A go-getter independent headhunter with a few strong relationships reached out about this opportunity and has since been aggressively trying to push me to get in front of the firm. The firm is great, but I'm not sure if the role is 100% (ok 80%) fit with what I want. She keeps telling me how the fund is such a strong name to get on my resume (my previous brands have not been very strong) and so I should be less picky. It's an IR role, so not investing, which makes it even trickier. She wants me to just focus on impressing on the interviews and not ask too many questions to get answers to all the questions in my head, but I don't know if that's me prioritizing her over myself?
How would you normally handle this if you need a bit more time to decide or if you're tentative without getting on the headhunter's wrong side? I feel with some of these processes that if you've agreed to have the interviews, you've almost expected to want the job already, and not still have lingering thoughts or questions. Is that really the case?
IR role instead of investment isn't a better resume point. It's a strong name, but not a strong role. Those are not the same.
She is 100% prioritizing her commission over your career and desires.
I'd let her know, firmly, that you are not looking for that role, and say these words, "I would not take this role if it were offered to me." Then, tell her what you are looking for, and comment on her tenacity and how grateful you'd be to have that sort of tenacity for a role that you are looking for.
Remember, "No" is a complete sentence.
Thank you. I like the assertiveness of that kind of response.
Separately, do you have a view on the IR role in terms of long-term value? I'm trying to think how much value to attach to the relationships you develop. I get that it doesn't come with the carry upside and cache of an investment role, but could the relationships give you any sort of career optionality into something with larger upside in the future? I don't know, just asking.
Smarter and more experienced people can chime in, I don't know as much.
What I do know, however, is that I don't see IR as even near the investment team, and I would be very hard pressed to hire an IR person to be on the investment team.
For career optionality, I mean, sure, the more connections you have, the better. But at the same time, it's more a question of what you want to do with your life--I'm great friends with my buddies over a tech startups and such, but I'm not going to hire them to be an investor anytime soon.
So if you want to do IR and BD, then go for it. If you want investment team or portfolio operations, I wouldn't take the role.
Depends. Is she a 10?
Hahahahah this is such a relevant question. Unfortunately, she is on the wrong side of 40 and kids already in college. She actually looks like she may have been an 8 back in the day, but now I guess she's just a...5?
Very typical behavior. The following points in your post all remind me of many headhunters I've worked with:
1. A failure to understand who their client really is. Headhunters are simpletons who think whoever writes the check is the client. In reality, both candidate and firm are clients. And when the headhunter doesn't have an exclusive hold on the position, the candidate is arguably the bigger client than the firm.
2. An obsession with firm brand, and lack of concern about the specifics of the role - again these are simpletons.
3. Naked self-interest: you'd think some smart headhunter would realize "hey maybe if I show candidates that I consider their best interest, I'll get a reputation as a good headhunter." But see #1, they rarely even understand the candidate is their client.
4. Tendency to have jobs that are beneath the candidate: Employers often hire HHs for jobs where the talent level you want is typically disinterested in the job. A hedge fund who wants an investor background for an IR role is as classic as it gets. Typical IR candidates aren't strong, firm wants someone strong, but stronger people want to be investors. So you'll get many calls from headhunters offering something that's not quite *it*.
The way to deal with this lady is to just be honest. Tell her (i) you're an investor (ii) your ideal role is investing (iii) you understand trade-offs are part of life, so you're intrigued about how this role will compensate for the fact that it's not your ideal work. She'll hopefully say money. If instead she says prestige/resume, you need to tell her that talent industries (like HF) don't work that way. A real investor at a shit fund has a better chance of becoming Bill Ackman than Ackman's own IR person does. Help her understand what you need in order to realistically take the role, so that nobody's time is wasted.
Lots of good points here. Most I agree with. One area I would push back is you seem to believe that stronger people necessarily want to be investors. It depends what you mean by stronger, but isn't it more about success in the job anyway? So if you have somebody who crushes IR (ie can raise lots of money), isn't that far superior to somebody who's a mediocre investor? I think the average investor is stronger/smarter than the average IR, but I feel you can have variance around that such that somebody who's 90th percentile in IR performance/success-wise may well be stronger than somebody who's 60th percentile in an investing role. What do you think?
I think the hedge fund point is very valid. I feel it holds less true for private equity, which is more structured and brand-driven. For instance, if a very smart hedge fund guy wanted to move over into PE, assuming he gets in, they'd still want him to start as an associate. PE hiring isn't really about how good you are as an investor.
Agreed. I take shortcuts when I write because I'm already too long-winded as it is, and not trying to make it worse. So I over-generalize.
Building off this. I am in a similar situation and I am going through the interviews and progressing nicely and think will be offered the role. However, I am not interested in the role due to their culture. Everything else is what I am looking for.
I am trying to get feedback from folks on here on how to go about declining the offer (if given) or withdrawing from late stages while still being on the good side of the headhunter (this is a firm so would be burning a lot of opportunities if I get on their bad side).
Any helpful tips?
It's already basically been said above - but assertiveness and being direct are the best ways to deal with head hunters. The good ones will listen and come to you the right roles, the wrong ones will keep pushing and that's where the value of being assertive comes in.
There's nothing wrong with IR and it can be a good career for a lot of people, but if you're in an investing role and want to keep investing, don't take an IR role. No matter how good the brand name of the firm is, it will kill your ability to keep working in investing (especially if you have weak names on your resume already).
This is such good advice. At what point would you say - and you can either reference a level/title here or an age - one should say okay, my upward mobility in investing/PE seems tricky given I'm kind of stuck in this plateau (ie not at senior at a boutique and not junior at a mega fund) and not great brands in the past, so maybe this IR thing could be a springboard for a higher likelihood of success or at least career inflection going forward? In other words, a more pragmatic approach which invariably comes with a bit of an admission that you're settling or compromising for a plan B.... or are you of the mindset that one should keep at it in terms of what you enjoy even if it means you may never make it to a senior position at a big or meaningfully large fund?
That's a difficult one to answer and somewhat depends on the the firm you're at in an investing role. For example, is the comp reasonable and is there an option to have a long term term career there at a mid-level? Also need to consider whether the firm would let you stay long term in a role like that - a lot of places are up or out.
In terms of the best time to enter IR, there's not much value being there at a junior level. Junior IR roles are very administrative and you want to come in at a level where the firm is willing to put you in front of clients. Titles vary a lot between firms, but if you're not in your late 20's or older I wouldn't think you should feel the need to rush to make the move.
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