Breaking down the headhunters - avoid, engage, ghost
The common question today is - what to think about the larger PE headhunters. Having worked with most on both sides (being recruited and now hiring) here’s the breakdown. Would love to get other thoughts.
-
Mercury Partners - next to worthless. Tag as many names as possible to ensure they get paid and do not have any strong candidates. I wouldn’t send them my resume.
-
SG Partners - the least professional/sloppiest and most incompetent of them all. My two firms had to fire them for poaching our own employees for other clients and on the candidate side - expect bullies, leaked confidential information to your current employer, and false advertisements. When hiring I was told that they need me to say I’m a diverse candidate to get to the next round. It’s a shame they are hired by anyone. BX certainly needs to move elsewhere.
-
HSP - I think these folks have been the best I’ve interacted with on both sides by far. While it’s clear that others either have a legacy in with clients and treat candidates horribly, HSP isn’t exceptional, but they are professional. I’d recommend all to engage.
-
DSP - mostly professional, until you receive an offer. Expect expletives and demeaning/offensive comments to ensure you accept what you earned and don’t ask for a penny more. If working with these folks, shift your engagement to the company itself and cut them out as soon as possible.
- Oxbridge - not the smartest, but quite professional and all interactions have been splendid. The team is not “nice”, but they not offensive, unethical, or unprofessional like others (looking at you SG). They keep winning great clients, I’d engage with them and certainly be open about opportunities.
Thoughts on others?
Would second the above on Oxbridge. Amity is decent too
Likewise good interactions with Oxbridge.
Amity is good to the extent that they get you reads and are generally friendly, but not so good if you’re trying to pull out of a process that you have an offer for or are competitive in. Similar to DSP in that sense.
Because it’s not mentioned, I’ll also give a shout-out to CPI. They were much sharper/more demanding in the beginning, but very good at 1. Ensuring looks, 2. Guiding processes, 3. Not being pushy and even helping to negotiate minutia with firms (if needed).
My experiences with CPI have been mixed. It really depends on who you are working with there. One person there entered my recruiting preferences incorrectly and I didn’t get emails from them for a year until she called me one day and we got it figured out.
Maybe for Europe, have made quite good experience with PER at least on the candidate side. Have heard mixed things on Darthmouth but not too sure
LMFAO DARTMOUTH
Dartmouth is literal garbage. They don't even know the actual job description for the role they are hiring for. Pretty sub-optimal IQ people in there overall, I still don't get how they get all these mandates.
+1 for Oxbridge. I also enjoyed working with HSP, Carter Pierce and Odyssey Search Partners.
Horrible experience with SG.
Same
Great experience with Ratio Partners
Has anyone successfully been able to unsubscribe to Pinpoint partners distribution list?
To add - Long Ridge partners is pretty decent for HF recruiting
Yes after many years of trying I did finally get off of Pinpoint’s email list since their unsubscribe button didn’t seem to work. It involved multiple emails and calls trying to politely tell all the people there who contacted me to stop emailing and calling me until eventually I wrote an email that I tried to keep in a friendly/nice tone to Stefan or whomever the head guy is or called him or something and told him that they were meaningfully bothering me and that I was contemplating calling the police to ask them to get Pinpoint/Water Street to stop emailing/harassing me with those unwanted emails and calls if Stefan or whomever it was didn’t have his firms stop emailing/calling me. I believe after that they stopped
good luck
Can someone anonymously post Stefan and all of their emails and phone numbers so the rest of us can call them for years of incessant spam? It's only fair. The people at Pinpoint / Water Street should be in jail, full stop.
how do i get on the distribution list?
Madison Hunt (Ash Hunt / Nana Teng) are pleasant to work with and have a good list of clients if you're in Infrastructure PE.
Recommend Bellcast as well. In London, heard that Pearse Partners are really good.
Is CarterPierce still mostly West Coast?
