutiny distract you from interviewing well. At some point hiring managers will just say screw it, everyone's a risk, I'm going to go with the person who had the best 30 minutes in front of me.
Beginning the process with one group.
I applied before my last official employment date.
When should I disclose that I was laid off? And how should I approach this when cold emailing new groups?
I would disclose it. Firms will evenrually figure out that you were laid off when doing background checks/they have a decent chance of figuring it out later anyway.
I’m a recent stub associate in the same boat. My approach has been to just broadly apply on LinkedIn to anything IB / PE / Strategy related. Am getting about 1 - 2 calls a week but trust me when I say this market is cooked compared to the frenzy of 2021 when I was at a random boutique from my hometown and was getting BB inbounds. Now even with a promotion and a full service bank on my resume it’s still a harder sell in this climate. Keep grinding, make sure you tend to yourself outside of recruiting (workout, eat healthy, hang with friends) and remember that ull look back on this time as a sick break when you are back in the trenches of the working life. Godspeed man!
Glad to see I’m not the only one.
Question - how open are you about being laid off when cold emailing people and in interviews?
Also, how long have you been laid off for?
Been out since November but seriously started applying / recruiting in January. In terms of cold emails the most likely call backs you will get are recruiters from other banks as your experience is most directly transferable. HHs have been more or less useless from my experience so I’d stick with the direct approach, nobody is gonna spend extra shelling money to a headhunter on top of a candidate salary right now with hiring as constricted as it is (one exception being smaller PE funds that rely on the HH model to drive talent).
The other aspect of this is patience. The market isn’t great right now but the tides always turn. If you have at least 6 months of runway money wise don’t start debasing yourself. Get organized and stay targeted. You have some of the most valuable finance experience in the corporate world working in m&a. IB folks rarely don’t land on their feet so stay humble but don’t rush to sign something out of anxiety.
Yea been a few months since I got laid off at a BB, I feel like we were sold a lie that there were many exit opportunities, even corp dev and strat fin/corp strat roles are hard to get past 1/2 rounds
Maybe its the economic climate but its almost as if banking is pretty useless as a platform for exits when the economy is a downturn and then hard to say if its banking skills or just better job market that affords more opportunities in the rebound of an economic cycle
Need JPow to save us all here
OP, how have you been approaching cold emailing?
OP how are you doing now? any updates?
IB -> layoff -> PE is a really unlikely outcome unless going way downmarket (ie BB to LMM).
Even with so many people being laid off for solely headcount reasons, the HHs are risk averse and do not want to put any question mark candidates in front of clients. There's not really a shortage of candidates except at those small funds. In my experience as well as friends/acquaintances, HHs are really not where you should focus your energy during a layoff.
Applying directly and networking gets you to the actual team, who are aware of the market conditions. Since PE roles don't post directly, this means that corporate roles like strategy, corp dev, generic finance jobs, even back to IB are a much more likely outcome.
Not saying don't reach out to those HHs, just to make sure you are applying to other non-PE roles or you could be sitting for a while
How should you handle the topic of being laid off when cold emailing people?
Corporate roles are usually a bit more understanding of this. Layoffs are an opportunity for them to pick up talent at a lower price point without a bonus buyout.
That said, I wouldn't even bring it up in the opener message. If they ask why you left, be honest and say you were impacted by layoffs (if at a larger bank it helps if you can point to anything public, like they laid off 5% of staff or whatever, so it's very clear). Very quick draft below but I would use something like this:
"Hey X, Hope you are well. I saw your team has a posting for XYZ role. I recently left my job in ABC group at DEF bank and am looking to pivot to XYZ industry - if you have some time, I'd love to connect and hear more about the opportunity."
Feel free to DM. Was deep in recruiting exactly a year ago as a laid off an1. Such a tough position when you’re junior and haven’t had many reps. It’s hard to another bank to take a chance on you, though folks were somewhat understanding given macro. Alumni who graduated in the mid 00s were the most helpful for me since they saw 08 and were affected.
IMO for interviews you need to own the story up front to control the narrative. Don’t hide it away it sounds worse. Outside of that you need to find banks and funds that idiosyncratically are growing in this market. Maybe they’ve been historically understaffed and still have room, the fund strategy is doing particularly well, or they’re building out a certain office no matter what and have headcount room - situations like that.
Ended up interviewing at a ton of random small banks and some LMM funds. Got surprising amount of traction in PE and ultimately landed there. Took me three months from the bad news to starting at my current shop. Turned out alright but yeah it fucking sucks to get laid off as a junior. It’s definitely more common than I thought a few years ago. Seems cutting juniors is the strategy of choice in this market because there is a steady stream of kids in college they can backfill classes with if needed.
Best of luck man.
OP here, thank you for sharing the story this story highlights a glimmer of light at the end of my dark tunnel at the moment. Will PM as I have many questions
Same here. Fun stuff
Explicabo aut dignissimos voluptates. Voluptates in quis debitis. Velit sint sed sit aut ullam delectus. Quas dicta sit quam aut veniam non.
Eaque rerum fugit et voluptate architecto placeat. Quis occaecati qui atque laudantium et maxime voluptatem.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Iste enim ipsum repellendus minima. Ullam qui est sint totam. Quod iure et consequatur voluptatem.