Breaking into PE from Target School
I am an incoming freshman at an undergrad target school: Harvard/Princeton/Wharton/Yale/Columbia/Stern/Etc
What is the best course of action to break into Private Equity right now. I have an internship this summer in finance at an investment fund (and if I want can intern there in college as well). Investment banking is also on my radar to go for 2 years then move to private equity, but private equity out of undergrad is what I currently want to do. Is it possible to get a private equity internship in sophmore/junior year or in college at all? Or does one have to get an IB internship first and can then get a private equity offer. Additionally it seems that Private Equity is more lucrative, but I was wondering how everyone perceives what the future of wall street will look like. Thanks.
Congrats on stern
you did him dirty
Funny guy because I am not attending stern.
I never said I am attending stern. However, at a target school like the ones I listed above what would be your advice.
My typical advice to people is do the thing you want right away
that being said there is tremendous value in a 2 year structured BB analyst program. They teach you to make slides, give exec updates, etc
i see lots of hbs classmates in their 30s get passed over for exec roles even if they’ve done well in industry because they never did BB or MBB.
it’s stilly but a good analyst program that teaches slide making is actually quite important.
so in corporate, the ability to make concise, snazzy ppt decks are that important?? wow
(i'm in college for reference)
Interesting that it still matters down the line. Is this with respect to a specific industry/buy-side role or is it across the board?
Any more context you can provide around this?
Dude, you don’t see “lots of hbs classmates in their 30s get passed over” for not doing IB or consulting if they were analysts at KKR/BX/Bain/WP out of undergrad. That’s absolute BS. You’re wayyy overemphasizing the “badge of honor” difference between starting out in banking vs PE for your first 2 years out of college when coming out of HBS and looking for exec roles. The vast, vast majority of companies will see those two analyst roles as being basically the same thing if they’re both at very reputable firms. Don’t spread BS like this to the college kids on this website; some of them will believe you.
Reply says structured analyst program not important, proceeds to list several of the most prestigious firms in the world two of which are known for their structured analyst programs
Agree with above - go to BB/EB IB first.
There is a real benefit in the structured training program and high number of reps in banking. PE is not as structured and you may end up with a subpar experience (even at MF PE). IB can be stupid, mindless work, but the experience gained from working on 50+ projects and making thousands of slides is just really valuable while the PE analyst probably works on 3-5 projects in the same amount of time.
everyone talks about this structured "training program" at BB that is so valuable... what are you referring to? I'm 6M in at GS/MS/JPM and there is no training program, other than the 1M of corporate finance 101 lectures (lol) at the beginning.
You're doing work on projects and figuring shit out on your own and asking for help when you can't like any other job. Barely anyone will mentor you and even when you make mistakes people don't want to be the "bad guy" and give feedback to help you improve. There's no effort to retain people because they assume you're leaving. I'm staying on weekends to teach myself stuff. Maybe I'm missing something or my group just sucks, but what is the "training program"?
By structured I mostly mean your VP-MD are used to having a new class of analysts/associates every year, and know what projects to give you and what you will know how to do. the expectation is 100% that you just figure it out and own your projects, but that's where the learning is. A lot of PE analysts don't get to touch the model because the ASO deals with it, while the analyst just does random excel or research to support the deal. And again, you will work on at least 10x the number of projects.
Also not that the formal pre-summer training or the series exams have much value, but there is some standardization there in terms of basic finance/accounting knowledge. Finance majors take it for granted, but it guarantees at least a basic level of wide-ranging finance knowledge.
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