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I know nothing about Mesirow.
Can you elaborate on your interests in terms of group placement / exits / geographic preference?
In terms of group placement Tech/ MM PE/ Location agnostic
Thanks
Harris Williams is the place to be if you want to place quite easily at MM PE without much effort. They solely do sell-side M&A in the middle market, and almost all of their deals are with financial sponsors (MM PE firms). The MDs are really supportive of people going to MM PE and will go out of their ways to place you (mostly because placing more juniors at MM PE = more future deal flow for them since they almost only work with MM PE to either sell their portfolio companies or have them be potential buyers).
However, the fact that you want to do Tech would advise you to cross out Harris Williams, as it most definitely is not their strong suit. Jefferies tech is actually the best out of the firms you listed by far. So if you're set on tech, try your luck at Jefferies. But their first year analyst program is a generalist program so you would have to try hard / get some luck in networking into their tech group once the first year is over. Jefferies is still as good as HW in MM PE. HW is more true MM PE whereas Jefferies would be a mix of that and upper MM PE. Hope that helps.
If I had to take a guess, it is Chicago he is asking for.
MF has a good name within Chicago and fairly unknown outside Midwest region. From what I hear MF has a great presence in Paper Plastics, Food & Consumer Retail.
Thanks for the response, who are mesirow's main competitors and how do they fare against them?
Blair is an amazing place to be at right now. The growth of the firm along with great exit opportunities makes it a great place to start. I think its one of the most under appreciated firms.
With that being said, I would say Jeffries is a solid place to be at too.
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