+1 on Madison Hunt. Great team, very direct (but not brash) and great connectivity in real assets. Ash & Nana are rock stars at what they do
In the U.K. schools normally require you to do some kind of work experience for two weeks at age 13/14, basically you’re just the office bitch for the company. At one point I asked my gf where she had done hers:
“Oh yeah it was this really unprofessional firm in the city, basically we all just had this software we had to feed email addresses into that would spam analysts asking them if they wanted to switch jobs. Probably became illegal after GDPR. Think it was called something like Pinstripe?”
Pinpoint Partners is very prestigious
CPI? The clear leader and very professional.
I absolutely loved the people at Carter Pierce
Amity cares a ton about prestige
Have had really good experiences with Gold Coast and HSP but I get the sense that they’re very prestige and relationship driven in that they’ll ghost you unless you really impress them or have a warm intro. Back when I was doing oncycle recruiting years ago, I specifically remember getting stonewalled by HSP until I told them I had an interview with a MF and then they conveniently had a bunch of other interview slots pop up.
Gold Coast - treat candidates like shit. PRESTIGE DRIVEN x10
Will name drop fake clients they’ve worked in their past roles. Would avoid at all costs. Their GTM IS to push diverse candidates on to potential clients and then try to build a relationship that way.
will second this. You can be at a top bank and top group and tell them the exact list of firms on their client list you want to interview along with great reasons for being interested and they will ghost you unless you are diversity or top undergrad.
Pinnacle for FoF / allocator jobs
I personally think CPI is head and shoulders above the rest, by far my favorite in both recruiting and being recruited.
They’re the definite largest (in terms of UMM/MF names) and just have a better pulse on the market than anyone else in terms of insight into on cycle process / timing.
They can definitely be a bit callous / cut through the BS vs others and aren’t as nice, but I’ve found theyre straight shooters who are trying to be efficient with everyone’s time. I.e some of the smaller names listed above might be way nicer in the intro call, but then when they are actually dealing with recruiting they aren’t as responsive or straight forward about what’s going on. CPI will call you at 3am to tell you that you got rejected and should prioritize other funds, which is infinitely better from a candidate perspective vs the other HHs who will just vaguely say “heard good things, fingers crossed!!” and then ghost you
Can anyone share CPI email format?
Never recommend working with Bellcast. They are great until they arent and then they are a POS. I will never ever take another call with them, or refer them to any friends in the industry.
Personally had a great experience with them, though it was a quick process
Does anyone recommend a recruiter with secondaries / fund of funds clients.
What HeadHunters are most receptive to non targets / non top group candidates?
Infra specific - TERRIBLE experiences with Spencer Ogden
Exercitationem aut omnis iusto debitis. Explicabo nobis voluptatem aut magnam. Dignissimos exercitationem qui eaque officia est. Harum deleniti veniam eaque harum commodi aliquid voluptatem. Dolores expedita hic tenetur deleniti officia.
Aut cupiditate illum natus officiis alias. Non magni assumenda repudiandae et perferendis rerum et eos.
Architecto autem vero aut in eos facere. Fuga voluptas occaecati ducimus voluptatem ratione dolor laudantium. Itaque ut commodi rerum et recusandae officiis ut. Rerum aperiam ipsam quis in exercitationem quo.
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...
Nobis id et aut modi quis sit perspiciatis. Quod est beatae sapiente exercitationem deserunt. Pariatur odit ea aut officiis at doloremque qui. Molestiae veritatis nihil rem quos beatae rerum.
Fugit occaecati ipsum sequi voluptates distinctio impedit. Quis et blanditiis fugiat harum et. Aut explicabo iure assumenda necessitatibus consequatur. Molestias soluta ut saepe voluptas tempore consequuntur assumenda natus. Nulla pariatur ea quidem.
Est repudiandae officia voluptas. Officia ad adipisci veritatis quos. Impedit molestiae inventore assumenda minus.