Last Friday i finished my PE Associate program at a decently regarded MF in NYC. Was all in on PE and unfortunately haven't been able to find a comparable seat. Any advice or suggestions? Willing to lose a year
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B school?
Didn’t apply and no GMAT so can’t get in for 2024
Can you ask your former fund if you can work at a portco for a year while you apply? Pretty common strategy and would be a more chill role to be able to study for GMAT, write application essays, etc. I’d only suggest this if you personally would value the MBA experience, but job market is still pretty tough rn at this level (too much supply, not enough demand)
Agree
del
Not really, lots of firms will do this for people that want to stay v. do an MBA but gain operational experience (Apax comes to mind as having a formalized secondment program for it). It’s a pretty easy story as well, no one will really question it or push that hard on it if you go to MBA after and try to recruit back into PE
del
I think the story becomes more convoluted if you stay longer than a year or so in the ops role before either MBA or moving back into an investing role
Had a buddy in a very similar situation who completed his 2 years at MF PE before doing 1 year of Port Co while applying to business school. Fortunately for him, he got an admit from one of HSW, but he genuinely explored going back to PE if B School didn’t work out. Had an open chat with headhunters who said they’d be happy to pitch his role to a few funds (not sure MFs) if he chose to come back because MF PE + Port Co is more valuable than just 2 years of MF PE while hunting for your next gig. He also spoke to a few SWFs who seemed to show interest in a track role (but suppose that was more motivated by his MF PE experience). In the end, he didn’t have to go through the process because b school worked out just fine
Do you feel burnt out? If yes, I did something similar 2-3 years ago and took 2-3 months to just travel, catch up on sleep, and see all the friends and family I didn't have time to see.
No joke, it truly changed my life and cured my burnout.
Not OP, but can you please elaborate on what you did and any general steps on taking care of mental health in PE?
My worry is the break will make it hard to get a job later.
In this market, probably true. Sounds like the above poster took a break around 2021, where it was not difficult to get back into it. It's very challenging to recruit with no job / any type of extended break right now... 2-3 months off can easily turn into 6-8+ months once you start looking again
Can I pm you to pick your brain?
I assume you have decent savings, I would take a few weeks off. July - August are very slow months for recruiting across most industries.
Yeah just booked my trip to Asia for 2 weeks. Any advice about how I can fill the time without wasting it?
Nothing to add but just make sure you take care of your mental health. Fresh MBA grad here who takes a half day to full day off during the week while applying / networking just to stay sane.
maybe do some sort of consulting / contractor work as a part time strategic finance person for a portco / startup?
Bump
Would you be interested in an MBA-alternative where you could be paid to start a business?
Yes I think that would be interesting but my worry would be what happens after... I think value of MBA is network vs what you learn
I mean pe skills don't transfer anywhere else. Wso is full of hooligans who think doors open because youre in ib or pe. Absolutely not. Non of those skills transfer over to anything in corporate.
Lol. Corp dev role? Working at PortCo? VC? HF? FO? There are plenty of paths that you can easily transfer to.
what're you gonna do at a portco? goon?
also what are you gonna do at a hf? do you even have the technical skillset of a quant to actually do noise parsing and finding info others can't? lmao gtfo dumbass.
maybe an am role at best
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