Hi all - just wanted to share my three negative experiences with Selby Jennings and warn everyone to stay away from these people. Just a background on myself - I was at a MM for 2 years and now work in FoF Private Equity for the last 7 months (all in London) - loving life!
In my second year of banking some guy calls me after I introduced myself via LinkedIn and shared my number (it was one of the first few headhunter calls I made so I was not too savy at the time). He asks all of the questions - where do you want to go, why PE, etc... Everything is going great. Then he mentions that he is working with Apax on a position which to me at the time seemed amazing and he said he will share details with me but forgot to ask me one question - then he asks about my compensation incl. bonus saying that he absolutely needs that info at this point in time. I shared it with him. Needless to say I never heard back from the guy.
1 week ago some guy calls me from Selby Jennings (I am already at my new job, the FoF and I have not indicated that I am interested in a move to anyone because I am not). He acknoledges that I am already on the buy side, asks me how it is going etc.. Says he has an infrastructure fund junior position and asks if I am interested. I told him I am not but I know people who are so he should send me the information and I can help him (I did quite a lot of Infra in my banking days and knew a bunch of guys who were looking to jump ship). Needless to say I did not hear back from him.
This morning I get a call - "Hi, I am [Retard Stupidson] from Selby Jennings". I answer him with a smile on my face. Apperantly he has a number of positions that I will be interested and asked if I was still at the MM bank?! Dude, just a simple check on linkedin would have helped you to determine that I am not at the bank - how lazy are you? I explained to him that I have moved to a FoF 7/8 months ago and had to explain to him what FoF means. Told him I am not actively looking at the moment but would be happy to hear what positions he has if on the buy side (indicated that mid market buyout could be interesting). He asked "Can you share your salary and bonus with me?" - I told him that I can share that at a later stage in the process. He said "It doesn't make sense to pitch you these positions if you don't tell me your salary and bonus". I told him that I am not comfortable sharing this information at this point in time. Mr. Stupidson said "Ok then, I can't tell you the positions then". I told him it's fine and wished him a good day. Just to add to the above that I had 3 offers when leaving my bank from 3 different funds (all through headhunters) and none of them (either the HH or the fund) asked about my salary and bonus before final round or after the final round.
Apologies for the long rant but just wanted to share the experience. Dealing with headhunters is tricky and maybe this is just me having a bad day but anyway...
