2 Years of PE Recruiting, 0 Offers
Hey all,
Looking for some honest perspective here.
In college, I knew I wanted to go into PE. I started prepping seriously at the start of my senior year (modeling, case studies, mock interviews) a few hours a day for about a year given I had a pretty light schedule. When on-cycle hit, I went all in. Made it to a final round, but didn’t get the offer.
Since then, I’ve kept at it. Over the last year, I’ve probably had 15+ interviews across UMM/MM funds, everything from headhunter screens to multi-round processes. But still, no offers. It’s been two full years of recruiting at this point.
At this stage, I’m starting to feel like my PE career might just be cooked. How many swings can you take before you have to accept it’s not happening?
Even if I somehow do break in, I’m not sure what the odds are I’d even make it long term. Like… if I can’t even land the seat after this much prep and exposure, how likely is it that I’d actually clear the VP bar once I’m there?
For those who’ve been in a similar spot, do you think it’s smarter to just stay in banking and try to move up there?
Appreciate any blunt advice. Just trying to get a realistic sense of where to go from here
well what is the feedback from your interviews?
It’s usually very vague. I think I often believe I do better in the interviews than the reality. The feedback has historically been: “The team loved meeting you, but have decided to make forward with a candidate that better aligns with the role” - but a few months later when I revisit the model or case study, I’ll find a few errors. I’m not really sure how honest people are regarding performance.
Keep going it is a bullshit process
could it be the reference checks from banking that are not positive?
Are you a banker or a consultant? I think there are quite a few funds who pretend they want a consultant just to try it out but when push comes to shove they chicken out
Recruiting success is not correlated with job success. Lots of people do 3rd years in IB to continue recruiting and eventually break into PE. Your situation is not uncommon.
Can you share more details about how far into those processes you’ve gotten? It’ll help us to diagnosis specifically what you need to work on.
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